We raised the car up on all 4 pins, and commenced the removal of the remaining wheels. The lighting in our work area can be rather dull at times, and at this particular moment Gavin had most of the lighting over his side of the car. As Joel removed the rear-passenger side tyre he noticed several white spots and something moving in the gloom. He called Gav round, and there, sitting on the wheel drum was a huge (for that species) Red-Back spider, the second most poisonous spider in Australia, and a string of egg-sacks she was protecting. Even Gav, the consummate vegetarian-hippy-type agreed that we had to 'dispatch' our hitchhiker and her offspring. After doing so quickly and painlessly, Joel concluded that he should have his garage fumigated in order to ensure that the rest of the car and workshop were Red-Back free, as this species of spider is uncommon in his suburb!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Enough of the Brakes...
Since our last blog, we've focused on getting the brakes into working condition. We ordered restoration kits for the 2 pairs of front slave cylinders, the 2 rear slave cylinders and, of course, the master cylinder restoration kit. The lot cost us $100AUD including postage. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when you actually open the packet and see what you get for your money, it's a bit of a disappointment. The slave 'kits' are a single rubber 'cap', and the master kit isn't much better; a few rubber bits and a copper o-ring.
Joel did a rippin' job of cleaning up the master cylinder, scrubbing it out in a turpentine bath, before blasting it with a high-pressure gurney, and finally detailing it with a wire-brush Dremel.
So far we have removed the 4 front slave cylinders without too much difficulty. The drivers side ones were a little trickier, as we had dismantled the suspension arms on that side which allows the wheel to swing freely. Ironically, it was using one of the arms as a crowbar which allowed us to get it off.
The slave cylinders seem to be in good condition, including the rubbers, however we've decided to replace them anyway, for safety's sake.
Gavgav has bought some pins to raise up the rear of the car, so we can get the remaining cylinders off and we shall hopefully finish up the brake restoration this weekend!
Joel did a rippin' job of cleaning up the master cylinder, scrubbing it out in a turpentine bath, before blasting it with a high-pressure gurney, and finally detailing it with a wire-brush Dremel.
So far we have removed the 4 front slave cylinders without too much difficulty. The drivers side ones were a little trickier, as we had dismantled the suspension arms on that side which allows the wheel to swing freely. Ironically, it was using one of the arms as a crowbar which allowed us to get it off.
The slave cylinders seem to be in good condition, including the rubbers, however we've decided to replace them anyway, for safety's sake.
Gavgav has bought some pins to raise up the rear of the car, so we can get the remaining cylinders off and we shall hopefully finish up the brake restoration this weekend!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Brakes, or Clutch, or both
Work on the car has begun to slow down a little, due to a combination of external factors (GavGav being away on work, and Joel having family commitments), and also because of some indecision on how to proceed.
We have found a parts supplier in England, which has all the parts we need for as little as 25% of the cost of obtaining the parts here in Australia. We intend to do a big order, but this requires some forward planning on our part.
Many of the parts we need are cosmetic, however we do require some fairly critical components that will limit our progression soon. So now we have to decide which parts to order from UK (which may take substantial time to arrive) and which parts we should fork out extra dough for, in order to obtain quickly.
We can't discern which gearbox parts will need replacing until we pull it out, so that will be our next priority, and in the meantime we have decided to order all the brake rubbers from our local supplier. This will let us recondition all the cylinders (slave and master) and get them ready for when the brake shoes and other critical components arrive from the UK.
We've also been discussing how to go about supporting the rear of the engine when disconnecting the gearbox. At the moment, we're leaning towards lying a wooden beam laterally across the engine bay, and using a winching belt mechanism suspended from the beam to support the engine. We can also put a pin underneath for added security. The clutch can be lifted using our rolling jack, and once unbolted can be rolled back and away from the engine.
In other exciting news. Last night we finally managed to remove the thermostat housing which had firmly corroded itself to the engine-block bolts. It only took us 4 tries on different days, but a lot of WD40, some large screwdrivers and mallets, and it finally came free! Another 2 parts for us to add to our England shopping list! The inside of the engine block, under the thermostat is quite dirty/corroded/rusty/covered in deposits, but considering that passage is part of the cooling system, and only has water flowing through it, there shouldn't be too much of an issue once it is cleaned up. As long as the rest of the engine internals aren't in the same condition.
We have found a parts supplier in England, which has all the parts we need for as little as 25% of the cost of obtaining the parts here in Australia. We intend to do a big order, but this requires some forward planning on our part.
Many of the parts we need are cosmetic, however we do require some fairly critical components that will limit our progression soon. So now we have to decide which parts to order from UK (which may take substantial time to arrive) and which parts we should fork out extra dough for, in order to obtain quickly.
We can't discern which gearbox parts will need replacing until we pull it out, so that will be our next priority, and in the meantime we have decided to order all the brake rubbers from our local supplier. This will let us recondition all the cylinders (slave and master) and get them ready for when the brake shoes and other critical components arrive from the UK.
We've also been discussing how to go about supporting the rear of the engine when disconnecting the gearbox. At the moment, we're leaning towards lying a wooden beam laterally across the engine bay, and using a winching belt mechanism suspended from the beam to support the engine. We can also put a pin underneath for added security. The clutch can be lifted using our rolling jack, and once unbolted can be rolled back and away from the engine.
In other exciting news. Last night we finally managed to remove the thermostat housing which had firmly corroded itself to the engine-block bolts. It only took us 4 tries on different days, but a lot of WD40, some large screwdrivers and mallets, and it finally came free! Another 2 parts for us to add to our England shopping list! The inside of the engine block, under the thermostat is quite dirty/corroded/rusty/covered in deposits, but considering that passage is part of the cooling system, and only has water flowing through it, there shouldn't be too much of an issue once it is cleaned up. As long as the rest of the engine internals aren't in the same condition.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Starting work on the brakes
As we mentioned earlier, we discovered (the hard way) that our brakes are completely non-functional, so we decided that due to our current ventilation limitations, that the brakes were the logical next priority. The brake master cylinder was our first target, and on most cars removing this wouldn't have been too much of an issue. However, on our early-model Morris, this proved not to be the case. As opposed to having the master cylinder under the hood, like more modern models, ours is located under the floor-pan, beneath the driver's feet!
We removed the driver's side front tire, and had a good look at the condition of the brakes, and everything seems in fairly good nick, although most of the suspension is caked in a thick layer of greasy mud.
Getting the master cylinder out proved to be somewhat of a mission. In order to extract it, we needed to remove the entire driver's side torsion bar simply to access the two bolts holding the master cylinder in! This involved jacking up the front right hand side's suspension to full compression, disconnecting the parts of the suspension from the wheel. We then lowered the wheel back down to relieve the pressure on the torsion bar before unbolting and removing it (believe me, easier in theory than in practice!). All this gave us access to the two bolts holding the master cylinder in place. As if this wasn't difficult enough, the other half of the task involved removing the floor plate surrounding the gear stick (which was held in by about 20 rusty bolts), disconnecting the brake and clutch peddles and removing the entire assembly. Once this was done all it took was the removal of a couple of awkwardly situated bolts connecting the brake lines to the cylinder, and it finally came free!
It was in pretty grotty condition, and we sat down to dissect it and check out the condition of the interior. Externally it was a bit rusty, making removal of the ring pin difficult, but once we freed it, the internals popped out quite easily. We decided to replace all rubber components, just to be safe, and since GavGav was to be away on business that week, Joel tasked himself to give the body of the cylinder a good turpentine bath and scrub...
We removed the driver's side front tire, and had a good look at the condition of the brakes, and everything seems in fairly good nick, although most of the suspension is caked in a thick layer of greasy mud.
Getting the master cylinder out proved to be somewhat of a mission. In order to extract it, we needed to remove the entire driver's side torsion bar simply to access the two bolts holding the master cylinder in! This involved jacking up the front right hand side's suspension to full compression, disconnecting the parts of the suspension from the wheel. We then lowered the wheel back down to relieve the pressure on the torsion bar before unbolting and removing it (believe me, easier in theory than in practice!). All this gave us access to the two bolts holding the master cylinder in place. As if this wasn't difficult enough, the other half of the task involved removing the floor plate surrounding the gear stick (which was held in by about 20 rusty bolts), disconnecting the brake and clutch peddles and removing the entire assembly. Once this was done all it took was the removal of a couple of awkwardly situated bolts connecting the brake lines to the cylinder, and it finally came free!
It was in pretty grotty condition, and we sat down to dissect it and check out the condition of the interior. Externally it was a bit rusty, making removal of the ring pin difficult, but once we freed it, the internals popped out quite easily. We decided to replace all rubber components, just to be safe, and since GavGav was to be away on business that week, Joel tasked himself to give the body of the cylinder a good turpentine bath and scrub...
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Continuing the 'back-story'
... Now that we had the car safely in our possession, it was time to establish some sort of 'plan-of-attack'. At Gavin's suggestion, we decided to try and get the car running mechanically, and get it into 'drivable condition' before stripping it down for cleanup and cosmetic restoration.
As mentioned earlier, the previous owner claimed to have had the engine running 6 months earlier, and so we thought we'd try our luck with a simple refuel and engine priming. At this stage we still had no radiator hoses installed, so we knew that even if we got it running, we would have to keep it brief as we had no cooling system. We were also unsure of the condition of the fuel pump, and so couldn't rely on it working. In addition, we noticed that one of the hose connections from the fuel pump was really badly rusted through and so would have to be replaced in the future.
Gav's dad, Steve, who is quite the Citroen enthusiast, had taught Gav a little trick of filling the float-tank on the carburetor with fresh fuel, which should give the engine enough to turn over and get running for a while.
We removed the bulky 'after-market' air-filter which was in our way, and then manually filled the float-tank.
With baited breath, we turned the key, and pulled the starter lever on the dash. To our excitement, we received a good, strong response from the starter motor, and the engine struggled to get started, but couldn't quite maintain an idle.
As we contemplated our next step, someone suggested that perhaps the ignition system was not functioning correctly. By this point we had already realised that most of the electrical weren't working, but weren't yet sure of the reason.
We checked the distributor and spark-plugs and found them in fairly 'good-nick' and then to test the ignition, we pulled one of the sparks from the engine block, but left it connected to the distributor.
We once again tried the engine, but were getting no response from the spark-plug.
Now our attention turned to the electricals. We checked the 2 fuses and both seemed fine, and yet, we still had no response from any of the electrical systems. We were testing simply by trying the headlights.
It was now that a rather fortuitous accident occurred. Joel's dad, Paul, who had been assisting us, accidentally wedged one of the fuses IN-BETWEEN the two slots, effectively connecting the top terminals of the two fuse receptacles. All of a sudden the fuse sparked, and the headlights and dash lights lit up. We speculate that this is probably due to some of the wires in the fuse box being connected to the wrong terminals. But for now, not wanting to 'look a gift horse in the mouth' we left it rigged that way in order continue our work on the engine.
Once again we tried starting the engine whilst Joel held one of the spark plugs and Gav pulled the ignition. Gav was suitably amused and satisfied as a shocked yelp from Joel informed him that, yes, in fact, the sparks were now firing.
Replacing the spark plug, we crossed our fingers and tried the engine and the garage was filled with cheers from all our spectators as our 60 year old car sprang to life!
Our next step was to get the cooling system working, which would allow us to run the engine for longer! At this point, we had no radiator hoses and, as mentioned, the hose connections on the water pump were badly corroded. A few days later, Gav was working out near a Morris Minor parts supplier we had found on the internet, so he swung by there on his way home and picked up a new water pump, gasket and hoses.
According to the Workshop Manual, the easiest way to work on the front of the engine is to remove the front bumper and grill, and so we decided that this was a good place to start. We managed to remove all the bolts except for one, tiny bolt which also holds the 'hockey stick' trim onto the front. Try as we might, none of the tools we had available allowed us to remove the nut. They were either the wrong size, or the handles and action were the wrong shape to allow us to work in such a tight proximity.
We had been informed at an earlier stage that many of the Morris' bolts would be neither empirical, nor metric standard, but would be a specific English standard called "Whitworth" and we would have to acquire a set of these.
So, in the meantime, leaving our stubborn nut (and therefore the whole grill) in place, we removed the radiator from the engine bay.
We took the radiator outside and ran water through it using a garden hose, and as we expected, apart from a a couple of bent radiating fins on the front, the unit was in good nick and the water that ran out was quite clean. We suspect it may have been replaced fairly recently.
The Workshop Manual suggested that to replace the water pump we would just have to remove a couple of bolts and the whole fan/water pump should come off as a single unit, however once we played around with it, we realise this was not the case on our engine. In order to remove the pump we had to unbolt the radiator fan, then slacken the bolts holding the generator in place, thereby relieving the tension on the fan belt. This allowed us to slip it off, and then finally removing the centre 'cap' from the fan assembly gave us access to the final two nuts holding the water pump on.
From there it was rather simple to replace the old pump with the new one and put everything back together again. We filled the radiator and ran the engine for a few minutes, but unfortunately weren't able to tell if the pump was working, because the exhaust fumes filled the garage well before the water had time to heat up. For the time being, we're assuming its working, until we can get the car running and move it out into the open air.
As mentioned earlier, the previous owner claimed to have had the engine running 6 months earlier, and so we thought we'd try our luck with a simple refuel and engine priming. At this stage we still had no radiator hoses installed, so we knew that even if we got it running, we would have to keep it brief as we had no cooling system. We were also unsure of the condition of the fuel pump, and so couldn't rely on it working. In addition, we noticed that one of the hose connections from the fuel pump was really badly rusted through and so would have to be replaced in the future.
Gav's dad, Steve, who is quite the Citroen enthusiast, had taught Gav a little trick of filling the float-tank on the carburetor with fresh fuel, which should give the engine enough to turn over and get running for a while.
We removed the bulky 'after-market' air-filter which was in our way, and then manually filled the float-tank.
With baited breath, we turned the key, and pulled the starter lever on the dash. To our excitement, we received a good, strong response from the starter motor, and the engine struggled to get started, but couldn't quite maintain an idle.
As we contemplated our next step, someone suggested that perhaps the ignition system was not functioning correctly. By this point we had already realised that most of the electrical weren't working, but weren't yet sure of the reason.
We checked the distributor and spark-plugs and found them in fairly 'good-nick' and then to test the ignition, we pulled one of the sparks from the engine block, but left it connected to the distributor.
We once again tried the engine, but were getting no response from the spark-plug.
Now our attention turned to the electricals. We checked the 2 fuses and both seemed fine, and yet, we still had no response from any of the electrical systems. We were testing simply by trying the headlights.
It was now that a rather fortuitous accident occurred. Joel's dad, Paul, who had been assisting us, accidentally wedged one of the fuses IN-BETWEEN the two slots, effectively connecting the top terminals of the two fuse receptacles. All of a sudden the fuse sparked, and the headlights and dash lights lit up. We speculate that this is probably due to some of the wires in the fuse box being connected to the wrong terminals. But for now, not wanting to 'look a gift horse in the mouth' we left it rigged that way in order continue our work on the engine.
Once again we tried starting the engine whilst Joel held one of the spark plugs and Gav pulled the ignition. Gav was suitably amused and satisfied as a shocked yelp from Joel informed him that, yes, in fact, the sparks were now firing.
Replacing the spark plug, we crossed our fingers and tried the engine and the garage was filled with cheers from all our spectators as our 60 year old car sprang to life!
Our next step was to get the cooling system working, which would allow us to run the engine for longer! At this point, we had no radiator hoses and, as mentioned, the hose connections on the water pump were badly corroded. A few days later, Gav was working out near a Morris Minor parts supplier we had found on the internet, so he swung by there on his way home and picked up a new water pump, gasket and hoses.
According to the Workshop Manual, the easiest way to work on the front of the engine is to remove the front bumper and grill, and so we decided that this was a good place to start. We managed to remove all the bolts except for one, tiny bolt which also holds the 'hockey stick' trim onto the front. Try as we might, none of the tools we had available allowed us to remove the nut. They were either the wrong size, or the handles and action were the wrong shape to allow us to work in such a tight proximity.
We had been informed at an earlier stage that many of the Morris' bolts would be neither empirical, nor metric standard, but would be a specific English standard called "Whitworth" and we would have to acquire a set of these.
So, in the meantime, leaving our stubborn nut (and therefore the whole grill) in place, we removed the radiator from the engine bay.
We took the radiator outside and ran water through it using a garden hose, and as we expected, apart from a a couple of bent radiating fins on the front, the unit was in good nick and the water that ran out was quite clean. We suspect it may have been replaced fairly recently.
The Workshop Manual suggested that to replace the water pump we would just have to remove a couple of bolts and the whole fan/water pump should come off as a single unit, however once we played around with it, we realise this was not the case on our engine. In order to remove the pump we had to unbolt the radiator fan, then slacken the bolts holding the generator in place, thereby relieving the tension on the fan belt. This allowed us to slip it off, and then finally removing the centre 'cap' from the fan assembly gave us access to the final two nuts holding the water pump on.
From there it was rather simple to replace the old pump with the new one and put everything back together again. We filled the radiator and ran the engine for a few minutes, but unfortunately weren't able to tell if the pump was working, because the exhaust fumes filled the garage well before the water had time to heat up. For the time being, we're assuming its working, until we can get the car running and move it out into the open air.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Its amazing what you can find on the Internet!
Who said the Internet was only for used for p0rn?
Browsing the web mindlessly looking up links on Morris Minors has proven successful!
Gav found the official British Leyland Morris Minor workshop manual available for download as a PDF - for free - all 443 pages of it!
Thanks to Gav's workplace's laser printer we are now armed with at least SOME information on how to how to approach this project.
And... despite both our Dads having owned Morris Minors in their youth (more to come on that later), we're sure this prove to be of great help!
Browsing the web mindlessly looking up links on Morris Minors has proven successful!
Gav found the official British Leyland Morris Minor workshop manual available for download as a PDF - for free - all 443 pages of it!
Thanks to Gav's workplace's laser printer we are now armed with at least SOME information on how to how to approach this project.
And... despite both our Dads having owned Morris Minors in their youth (more to come on that later), we're sure this prove to be of great help!
Welcome!
Welcome to our mechanical adventures!
We, Gavin and Joel, are two good mates who, after spending countless hours hanging out and aimlessly watching television, decided to acquire and restore an old car to its former glory.
Over the past year, we have become big fans of the UK tv show "Wheeler Dealers", where two pommy blokes, Mike Brewer and Edd China, buy classic cars which have seen 'better days' and, on a relatively small budget, restore them to good condition.
Now we are well aware that Edd China is a professional mechanic, and that he has all the equipment at his disposal, as well as a talented editing crew! However, frequently throughout the show, he gives estimates on how long, and how difficult the repairs should be for the 'average' person. So we decided to see how a couple of 'average' Aussie blokes, with fairly minimal knowledge of vehicular mechanics would fare on such a project.
After a few weeks of research we finally decided that a Morris Minor would be a suitable candidate, due to its simplicity and classic style.
Between us we found several websites on-line detailing similar restoration projects and several with buying-guides and comparative info on the Morris Minor models.
Amongst the most useful was the Morris Minor Car Club Of Victoria
On there we found A Guide To Buying A Morris Minor
and
A Morris Minor Restoration Guide, both of which we printed and took with us when we went hunting.
On Saturday 26th September (2009) we went to inspect our first candidate for restoration. This was a 1950's "Morry" Series II, which Joel tracked down on gumtree.com.au. The photos and description in the advertisement had us very excited. It seemed to be in very good condition and when we called the bloke to get further details, we were told that he had acquired a 'new' limited-edition "gold-seal" engine which would be supplied in the deal. Apparently this had been his 'everyday car', and so we were under the impression that all we would need to do to get her up and running would be to 'drop the engine back in' and we'd be up and running. Unfortunately, on arrival we received quite a shock.
It was a MESS. It HAD been his everyday car, but hadn't been close to driving condition for over 20 years! It had serious rust in all the bits you don't want to see rust. Many parts had already been removed and were sitting round his yard, rusting. The 'new' engine was not installed, and therefore we couldn't tell much about it, but it was rusty and incomplete, which certainly didn't to much to boost our confidence. The paint-job was a poorly done home job, and the top coat had been applied while the undercoat was still damp, resulting in shrinking and cracking.
The owner was a bit of a 'collector' and not much of a restorer, and had a 'graveyard' of potentially amazing cars littered around his property. It was a little sad, really.
Although not much of a restorer, he was quite the salesman, and raced around finding odds and ends from his stockpile of parts, and doing his best to convince us of what a simple job we would have with this car. In retrospect, we can't believe we even contemplated it, but thankfully, after much consideration, we decided that this particular vehicle was a bit much for us to handle!
The following week, Joel chased up a Morris he had been watching on Ebay, which he had noticed had passed at auction, with no bids. That Saturday, we went and checked it out, with our mascot, baby Tamar in tow. The owner was a mechanic and car-enthusiast who, tragically, had suffered a stroke before being able to undertake the restoration.
While GavGav (as he is fondly refered to) checked out the car, Joel was forced to deal with a complete nappy "blow-out" which left Tamar covered from head to toe in... well... you get the picture. To make matters worse. Tamar's mum had forgotten to refill the nappy-bag with nappies or plastic bags! So ditching GavGav in Gilford, Joel and Tamar headed off to find a pharmacy to clean up.
Once we were all back in action, we discovered that the 1948 Lowlight we had come to see was, in fact, in pretty amazing condition. Although the paint was completely spotted with surface rust, the only part of the car with any significant structural rust was one of the two engine-mounts which had rusted off the chassis. The engine was not running , but from a visual standpoint, the mechanics were all dry, and relatively clean. The owner assured us that he had it running 6 months earlier, just before his stroke.
We decided to take his word for it, and after getting a couple of quotes from towing companies, began negotiations with the owner's wife for purchasing the car.
The initial asking price (from Ebay) was $2,000AUD. Taking in to account the towing fees and a ball-park valuation suggested in our documentation, we made an offer for $1,350AUD but the owner stubbornly refused to drop below $2K.
We finally convinced the owners wife that, had it sold on Ebay, she would have had to pay Ebay's fees which would have brought the amount of money in her pocket down to $1800, and so this amount would be our final offer. After some lengthy discussions with her hubby, she finally accepted our offer, and we became the proud owners of our 1948 Morris Minor.
Transferring the car from the truck-trailer on which it was stored to our tow-truck was a bit of a mission, but eventually we were back in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney with our prize in tow (literally). The tow-truck left the car at the top of Joel's driveway, and our next step was to get the car down the steep driveway into the garage. We were fairly certain the brakes weren't working at all, but were told that the handbrake was working. So with GavGav behind the wheel, and Joel supporting the car from the rear, we slowly started backing down the drive. Gav confirmed that the brakes weren't working, and as the car very slowly gathered momentum, Joel heard a yell from the car "SHIT.... HANDBRAKE IS ON!". Trouble was, the car was still moving! So there were were, car rolling down the driveway, and Joel behind, trying to stop it!
Mustering his super-strength with muscles bulging, Joel managed to bring the car to a temporary halt, and held it there as GavGav leaped into action. He jumped out and let all 4 tires down, to increase friction, and then grabbed the spare tire and wedged it under the back wheel, securing the car and averting imminent disaster! Very carefully we inched the car down the drive and into the garage by moving the spare-tire/chock backwards a small distance and rolling the car back onto it.
So finally we were home and secure in the garage, after spending a total of $2000 AUD on the vehicle and towing.....
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