Morris Minor Owners Club

This 1961 traveller is a bit beat up but I think very restorable.

Its now called Smithy as every car should have a name.

It needs help everywhere ,lucky for Smithy his found a good home.

Going to completely restore to good running order.

Adding some photos of arrival
Yes looking very sad but will be overhauled starting from the front and working backwards including the wood.

Started the under bonnet restoration [ran in to a few problems there] .

More to follow

Nice job under the bonnet, keep up the good work!

That is a very nice result, a nice light colour sets off the other parts well.

Well it would seem during this process that its blown a head gasket so the heads come off.

The unusual thing learned here was what head it was.
Wasn't a 850 head turned out to be a 997 cooper head 12G 202 casting [that's fine and stays] So took the time to paint it all correctly and make sure its all mechanically good.

Hopefully all back together soon.[frame][/frame]

Well bad news it failed but a nice find with the cooper head.

[frame][/frame]

The 12g202 head was fitted to all 1098cc Minors

Oh I see I thought I had a smaller engine.

So now I need to ID the engine . It has a casted in number of 950

So I know its a small bore but is it a 1098 ?[frame][/frame]

How much did the unleaded conversion cost ?

Moving on to the finishing of the under bonnet clean up now .Should be able to start the engine soon.

Well it started up first time and sounds great,
I put a bypass hose on the heater connections as im not ready to fit the new mini heater yet and I need to make a heat shield up before I connect the servo plus a few little snags I ran into today like a new t/stat that refused to open, the starter button that sticks and the ex. downpipe that refuses to seal but all in all im happy.

Hello there,

What paint did you use for the engine bay? I have mine stripped out at the moment and would love to get that finish and tips most appreciated!

Many thanks

Yes, i would like to know that too.

The Late Roy A (BMCEcosse) always swore at unleaded conversions. He maintained that all you Needed to do was increase the clearances of the outlet valves to 12 thou ( Inch) in order to deal with the hotter gasses more effectively. You can find Details on other threads here.

Nooooooo. 15 thou on the exhaust, 12 on the inlet but 15 on both if you prefer to use only one set of feelers.

Mark Wilson wrote:Nooooooo. 15 thou on the exhaust, 12 on the inlet but 15 on both if you prefer to use only one set of feelers.

Good tip !

I used a local car paint company to fill a few cans with the correct paint [used a glove box lid to make sure of the match].
I used a good filler primer and flattened it down good before painting then after 48 hours put some clear coat on it so its shiny and tough. At the moment Im fitting a mini heater I overhauled [the original was a shrouded round one] And have the bonnet off to paint and add sound deading. Got Woodies making me up a complete wood kit to fit. [Im now trying to experiment on stain colour Im thinking light oak is what I want]

The engine runs as sweet as a nut.
Still a long way to go yet .

DAVIDMCCULLOUGH wrote:Nice job under the bonnet, keep up the good work!