Morris Minor Owners Club

The big end bolts should all have the same thread, head size and length.

The oil pump cover is as said above soldered to the rear engine plate. I would suggest that someone has added extra solder to seal a oil leak from between the oil pump cover and rear engine plate. Oil leaking from the joint between the two is quite common and as such is recognised in BMC workshop manual section AA33.
Just looking at a spare early rear engine plate the soldered joint is ex factory and very neat around the joint.

Thanks Phil, it was the untidiness of the solder that made me wonder.

I'm going to get the back plate blasted so will remove the solder and refix the oil pump cover to clean metal.

Thanks for the reply Jaekl.

I had a Series II Convertible about 30 years ago that I rebuilt to Concours standard and it had 'Britmo' stamped all over the engine but this car I am working on now has 'BMC' on the gearbox side cover and 'BMC' cast into the engine block.

This definitely a 'blue' engined car as there are traces all over the engine.

I'm not sure when 'MOWOG' came in.

Well my engine strip down was going pretty well until I came to the mains bearing caps.

The big end journals look ok but the crank main journals have a little rust on each of them which I think will need a grind to get rid of. They have been ground to +10 at this point.

I've taken the camshaft out to closely inspect it as I could see similar rust marks on the cam lobes. These will not come out.

The last photo is of the main cam bearing which has odd shaped wear marks on it which, to me look like vibration marks so that will be replaced.

My machine shop shopping list is now -

1) Grind main crank journals and buy new bearings, source 6no main bearing cap bolts (as only three were of the original type)
2) Replace the thrust bearings (as one of them was different to the other three parts)
3) Replace the main cam bearing
4) find a new 803cc cam (reprofile existing if not)
5) Hone the bores again to get rid of any internal 'water' marks
6) Source 6no original spec. big end bolts
7) Grind rocker arm pads to put them back to original profile
8 ) Fit new pivot bushes to the rocker arms
9) Buy new rocker shaft
10) Buy a new set of cam followers
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Bad luck with crankshaft.

Some original BMC part numbers that may help:-

Bolt main cap...….2A53.

Bolt big end cap...6K594.

Camshaft...………..8G712.

The rocker pads are hardened and if you breakthrough the hardening in the process of cleaning them up rapid wear will take place.
New forged rockers are available from ESM.

I personally would fit a good used 948cc camshaft rather than have the original camshaft reground. Regrinding a camshaft increases the acceleration of the cam follower/tappet which can lead to rapid wear.

New rocker shafts now have the location/securing/screw peg in number 2 pillar. You just have to swop number one and two pillars and drill through the new number one pillar to allow oil to the rocker shaft. Alternatively you can fit a second locating/securing pillar (which has the oil transfer drilling) without the locating/securing/screw peg in number one position.

Whilst it may seem a bit of a gamble my preference would be to obtain a S/H 803cc engine and utilise the required parts from it. It may well be cheaper and easier in the long run.

The early BMC parts list illustration for the engine shows the block with the BMC rosette cast into the side under the cam follower/tappet chest.

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the good info and part numbers.

I have stripped the engine down into component parts and from what I can tell, the original engine has had the following work carried out -

The head has been skimmed and new valve guides only fitted. The block has been bored and new pistons installed. The existing crank has been ground with new big end bearings. The mains journals have been ground but they and the new mains bearings have been ruined by water in the block. A new timing chain has also been fitted.

I'm now looking for a local Machine Shop (Sheffield Area) who knows A series engines and I will take the block, head, pistons and crank down for an assessment of what work/rectification is needed for a clean bill of health.

You mentioned the 948 camshaft which sounds interesting - does that have the same profile/lift/timing as the 803 cam?

When I first saw the engine I could see that there had been considerable work done on the engine.

The 803cc and 948cc camshafts are common in that they have the same timing and profile so they can be interchanged with ease.

Details of the 803cc and 948cc camshaft.

Lift...….inlet 0.285. exhaust 0.285.

Inlet valve opens 5 degrees BTDC. Closes 45 degrees ABDC.

Exhaust valve opens 40 degrees BBDC. Closes 10 degrees ATDC.

Details taken from BMC workshop Manual General Data.

The 803cc and 948cc camshafts are both pin drive to the oil pump.

You may be able to get a NOS or good 948cc camshaft from club spares. Speak with Bryan.

Make sure that you incorporate Declan Burns oil restrictor otherwise you will have low oil pressure leading to failure of the bearings/crank. Use search facility for more details.

Thanks again Phil, all very helpful info especially the Declan Burns restrictor. I never knew there was an oil pressure problem with new spec spin on oil filters.

See this thread:-
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=63859&hilit=oil+restrictor

A quieter day today.

The oil pump cover was easier then I expected to get off the engine back plate using a blow torch. These and more items have gone off for blasting.

I've found a local machine shop with years of experience with the A series engines and asked them to look at the machine work that has been done to the engine so far and report back when they know what the overall condition is. They think the main journals can be saved without any further machining as well as the camshaft but I will know for sure in a few days.

As the gearbox gaskets ordered still hadn't arrived I decided to look at the body work and the paint in particular. There are little marks/scratches/dents here and there on every panel which is not surprising if the car had been in a state of disassembly for many years; bonnets stood up, wings previously removed and laid down etc. The 'cheesegrater grille' is in excellent condition but looks like it has been painted in masonry paint and has lost the Birch Grey grille highlight. So I am thinking of re-spraying that with a couple of rattle cans so that it looks better but won't stand out from the rest of the external paint.

I have been practicing how to clean the existing paintwork on a small patch on the bonnet with a gentle 1200 grade wet sand followed by a light DA polish. Some of the paint is chipped through to bright steel so I thought if the paint is clean with some shine to it, the odd touch up wouldn't stand out as much.

I'm into new territory here.

A few engine parts I was having blasted came back today.

I knew the bottom of the sump might be a little 'thin' as it looked as though the engine had been dragged around on it for some time. Anyway, it has holes in it and I'm not going to risk repairing it using it again so I will have to find another one.

The engine back plate came back looking like new and this afternoon I re-soldered the oil pump housing to it. That's a job I don't want to do again!

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In between getting parts sorted and cleaned I have been experimenting with how I want the bodywork to look.

The front right wing has minor accident damage around the headlight aperture and to the centre of the wheel arch. Someone in the past had just spray painted over the bottom half of the wing with a can to 'hide' the damage.

To rectify this and to see how the original paintwork might respond I flatted off the overspray with 800 grade wet or dry and then went over the whole wing with 1200 grade wet or dry to give an even matt finish which I then had a little go by hand at buffing up the paint to see what the result might be.

I'm quite happy with the 'finish' but I want to have a go with a DA polisher to see if the paint responds.

Now that the paint is getting back to a black (instead of the moldy greeny black) I can think about touching some of the chips and scrapes which have gone through to bare metal.
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Excellent progress!

Somehow I'd got it into my head that the correct engine colour I was after was Landrover Light Green Duck Egg Blue.

I opened the tin and after stirring the paint for a long time I realised that it wasn't going to change colour - so what to do? I am using it as an undercoat.

Does anyone have the paint code for the early Series II engine?

The colour I am looking for is shown on the cover plate in the second photo. It is a dark bluey grey.

Gearbox assembly - I couldn't really put it off any longer. So after a second cleaning and examination of parts I put it all together this afternoon.

There was the usual worn teeth on the reverse gear cogs but the overall condition inside was pretty good and should be serviceable once more.

I've changed all the gaskets and fitted a new rear oil seal where the propshaft enters the gearbox. One thing I have noticed with an original car is that all the rubber items have become really hard and not fit for purpose in that they don't have the 'flex' anymore.

An example of this is the 'flexible' rubber 'boot' where the clutch lever arm comes out through the gearbox. I had to saw it off! I understand these are not available at the moment so not sure where to get one.

Parts missing were the engine steady wire and the bracket where it attaches to the box so not too many new parts on this assembly.

When back together I temporarily attached the 'wand' type gear-lever and I can get every gear so I am happy.

Onwards and upwards.


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The steady wire was not missing - the steady wire was not fitted to the Ser2 gearbox.
The steady wire was only fitted to cars later than car No: 264013 - 948cc (and eventually 1098cc) gearboxes to overcome a problem with the engine and gearbox moving forward under braking. See section AA36 of BMC wksp man. Around the same time the steady bar from the body to the engine was fitted - again to overcome a problem with engine judder when taking up the drive. See section AA37 of BMC wksp man. Both of the aforementioned mods were eventually incorporated by the factory into the 948cc and 1098cc cars but initially were retrospective modifications.

Thanks again Phil for the info.
My car has an engine steady bar fitted so I assumed it would also have a restraint cable. I’ll look at the gearbox crossmember tomorrow and if it hasn’t been altered for the cable restraint I’ll remove it from the gearbox.

Mike - I couldn’t see any evidence that this gearbox had been painted at all.