Morris Minor Owners Club

David

Where did you get the plates made? Those are very handsome indeed.

As I have the original paperwork for our 1960 Traveller (LHD Export), which my dad bought new and drove around the U.K. before bringing it to the States, I found the bit with the original registration number (never reissued).

I can't get it reactivated unless I bring the car back to the UK (highly unlikely!) but it would be nice to have period plates with the original number. Hence my Q.

JohnV wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 7:00 pm David

Where did you get the plates made? Those are very handsome indeed.

As I have the original paperwork for our 1960 Traveller (LHD Export), which my dad bought new and drove around the U.K. before bringing it to the States, I found the bit with the original registration number (never reissued).

I can't get it reactivated unless I bring the car back to the UK (highly unlikely!) but it would be nice to have period plates with the original number. Hence my Q.

John, I got them from an ebay seller, they were priced very cheaply at only £17.95 including UK post! Im still holding out some small hope for original documents to turn up, thats why I didnt want to buy expensive plates as the moment. I was quite pleasantly surprised by how decent these actually are!


This is a direct link to their web site were they only cost £16.95!!
https://ej-parts.co.uk/

I havent had a huge amount of progress on the project over the last few months, but the engine has had new rings and shells fitted and is now painted up and ready to fit the cylinder head! Ive also checked over the starter, dynamo and carb this week so getting there, slowly.

Mike, way too untidy for the public to view!!

Axle and gearbox out in last few days, axle was quite stiff to turn. Put a mix of thin engine oil and white spirit in and worked the pinion back and forward, then turned the diff around a few times and now running nice and free. The new oil was very dirty! Ill chnage the oil again after about 100 miles. Did the same thing with the gearbox, all gear seems to select nicely and appears quite when turned over by hand. Fingers crossed they are good!

jagnut66 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:26 pm Lovely car, I hope you get your registration back.
When is your car museum opening? You have enough cars to start it up now I believe............
Best wishes,
Mike.

DVLA won't let him have the original Registration number due to lack of formal documents.
As he has no original Log Book and it was never transferred to the DVLA system following centralisation of registrations from the old County Council systems, there is essentially no official evidence that the original number ever existed.
As far as DVLA are concerned, the plates that were on the car have no legal standing; they could be fakes made at any time.

jagnut66 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2019 1:31 pm That's a shame. I take it a photographic record of the car with the number on it, if he could get hold of one, would do no good either, for the same reason.
Best wishes,
Mike.

Yes. His previous post

DAVIDMCCULLOUGH wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2019 10:08 pm The tourer came with no paperwork at all unfortunately. I sent off for a Heritage Certificate and with some help from Busguy did some other digging about the history of the number plate. Unfortunately DVLA will not let me keep the number and have issued me with an age related number, new plates are ordered and will be here soon. So for the first time since 1964ish this car is now taxed!!!

would indicate that by the time DVLA came to take over all the records from the Counties the car was unregistered for around 10 years or so, so if the records even existed still at that time, then the little civil servant responsible for uploading documents would have just chucked that one in the waste as no longer needed.
They had so many records to microfilm, they no doubt would've taken any chance they could to not do one... this was a time of big mainframe computers, so recording space was at a premium.

Unfortunately the original Scottish Registration documents also no longer exsist. There is an educational charity called the Kithead Trust http://kitheadtrust.org.uk/ who deal with registrations and original sourcing of documents, they were able to advise straight away i hadnt much hope as none of the county documents exsisted. Had they still exsisted i could have matched up the details off the car and heritage certidicate and almost certainly have got it back.

Some more progress lately, tipped on its side to scrape off some old body scutz that I dont like and also to sort out a few areas that needed some tidying up. Thankfully no rot! We also made some pressings in the floor as at some point its been fitted with a flat steel floor section which flexed annoyingly!

Repairs all done underneath and given a coat of primer.

That is very nice indeed.

Lovely car

Nice work! How did you make the pressings in the floor, out of interest?

I cut a rounded 90 degree corner out of a sheet of MDF as an anvil to bash the steel over. I can't find the pic of the Minor floor I did but I used the same technique to make a dashboard for a vintage Austin.

Found it.

Some more progress, engine and gearbox back in yesterday! Had lots of willing helpers in the garage yesterday

Some more progress, Im doing a full restoration update on Morris Minor Series MM page on facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/139924039959670/

I bet that speedo never did 70mph before, Im sure it wont ever again!

There has been a lot of progress since my last post, here is a link to the engine running for the first time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPOuZ7mVnj8

Its also had its first road run in about 40 years!! 20 miles covered now! Still lots of jobs to do but getting there