Advise needed for crashed minor.

[thenewdoonan]

In March of this year, I was involved in a collision in my minor, hitting a parked car due to car in front playing up, but needless to say I was heartbroken, my car was written off but I couldn't bear to see it scrapped, I payed the fee and kept it, I feel a duty to put it right, I feel guilty about it to be perfectly honest.
The main damage is folding of the cars shell on the passenger side, other bits and pieces are damaged but I know for certain they won't pose any troubles in putting right. But when there's damage done to the frame of the car, I'm a bit lost, I imagine getting someone to straighten it would cost an open fortune and couldn't be justified, but then I was in the notion of buying a minor in poor shape but with a decent chaise and transplanting the parts of my car which for the most part are excellent into it.
But alas I am lost and desperately need to do something about it, it pains me to have the old girl sitting in the shed gathering dust. I appreciate it for anyone taking the time to read this and to respond if it would be helpful I would be happy to post pictures.

[charlie_morris_minor]

i hope you are ok following the accident.

the first question is which category was the car written off in as this will govern what you can do?

http://www.whichcarcheck.co.uk/insuranc ... gories.htm

straightening a car chassis requires a great deal of skill and from your question you seem to accept this is beyond you, how close to a moggy centre are you? if close enough they might be prepared to come to you and give you a quote or do you have access to a trailer to take it to them? at least that will answer your question about the way forward.

As you have identified a cheaper option could be of course to buy a car with a good chassis and poor mechanicals, the problem is in my experience it is rust that tends to be the problem with cars not the mechanicals. Unless of course you can find an abandon restoration with all the body work done?

so the other option is to buy the best moggy you can afford and break your old car for spares to keep your new car running for the coming years. this might might work out as being the cheapest option in the long run.

[estwdjhn]

It's very hard to advise without knowing the full extent of the damage. Mine suffered a little incident (read : got dropped nose first off a gantry crane), and I now know a little about straightening wrecked engine bays. I was lucky, the main body of mine didn't distort, which would be a much bigger undertaking to fix.

If you've done pictures of the damage, we may be able to advise better.

The other consideration is what shape the rest of the car is in - if it was a mint motor before it's more likely to be worth repairing than if it was a total rotbox that just scraped an MOT every year with a few extra patches.

[Chipper]

My Traveller's front end was badly damaged following an accident, and was written off by the insurance company. However, I bought it back, and spent about £1,500 getting it repaired - new nearside chassis leg, front crossmember and engine bay panels fitted on a jig by a local retired bodywork guy who still had all his equipment in his garage. He did a cracking job on it:







It was then fitted up with some new panels and partially resprayed, and put back on the road.


Happily, it's still in daily use some years later.

[ianmack]

The body section of the factory workshop manual contains details on straightening the more common types of distortion of the shell. You can sometimes get body jacks from tool hire shops or Machine Mart sell them.

[thenewdoonan]

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[thenewdoonan]

Thanks very much for getting in touch, above is about 5 pictures of the culprit and, I welcome any suggestions that you may have for I am clueless. It cost me £400 to rescue it from the scrap heap, I hope that was a wise decision to begin with. I would rather take some action with it sooner rather than later with it for its lying in the shed doing nothing since march and I'm growing tired of tripping over it.
In terms of buying some old thing and making one out of the two, I'm not afraid of a little welding but if its a lot then I simply would not trust myself to do it.
Thanks again and I'm looking forward to reading further responses.

[thenewdoonan]

Also, I'm in County Fermanagh, Ireland, and I'm not sure of anyone local, though I would keep my options open about going across the water.

[Chipper]

First thing to check is that the front chassis legs are not bent - use a tape measure to ensure they measure the same distance apart at various points along their length.

Next, seeing as you appear to have it stored in a barn, why not try pulling out the inner wing crease using a strong rope tied around a tree or telephone pole (as used to support many barns) and gently reverse the car to pull out the worst of the damage, or use that tractor to pull it.

Then, if you're lucky, you may be able to straighten it out to a reasonable degree using suitable hammers, blocks of wood, etc.

A bit of creasing of the inner wing wouldn't be that big a deal, once you have a new outer wing fitted.

[estwdjhn]

If the front chassis legs haven't gone out of square (and looking at the damage, I doubt they have), that's a very easy area to repair.

Mine had similar damage, so I cut the whole of the inner wing away, and made a new one (you can buy all this stuff as panels, or if you're a cheapstake like me, you just use steel sheet. I found attempting to straighten the inner wings in situ very difficult, which was why I replaced them with new metal (and when I did that, I found they were mostly filler anyway!)

Have a look at some of the photos from this bit of my build thread, it should give you some idea what I did

http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f= ... 30#p523522

[rayofleamington]

99% of the time, a Minor with solid bodywork is not really a 'donor' car.
It is sometimes possible to get a bodyshell (eg when someone has stripped a car for parts) but most of these need work anyway, so I'd suggest you find a Minor-friendly bodyshop for your own rather than fix a different shell then transfer everything!

Before considering repair, the first question I'd as: Does the left hand door still open & close properly with an even gap looking like it used to?
2nd question: If the door fit is not affected, has bulkhead (top suspension mount) been damaged -check that there are no ripples/ changes around the bulkhead and bulkhead crossmember.

If yes, then I'd replace:
Chassis leg, engine bay floor, both parts of inner wing, bumper shaft.
Bolt on panels needed - both parts of front panel, bonnet, bumper (all available second hand).
plus, depending on whether the wheel took an impact or not, lower suspension arms and the shock absorber.

[bmcecosse]

If you transfer parts to 'another shell' -then the finished car must retain the identity of the 'shell' - NOT the old (crashed) car which donated the parts. But looking at the pictures - it all looks fixable with new inner wing panel etc as Ray describes - provided the door still opens and closes ok. Depending on the 'write off' category - the car will probably need to be examined before it can be put back on the road. Indeed - I believe the worst category CANNOT be put back on the road and MUST be used only as a source of parts...... Check before you do any work.......

[Chipper]

Well, that certainly didn't apply to my Traveller, which was written off, but I arranged with the insurance company to buy it back and they removed it from the register, so I was able to get it repaired, put it through a normal MOT, and all was well again.

You need to negotiate with the insurer.

[bmcecosse]

IF they can remove it from the register - but I suspect it's all a lot tighter now. The point remains - FIND OUT before you do any work to the car.