Still here

Thought I'd better do an update just to prove we are still around.

The Minor hasn't progressed any since our last up date, can you believe it a year ago. This is because of work contracts being extended meant I didn't get any time off, and I was working in the UK.

Also a new toy came into my life, a Land Rover 110 Defender, and this has been causing me some heart ache over the last few months with engine woes that needed to be fixed as this is my daily runner (when it runs).

I will update fully with pictures when I get a chance and hopefully get it fixed so that I can get back to the Minor. I figure if I could get a solid month off between contracts with reasonable weather I could get all the welding done. Then whilst the other bits & pieces would be slow, they at least could be done piecemeal.

Best of luck this weekend to the MMOC celebrating 60 years of the Minor.

Axle Pictures

Here are the pictures missing from the last time. You see what I mean - it turned out beautiful.

The old left hand side.


The new lhs before brakes added.
The old diff:
The diff restored:
The axle awaiting brake lines.
Pictures of the final assembly, once brakes fitted to follow. I hope this helps someone with the layout of their axle.

Richard inspired back axle!!!!

As I said before movement on the car over the last couple of months has been slow. Whilst we got the rear spring hangers on we still have to weld the underneath of them and also the matching inside boot floor. But due to wind & rain this has not been possible.

So instead on my holidays (in between the trials of Beaulieu) we made a start on the back axle & I think it turned out rather well. At Beaulieu we picked up some satin black paint & engine enamel in blue. (I’ll put details of the supplier up with link when I can locate it at home). All I can say is that the paint worked out brilliantly, and Richards inspired suggestion to paint the diff in the engine enamel really set it off. All we are waiting for are new brake springs, rubber grommet & brake pipes then we can really say we are on the road to recovery.

Sorry hoped to get photos here but a problem with this new Google Blogsite, will put photos up as soon as I can.

If the rest turns out as good as this we will have a show winner (hopefully).

Beaulieu or bust......

actually Beaulieu & bust.

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while but making a living has interfered. Progress on the car has been slow, mainly due to weather, but more on that another time.

Rich & I went to the Beaulieu autojumble in May. Went over on the ferry & managed to get to Birmingham Morris Centre before they closed. Rich wanted to look at the stainless steel grill but decided that it didn’t fit in with the concept he has.

That disn’t stop us getting a load of other parts (altenator, service parts, front cowl, rear brake parts) and looking at the nice shiny bits for the Minis in the store.

Saturday in Beaulieu was good, windy but dry. Sunday it poured out of the heavens. But over the two days we managed to get some of the stuff we couldn’t get at home in particular paints. Also picked up a couple of gauges, headlights and other odds & ends. Best bargain had to be the emblems we picked up. Had an AA one in good condition for the right money & then started to look at an Irish one we hadn’t seen before. Whilst doing this the guy in the stall said he had another one from Ireland & showed it to us. I couldn’t believe it – Limerick Motor Club – my old motor club. I’d never seen one in my 20 years membership. He said it came out of the Killarney museum auction, I nearly snapped his hand off to get it. They shined up beautifully.

We alsovisited the museum (photos will be on photobucket) but to help others here's two emblams in perfect order to show the correct colours if you want to fix yours.

I had ordered a boot lid & stainless windows & the hotel was good enough to store them for me & that was one of the reasons for bringing over the car – to bring bulky items back.

On the Monday we were heading back, everything going great until we stopped at Cardiff services. Bearing in mind it’s my wife’s Saab 9-5. We came out & it started to overheat. Tried nursing it, releasing pressure, draining the rad, but no luck it just got worse & worse. So nothing for it, pulled off in Port Talbot outside the crematorium & called the AA.

Here I have to say thank you to Tony from the AA & the garage he brought us to.

Not a sight I want to see too often!

They had secure parking & looked at the car 1^st thing next morning. They couldn’t find anything wrong but checked it out anyway & said it should get us home. They didn’t charge, said it cost them nothing just a bit of time between two other jobs. Brilliant!!!!!

But home it got us 24 hours later & I changed the coolant the next day & since then the car is driving better than ever.

What could have been a very expensive trip just turned out to be expensive!!!!!!

Thanks for 21 years....

.. had to say this as today is our 21st wedding anniversary. I know it shouldn't be on a restoration blog but without the total support of my wife (Rich's mum) we wouldn't be able to do this.

Finola thank you.


So to offset the flanneling here's a couple of pics I took at Mudeford outside Bournemouth a few weeks back.

Easter Holiday

Went home for Easter hoping to work on the car, but the weather was so beautiful we decided to go to Kerry for the weekend. This is Irish weather.....

You'd sware you were in foreign climes. So we can be excused for not working on the car.

I've been watching the Bigginger blog recently & he's making good progress on the pickup moggy. Makes me tempted to get a commercial Minor the next time.

Forgot to say we got the large bottle of Argomix for the welder and you cannot believe the difference it makes. Things just happen better, even allowing for my lousy attempts, but again Rich is better on the seam welding. We made up a trolley for it, a lie - we bought a trolley in Argos and adapted it. Next time home will take a picture. Now bearing in mind we have all the equipment everything is held together with cable ties, really have to weld some strenghteners on it.

Only two weeks to go & Rich and me travel to the Beaulieu autojumble on the hope we can pick up parts and maybe bargins. Btw I've just ordered a secondhand bootlid & stainless steel window frames sight unseen from a guy in the UK, hope they turn out ok. Will keep you informed if they do I'll publish the details here.

Not been here for a while...

this has been due to work commitments. Getting home every forthnight means that we don't have a lot of time to work on the car.
But we have got some work done. The rear axle is off & Rich has started cleaning the dampers up. Undoing one nut to allow the oil flow out now means that we now know that Minor dampers take SAE10 grade oil!!!!

This photo may help someone who needs to know the pipe layout on the rear axle. (If anyone actually reads any of this.)

We have also managed to get the passenger side rear spring hanger done. Great progress. Now just need to patch the hole in the boot floor created when we tried to remove the old hanger. The floor wasn't just plug welded but partly seemed to be seam welded. All good fun - NOT.

One big sheet should do it!

More to come. Will have to do this more often.

Ally Pally Classic cars

I went to the Classic car show in "Alexandra Palace" in London on Saturday. Good show with an auto jumble section with parts I was tempted to buy but unfortunately not having a car over here limits my purchases (roll on Beaulieu).
I've posted some pictures so have a look. I also visited the MMOC club stand & had a good look around the Traveller there. Thanks for the warm welcome from the club members.

On Friday night went to Rallye Sunseeker in Bournemouth. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance.
If anyone has any comments on layout or content I'd appreciate them.

Definate progress...

being made. Sorry I haven't updated lately but been busy. The last weekend at home was a good one, both Rich & I manage to get a serious bit of welding in.

Tore apart the nearside back end on the Saturday

& after much persuasion with hammers got the inner wing in place. Whilst I acted as cheaffur for my daughter Rich made a good job of seam welding it in.

Then we started on putting in the spring hanger. Fun & games!! But we ultimately succeded.
Real real progress.


Spot welds not the best but they are solid.

And again whilst I was chauffeur Rich finished off the plate.

Yahoo, Wopee, Yes.......

This weekend we did it. Actually welded something. Finally on the road to restoring UIU.
The weather was great, for a change, cold & dry. So after much thought over the last couple of weeks we figured out that by reattaching the rear wings we would have something to line up with.
It worked, so we managed to get the valance welded on yesterday. OK so we'll never win a prize for the welds but they penetrated & are holding.
So onwards & upwards.
We also had to create a patch for the boot floor to the rear of the fuel tank so that the replacement part would have something to hold on to. Managed to get that done today and a coat of anti rust paint on everything.
So hopefully the next weekend we'll move the axle stands forward so that we can loosen the rear axle shackles to try and start the lineup of the replacement supports.
But that's in the future for now we are basking in the glow of actually putting something back on the car.
Trying for size.

First ever weld.


It's on!

New boot patch.

Patch weld.

New back end.

The back comes off.

To follow on from our previous post here's the pictures of where we got to. As I said a time for a lot of thought.

Did I totally screw up??

What it was like.



Spring Hanger rust.


Rich gets started.



Out come the heavy tools.


Its gone!