1957 Morris Minor Street Sleeper

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Well, a few years ago we bought a dark green 1957 Moggy Minor which had undergone an extensive restoration. It was dark green, and needed some tidying up, but was rock solid and we were very pleased with it.





My wife ran is as a daily for a while, with a love / hate relationship, until (despite my warnings) she snapped the crank on the original 950 cc engine trying to keep up with modern traffic. The bearings were clattery anyway, the engine was leaky, but it had done well given it was the engine it left the factory with. So, she managed to limp it home after phoning me ("There's something wrong with the car, it's making a funny nose and won't go about 30") managed to drag it 7 miles like that!

That spelled the end of the engine, so off it went and I bought a reconditioned 1100cc and plugged it in. The difference was amazing, there's a speed camera just around the corner from us, and it was physically impossible to be breaking the speed limit when we passed it from the junction on the old engine, but with the gut wrenching power delivered from the mighty 1100, it was no problem to be doing 35 or even 38 as we pass it now!

Anyway, we sold the car on to a friend and the Missus immediately missed the car dearly. So, after my friend put the car back up for sale (he was going away to the USA and had about 6 cars and needed to trim the number down) we haggled and got it back. It was still in good condition, but starting to look tired. Rust was bubbling under the paint, the bumpers were scruffy, it needed a tidy up. Here's the car as we bought it back:





The worst areas needing attention:







As you can see, not too bad, but needed stopping now before it got to be an issue. After talking with the Missus, she decided she wanted a bright colour, so we figured rather than treat problem areas and give it a blowover, we'd change the colour of the car. I had heard a lot about Rustoleum Combi-Colour paint, so figured for the price of it, it was worth a shot. So we ordered up the brightest, most in your face disgusting orange we could find and set to it! ;D

I only had use of the garage for one week, so I was limited to what I could do. The Missus at the time expressly forbade me from removing the engine for ANY reason (she has seen what happens when I have my spanners and get "ideas", like with my Porsche 914 powered Baja Bug project, or my Chevy V8 van project!), so the engine bay couldn't get the attention I wanted to give it.

Stripped the car down...









and set to it with the elbow grease! I won't post pics of every bit of rust sorted out, but these were the worst areas:

Paint off:



Rust sanded, blasted, sworn at and generally made to feel unwelcome:



Metal treated with a stabaliser:



Same here:



Here:



and here:



So, after that, I keyed the rest of the car, smoothed out paint runs from the previous owner, and this is what I was left with:











I washed it to within an inch of it's life, then scrubbed with wire wool and mineral spirits, then washed it some more, and then a bit more (I had used nitromorse on parts of the car and wanted to remove all trace of it). Chucked the car back in the garage and set to the next stage...

*EDIT* For some reason, some of the images are not showing, I've definately copied the correct links... for some reason the forum seems to be adding a "%20" to the end of each link which is marking it as deleted?

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Anyway, next for paint. Now, Rustoleum is enamel pant, and has rust suppressing additives in it, and supposedly gives superior coverage. It can also supposedly be applied with a roller and still give a perfect finish, which is something I wanted to set out to prove or disprove. The other reasons for the choice of enamel rather than any other paint is this particular paint is self priming, and has no need for top coats. It isn't quite as hard as 2k or celly, but it does mean that ifthe car gets scratched or digned, touching the paint up will be a lot easier. Sadly, this car and my previous Beetles have all been vandalised to a greater or lesser extent, the Moggy had a wing mirror kicked in which bent the wing, my Bug had both back wings kicked in, glue poured into the locks and a can of pop poured into the engine bay through the vents. The Police, while there were sympathetic, could do very little and owed to our wonderful legal system, cameras were not an option because the cars are parked on the street.

Anyway, should the paint be vandalised, it will be easy to fix and inexpensive. A pair of 2.5 litre tins delivered to my address cost me about £60, which I thought was a bargain. I got the paint from Rustoleum Direct and spoke to Mark Bullock, a very helpful fella who took the time to discuss my needs.

So, the first layer of paint went on, applied with a small high density foam roller. I found that I got a lot of bubbles with this method, and the mixture took a while to perfect, but eventually 1 part thinner to 10 parts paint seemed to work a treat for application. It was obvious that this method offered several advantages, in that you can paint one palen at a time, much less masking off, very little wasted paint and means yo ucan paint your car in stages and still drive it between. The disadvantages are that it is time consuiming, and needs a LOT of after work to get a good finish. With time and patience though, it does come up to an extremely good finish.





Second coat, again with a roller:



But then disaster struck. The Missus, bless her, decided to do some tumble drying while the paint was curing!!! This ruined the paint, as you can see:





It sent it all rubbery and soft, and it would not cure and I was limited on time. So, drastic measures were needed... The affected areas had to be stripped!





Now time was getting tight, I had to pull out the spray gun and do what I could, I had jsut 2 days before the garage needed to be empty

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So, out with the spray gun, and this was the result of the first coat on the boot lid





Happy with that, so I carried on...







Time was up after 3 coats, so I reassembled and this was how she looked!









It was a mistake to try and paint over such a dark colour with a light one, despite the assurances the back of the tin gave me, but I was still impressed with the coverage over such a dark green.

I have no more pics, but I did continue with the rolelr and play around with application etc, and though it looks a bag of curse word when it first dries next to sprayed, it does indeed come up extremely well once you colour sand and buff it. I used 600, 1000, 1200, 1500 and finally 2000 grit paper, then a cutting polish (I found cutting compound to be too harsh). I've not finished the paint but once I do I will add more pics.

Now, on to the next phase of the project... I sold up my Baja Bug and all the valuable parts I spent the years collecting to pay for the Missus's wedding dress (I call her the wife already, but we aren't due to be married until next August) and other wedding bits. Becuase I no longer have a project to tinker with (the van doesn't count, because that's just electics now, so no spanner work!) so felt a bit sorry for me, and frequently complained that should would like the car to corner, stop and accelerate better. So, a plan started cooking.

I have a Ford Cologne V6 (2.9 I believe) on carbs, and the block is just a smidge longer than the A series lump. I think, with a little fettling, it will fit in the engine bay. I am going to make a wooden mock up of the engine and drop it in the bay to make sure, but I'm fairly confident it will go in there without any massive work (unlike a V8). I think I may have to relocate the radiator to make rom for the engine, I don't think it will go in with the crank mounted fan. It's a problem I've thought about and until I actually run the engine up won't really be able to solve, maybe a pair of radiators either side with some cold air feeds cut from inside the arches and some electric fans would work, but I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it! Hell I'm used to keeping air cooled motors cool so this whould be a bit easier lol!

In addition, the plan is to swap the gearbox for the correct one for the engine (long input shaft type 9 Ford box), the rear axle for a MK2 Escort item, and prop shafts to mate the two are available from a couple of places online.

I plan to swap the shocks for telescopic ones front and rear, and use disc brakes all round. My concerns with this are the PCD, I want to keep the wheels stock looking (albeit wider), it's important that the car remains stock looking (aside from the colour of course!) to the casual observer.

I know it's nothing particularly lary or adventurous, but I went all out extreme on the Baja, making modifications that few others had attempted before, so this one I want to keep it fairly straight forward and my selection of modifications don't upset the minimum 8 points i need with VOSA, won't require modification of the chassis and monocoque outside the regulations laid down and are more or less direct fits with a little fettling.

I would love to fit wishbones and multi link IRS, but of course that then drops me below the critical 8 points I need to keep the vehicle identity. I've heard it before - "They won't notice" or "Well if you build to BIVA spec you'll be fine" but neither are true! The "They" aren't stupid and have definately heard of the Internet and Forums, and building to BIVA spec is pointless if the rest of the car wouldn't have passed the test even if it came straight from the factory, so I'd kindly ask for no lectures please

So, that's where I'm up to now! I will do the brakes first, and fit a remote servo. Then the telescopic shocks and while I'm at it, swap the leaf sprigs for 7 leaf traveller ones, after that I will do the gearbox swap and mate it to the A series lump with an adapter plate. After that, the rear axle and prop shaft and re-engineer the rear suspension around it, and only after all that is done will I actually swap the engine. The plan is to do this in stages so that it can still be driven in between times.

So, has anyone done anything similar? Any comments? Anything constructive people have to add is always well received! ;D

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I've given up, I can't work out why some images are coming up as deleted, they aren't. Right click on the image, select properties, copy the URL, paste it in your browser and delete the "%20" before the .jpg and it works just fine. When I edit the posts, the "%20" isn't in there. Anyone any ideas?

[Deleted]

First of all, you should be able to manually edit those broken links by removing the additional characters that mark it as deleted.

I'm curious as to why you only had the garage for a week, that's a tough timescale to work to for painting a whole car even one as dinky as the Moggy.

Orange is good and V6 is a nice engine choice, should make it nippy but not too nippy.

[kevfromwales]

don't wish to be a nay sayer, but changing the rear springs for traveller ones (as you state above) will lose your 2 points for original suspension, so you'd be left with 5 for the shell, and erm, 2 for your steering
- unless I've missed something in your plans?

it's a cool project, but possibly a better idea would be running gear which won't overpower the standard running gear - possibly worth getting hold of a 1.4 datsun engine and box and plopping one of those in?
two guys in our club have datsun powered moggys, one traveller, and one pickup - ad they report the motors go in a treat

or a fiat twincam? - or does that need bulkhead chopping?

- kfw

[mdh]

1400 kseries - easy swap, revvy, torquey and very light.

Love the colour!!

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volksangyl said:

First of all, you should be able to manually edit those broken links by removing the additional characters that mark it as deleted.

I'm curious as to why you only had the garage for a week, that's a tough timescale to work to for painting a whole car even one as dinky as the Moggy.

Orange is good and V6 is a nice engine choice, should make it nippy but not too nippy.

That's just it, when I edit the post, there is no %20, but when I submit, where it says the image has been moved or deleted, when I right click there the %20 thing has been added.

I had the garage for the week because it wasn't my garage, it was my Mothers and she was away for the week and I was house sitting for her, and yes it was a real tough time scale, 7AM starts and midnight finishes for hte whole week, I was knackered!

I like the orange too, but it was a bit "Oh curse word, what have I doneb???" when I first started to lay the paint!

don't wish to be a nay sayer, but changing the rear springs for traveller ones (as you state above) will lose your 2 points for original suspension, so you'd be left with 5 for the shell, and erm, 2 for your steering
- unless I've missed something in your plans?

it's a cool project, but possibly a better idea would be running gear which won't overpower the standard running gear - possibly worth getting hold of a 1.4 datsun engine and box and plopping one of those in?
two guys in our club have datsun powered moggys, one traveller, and one pickup - ad they report the motors go in a treat

or a fiat twincam? - or does that need bulkhead chopping?

- kfw

The seven leafs won't lose the points for suspension, they don't alter the suspension in the way it operates, there's still some room in teh wording, it's the same as adding stock length stiffer springs, at least that's the way I've read it. I can just stick with the 5 if it becomes an issue.

I fancy the sound of the V6, and already have the engine! lol! I don't think over powering will be an issue, but I will bear the thought in mind dude! Dunno about twin cams, they are scarce these days!

If I am staying 4 banger, then I would rather go hot A series. I did consider a flat 4 (scooby power) but decided the V6 would be nicer. I love V engines! lol!

[kevfromwales]

Oct 14, 2010 12:32:41 GMT fad said:

[The seven leafs won't lose the points for suspension,

sorry dude, but afaik you are incorrect there

- as I understand it, if you take your stock leaf springs off, and replace them with another set of standard leaf springs, you have gone outside the rules of keeping the 'standard' parts
- if you didn't tell anybody you'd changed the springs, then that would be a different matter

not sure whether adding extra leaves to the standard spring pack would affect the points criteria?
(b happy to be proved wrong on this tbh, maybe I'll drop kev aceadvice a PM)

K series sounds like a good idea, wonder what the v6 weighs relative to the moggy lump?

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

No bulkhead chopping needed for a Fiat twin cam; check out the photos of mine in the link in my sig. Though you do have to fit a modified front crossmember, that goes underneath the radiator.

I'd advise against fitting Traveller rear springs; I have new ones on mine (fitted by the PO) and they make it sit very high, and being stiffer, apparently make handling worse. I shall probably have to remove some leaves.

Minor Mania built a twin cam convertible Minor and discovered that 4 leaf springs (made by removing a leaf from the standard 5-leaf Minor ones) improved the handling, by making the rear end softer, contrary to conventional wisdom!

[PhilA]

%20 is server-talk for a space. What I usually do to avoid things like minor%20in%20paint.jpg is log on to where the photos are stored and change the file name to minor_in_paint.jpg, using underscores instead of spaces. Copies and parses better

HTH

--Phil

[fad]

I will bear in mind the suspension, I'll see how it performs and go from there. I don't want to use a K series or twin cam lump though, I want to use the V6. I know other engines offer a btter power to weight ratio etc, but for me it's gotta be a V or boxer engine over an inline 4 banger. It's not just the power and weight, it's also about the sound and, well, as people on the other forums have figured out about me, I'm not one for convention and doing the "nrom" lol!


Also, I have given up on the links. For some reason, when I right click on the images that won't show, there is a "space" or a "%20" appearing between the last character of the URL and the .jpg, but when I modify the post, that space is not present. I don't know why it is appearing but there seems to be nothing I can do about it, which is a bit of a pain because the photos work just fine on other forums, and if I delete the %20 when pasting in the address bar it works just fine. I don't know why it's not working.

[PhilA]

Odd, it's not working properly, you're right. Looks to be a hiccup. Let me see if I can sort something



There's a lot of copies of the same picture linked in, that one above

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Oct 14, 2010 16:18:50 GMT PhilA said:

Odd, it's not working properly, you're right. Looks to be a hiccup. Let me see if I can sort something



There's a lot of copies of the same picture linked in, that one above

Yeah I probably jumbled up some of them while I was editing it and trying to make it work... As soon as the glitch is ironed out I'll put them all back to what they should be.

[PhilA]

Oct 14, 2010 17:27:46 GMT fad said:

Yeah I probably jumbled up some of them while I was editing it and trying to make it work... As soon as the glitch is ironed out I'll put them all back to what they should be.

It ain't you. The board is mangling the URL for some reason. I just lifted that picture and hosted it on my server for the time being...

[theboymike]

Fair play - looks really nice in the orange

Just to stick my oar in about the engine; all the Cologne's are heavy old lumps with modest power outputs.

If it really is a 2.9 then it's not so bad, however if it's a 2.8 (as I suspect since it's got a carb fitted) then it's a grotty engine. Horrible head design mean a lack of low down grunt and it won't sound particularly nice either.

Easiest way to tell the two apart is that the 2.8 heads have one normal and one siameased exhaust port (so the manifold only has two runners) whereas the 2.9 has proper 3 port heads.

Looking forward to see how this progresses

[fad]

Will check the engine once I am back in the UK.

I have another thread about V6 Moggy Minor implants on here, and it seems the Cologne lump may be a baaaaad idea. I will reconsider the engine choice I think. I still want to use a V or flat 4 motor though.

[terminator]

The moggy was originally designed for a flat four engine.

[jamesd1972]

Wasn't the engine bay designed for a flat motor ?
N/a 2.0l scooby power ? Sure someone will tell you how to convert box to rwd only by welding up ?
Or for full on retro Alfa 33 / Sud lump? Our old track car sounded the business...
Easy route is anything that has been put in a caterham though.
Keep up good work & updates
James

[timmy201]

You're almost 7 years late