Morris Minor Car Covers

I’ve often complained here about how irritating it is having to go and collect the Traveller before a run out, simply because I haven’t the room to garage it at home and wont leave it out to the elements. And although I’m not personally into the Concours competitions (mainly because I’m too lazy to maintain the required standards), I do often hear moans from people who’ve spent hours detailing their car only to have rain on the morning of an event spoil the effect. So I got to thinking: Is there a cover on the market that could help in these circumstances?

After a bit of research, I decided to talk to Cover Your Car and look at their range of covers specifically designed for the Minor. I had some rather old-fashioned preconceptions about covers, remembering the flappy tarpaulins that would disappear as soon as the wind got up, scratch the paint getting them on and off, and trap moisture underneath that kept the car wet even when it was dry outside. It was a hugely pleasant surprise to find that covers have moved on immeasurably since then, and CoverYourCar showed me four different types of cover – the Sahara, Voyager, Monsoon, and Stormforce – all custom-tailored for a Morris Traveller. Their covers weren’t cheap (the top one costs about £150) and I really wanted to see if it could justify its cost. After chatting to their representative, I opted for their ultimate cover, the Stormforce, and waited patiently for it to arrive.

The first surprise was how neat it was, in its own tailored ‘carry-bag’, which had for once been designed with getting its contents back into it in mind! It wasn’t as heavy as I expected it to be either – I revised my thoughts that it would be left at home all the time and decided that I’d simply put it in the boot in case I should need it at a show, etc. Unfortunately my own Traveller wasn’t available at the time the cover arrived, and eager to have a look I temporarily loaned it to a friend who was about to go on holiday and leave his own Traveller outside for two weeks. Unpacking it from the bag showed that it was thoughtfully designed, with underbody securing straps and even little ‘bunny ears’ for the mirrors.

This is where we noticed our first minor negative with such detailed covers – they are obviously designed around a perfectly standard car. The cover is too precisely tailored for the car to accommodate a roof aerial, for example, or the ‘kidney cutter’ headlight eyebrows that many of us have. Unscrewing the aerial and releasing the screw that holds the headlight surround which locates the eyebrows is only the work of a couple of minutes, though, so its hardly a major flaw. My own Traveller has ‘peephole’ mirrors on the door frame, although these too unscrew from their bases in just a few moments, but I must remember to do that or the cover simply wont fit.

After laying the cover over the roof of the car, we stopped for a moment to talk about the covers construction. The cover has four distinct ‘layers’, starting with a super-soft lining on the car side which wouldn’t worry owners about scratching the paintwork. The second layer has a ‘breathable’ membrane which Cover Your Car claimed would allow moisture out but not in, and given the weather we were keen to see if it lived up to their claims. The third layer is padded, forming a gap between the lining and the outer layer which is UV resistant and wipeable to get rid of the inevitable bird crap. All four layers are then bonded together, and again the attention to detail is shown with things like double-stitched seams and elasticated hems at the front and back.

My pal put the cover on himself to see if it was a one-man job and I took some pictures. Presuming you’re not putting it on in gale-force winds, one man can fit the cover in about seven or eight minutes start to finish. That’s easy enough to make it a realistic proposition to cover the car Saturday night on the rally field at the National, for example, to ensure that if it rains during the night you don’t have to do it all again while everyone else is having breakfast on Sunday morning. I’m not entirely sure what the mirror pockets purpose is, though – they kept falling off the mirror while the cover was going on, and the mirrors themselves (once ‘folded’ in against the bonnet) are protected under the cover anyway. Once fitted, we ran the optional locking kit cable round the underside through the eyelets, but to be honest I don’t think it adds anything in terms of outright security because the eyelets are plastic and would easily be ripped off by a thief. It does prevent the chap in the car next door lifting it up and dropping some bird crap on the bonnet so he can get your first place though!

While my friend was away we had some horrific weather, with a couple of major thunderstorms and some localised flooding again. I did think about popping round to his house to check on the car but resisted the temptation until he got back and we inspected the car to see how the cover had fared. Despite the very high winds (my neighbour lost a couple of ridge tiles and a fence panel) the cover was still attached just as it had been left. As you can see from one of the pictures, the outer layer was still very very wet as it was taken off – the last serious downpour was only the previous day. Underneath, though, the car was absolutely bone-dry. For comparison’s sake, we also looked at his son’s Mini which had been covered with a more conventional single-layer cover, and the bodywork on that was still wet everywhere. More importantly, the Mini also had condensation on the windows showing that there was moisture inside the car, while the Traveller had none. This was genuinely impressive – there’s no point in covering your car and keeping water inside the cover – so the one-way membrane had indeed done ‘just what it said on the tin’. Finally, the cover, once dry, fitted easily back inside its bag (only those who’ve ever tried to get a tent back into its carrybag will know the frustration of a bag that is exactly big enough and not a millimetre more!).

So, does the Stormforce justify its price-tag? In one word: easily. I was hugely impressed with its resistance to the weather, and its ease of fitting and removal. I’ll be more than happy to keep the Traveller at home more often and just cover it up, knowing that it will emerge from the cocoon exactly the same way as it was put away, no matter how much rain has fallen or how many migrating birds had picked my trees as a suitable stop-off point. I’ve got no hesitation in recommending Cover Your Car to readers, and the final icing on the cake is that from reading their site I see they’ve knocked 10% off their prices, so their top cover is now £135 including VAT and delivery here.

How to buy a Morris Minor Pt3

(Back to Part 2)
ELECTRICS

The Minors electrical system is incredibly simple, so there’s little you have to worry about apart from previous owners attempts to splice in stereos or security systems. But age doesn’t help things and the wiring may well have cracked while some of the connections will probably be getting temperamental now. The primitive nature of the electrical system also doesn’t lend itself to modern driving conditions, so it’s worth converting to an alternator for £95 if you’re anticipating using the car every day, as well as fitting halogen headlamps (£40) and an electric screen washer system (£30). Even if the car needs a complete rewire a new loom is just under £100, and fitting it doesn’t take long because there are so few connections.

CONCLUSION
As long as the monocoque is sound, any Minor can be revived, because parts availability is so good. But there will be very few Minors that haven’t received attention to the bodywork. Your mission is to ensure that any work that has been done is up to scratch. But there are few classics that are seen in everyday use more frequently than the Minor, and that’s for a good reason. Not only are they reliable, durable and easy to use, but with a few sympathetic upgrades they make a perfect alternative to a modern car.

Rear spring hangers rust away all too readily, but they can be welded up again.	Kingpin on front suspension wears rapidly unless trunnions are greased frequently.
Floorpans rust away, but excellent new ones can be bought. At least they're simple.	Clutch mechanism is mechanical and gets choked up with debris thrown up from road.
Doors will split at the top if quarterlights rather than handles are used to close them.	Brake servo is a popular mod but not as good as a decent disc brake conversion.
The front lever arm dampers leak. They're retained even if telescopics are fitted.	Early engines are athsmatic, later units are okay. The 1275cc swap is worthwhile.
Rear lever arm dampers also leak badly. Telescopic conversions are the way to go.	Trim is available new or secondhand for all versions of the Minor. Seats are often worn.

WHAT ARE THEY LIKE TO DRIVE? Early cars are infuriatingly breathless, so the minimum you should look for is a 948cc car. Even better are the 1098cc versions although a 1275cc powerplant is surprisingly good fun to pilot. Brakes are okay as long as you dont expect too much and the cars light weight means a bouncy ride and light steering. A car for the track it aint, but a Minor is so charming you cant fail to have fun.

WILL I FIT BEHIND THE WHEEL? Whether youre looking at a tourer, saloon, or Traveller, the interiors are spacious and comfortable. The Traveller has masses of space for load carrying too – in fact the estate version of the Minor could well be the most practical classic car available.

WHAT BODGES SHOULD I LOOK OUT FOR?
Cover panels on underside of floorpan
Electrical nightmares from bad DIY
Converted two-door saloons being passed off as genuine tourers

WHAT SHOULD I PAY? The number of permutations of the Minor available is truly bewildering, so check out the price guide of the latest issue of the magazine.

WHAT WILL INSURANCE COST ME?
Comprehensive cover for a £3000 1967 Morris Minor Traveller in Peterborough:
£341 for 25 years old, two years NCB, clean licence, 10,000 miles, only car, kept on driveway, club member
£83.43 for 42 years old, full NCB, clean licence, 3,000 miles, second car, garaged, club member.

Trunnions

Let’s not argue about the spelling…….. They are the swivelly [sic] bits at the top and bottom of the front legs of your moggie. There’s a top trunnion and a bottom trunnion and they are very different but do the same job. One thing they need is grease. The owner’s manual probably says something like 10,000 mile intervals but believe me, I do this three or four times a year on my 5000 allotted miles. It’s not a hard job to replace them but it’s a real pain of odd sized sockets, ring keys and open ended, 15mm and 16mm split pins to drill out and replace and a steering arm to heat up, cool down, heat up, cool down, bash out and hope you haven’t wrecked the threads, grease nipples to clean out, packing pieces to make if they’re lost, rubbers to grease and split pins to find. It’s much simpler and easier to look after your Trunnions!!

Jack up the car a side at a time and remove the front road wheels. Support the car with stands under the chassis and let the bare hubs just hang. There is a grease nipple at the very top of the leg, probably covered in grunge and another at the bottom, just behind. Various sizes have been fitted and retro fitted clean the surrounding area and use a pair of pliers to unscrew them. Clean the nipple. You don’t want any road grit to find its way in with the grease. Test the little ball in the end of the nipple isn’t rusted solid by holding the nipple against the delivery nozzle of the grease gun and squeezing the gun just a little until you get a half inch of nice clean grease through it. Screw them back in and now they are nice and clean, nip them up with whichever spanner. [Wipe any grease on to a convenient brake pipe, not your overalls!] Any that won’t let the grease come easily through should go in the bin.

Order new nipples and they should be with you the next day in the post. www.tomroy.com or similar. It’s not a second mortgage. Hold the delivery pipe against the top one and squeeze the handle until clean new grease appears in a wave at the rubber three or four inches down the leg. Do the same at the bottom and the wave of grease should appear at the rubber sleeve at the top of the trunnion of the swivel pin, much the same as the top one. Sometimes the grease will also appear at one side of the trunnion cross piece where it meets the bars from the torsion bar. This is normal and at least you now know the pin isn’t seized solid. If it’s been some years since the last greasing you might have some difficulty. At the top, recon Trunnions tend to allow grease out in a circle around the nipple. This is bad machining of the trunnion and there isn’t a lot you can do except strip off the trunnion and apply grease manually on to the swivel pin threads.

If the grease simply won’t go in but squirts out of the side of the nipple then try warming the trunnion with a blow lamp, gently at first and then more positively but not so low down that
you singe the rubber bush where it meets the leg. Let this cool a little and then try again. Several attempts should get it. Same at the bottom. If your wave of grease comes out only at the bottom warm it a little above and try again. But while you’re there………. The track rod end has a grease nipple on the top………….

Laying up the Minor for the winter

Well, do you put your car away after the last rally? Or do you use it on Sunny afternoons all through the winter? Are you one of the innovatives who puts a calor gas stove in the passenger footwell to use the car the whole year round?
The service list is similar for all these eventualities. Skip them and end up by the side of the road, five o’clock on a busy roundabout in fog and rain with the temperature hovering around freezing, the mobile phone battery dead or worse, no credit, a hungry child in the back and a whinging SWMBO who will be late for a hair appointment. It’s not that I’m sexist, these things just happen this way.
Rule Number one: a battery will not last a fourth winter. Yes, there are weird and wonderful chemicals you can add to the electrolyte from recipes in magazines aimed at mini enthusiasts and these will foam and bubble quite excitingly. But the battery will not last a fourth winter. Replace it in September/October just as the first frosts are waiting around the corner and you’ll not fall into the frosty morning trap. [Swing the handle if you must, but there’s an art to not breaking your arm in the process…..!]
Rule number two: fill with antifreeze. Ok, so you didn’t drain last year’s. So get a hydrometer and syphon off some of the coolant and check. Bet you used cheap glycerine antifreeze anyway and it only lasts a year because it evaporates faster than water. While you’re heading for the sun in August or ticking over merrily at a concourse for the judge, the antifreeze is busily evaporating. Sort your hoses first and then refill with two litres of antifreeze and the rest water. If you do it in September then any leaks will show themselves before the worst of the winter and it’ll be an easy Sunday Morning job to sort. While you’re at it, invest in a bottle of screenwash additive and pour the lot in.
Rule number three: buy some points. I presume your distributor cap and leads are in good working order? Aren’t they? Grab hold of them while the engine is running and you’ll soon know! Fit new points in September whether your car needs them or not. New ones will last right through until spring with only one adjustment after a hundred miles while the old ones might not. The silver tarnishes with age as well as use. How much are they? £2.35 at my local shop. Is it worth it?
Rule number four: see to your brakes. Braking on snow and ice is no joke. Personally I back off my front shoes by one notch in the winter so that gentle braking brings the back brakes on first. This is pure preference. Make sure you have plenty of lining left to last until spring. Pack some grease onto the pipe unions behind the drum and the bleed nipples too. This prevents corrosion from salt and makes it dead easy to strip and replace if you need to later.
Rule number five: see to your lights. The hanging connections at the front inner wings are a constant source of trouble in the winter, bad earths, bad connections, dim lights. Take them out and scratch the connections with a strip of sandpaper. Check the earth connection at the nearside. Fit new black connectors. Buy a spare headlight bulb or sealed beam and put it in the boot.
Rule number six: Buy those spares you’ve been meaning to for years. A fan belt for instance. It lies on top of the petrol tank, takes up no useful room. A petrol pump. A hammer keeps an errant pump going for a few miles but if you’re on unleaded then the diaphragm might be the problem and the hammer won’t sort that. Let’s face it, everyone gets a petrol pump problem sooner or later, a spare in the boot is insurance against one failing in the snow on Christmas Eve.
Rule number seven: change your torch batteries. Enough said. Carry the torch with you, see if it’ll fit into the well in the boot and leave it there.
Rule number eight: While you’re in the boot, blow up the spare too. Consider an aerosol of instant punture repair, wrap it in a towel with a bag of silica gel and leave it in the boot. Do I have to tell you punctures only happen when you’ve got a white T-shirt on!
Rule number nine: stock up on CD’s. What better way to relax while you’re waiting for the breakdown service because you skimped on the previous! [Requests to the site please, I’ve been buying Deep Purple and Grateful Dead!]
Rule number ten: Print this and fasten to garage wall!!

Brake failure

Tech tip for this month – The Mystical Case of Brake Failure.

Most of us run a VW, an Audi, a Vauxhall or BMW as well as a moggie. Some of the more unfortunate among us run Fords! Service interval 60,000 miles, courtesy car and check the tyre pressures one Sunday morning just before you belt down the motorway on holiday. The dealer gets the car once a year, plugs it into the computer, changes the plugs and the air filter and charges you £300.00. Know the story? Way back in the 1950`s and 60`s when our moggies were built, life was a little different. Everyone washed his car on a Sunday morning and while it was drying, he opened the bonnet and went through the weekly checks. Oil, Water, Tyre Pressures, Brake Fluid, Lamps. Along with re-gapping the points and greasing the nipples once a month, the owner driver more-or-less did his own servicing and it had to be regular and often. The first service interval would be 100 miles, oil change and filter. The next service was 1000 miles, the next 3000 miles. In between you did your weekly checks.

How we forget! In those days it was common and a must. Now, it’s unknown. But the car hasn’t changed. It still needs its weekly checks to make sure everything is A-OK. And the case of the girl with the 1963 convertible……lost her brakes going down a long slow hill…..Managed to stop on the handbrake and called the AA who towed her home. Hubby hadn’t checked a thing in five years. FIVE YEARS!! Passed its MOT every year, where was the problem? The problem was that the master cylinder was dry. Bone dry. Nearside rear brake cylinder was leaking very gently. Had someone checked the fluid regularly it would have been spotted before it became something of an emergency. Okay, so now he checks everything weekly. It cost him a set of brake shoes on top of the new cylinder and a new pipe because the old one wouldn’t come out. The pipe should have failed an MOT anyway but it was well gunged up so the tester probably didn’t spot the rust. When we got to the other end of the pipe we found a split in the flexi too. But that’s another story………

1. For a car in regular use at least a couple of journeys a week, regular Sunday morning checks should include: – Tyres. It’s easier to spot wear on a particular place early if you do this
every week. A bent steering component would alter the tracking and wear would be on the outside edge or inside edge of one or both tyres. Evidence is “feathering”. The edge of the patterns rises to a “feather”. 2. Brake Fluid. The master is under the driver’s toes. Unscrew the cap and just have a look. It should be just half an inch or so below the filler neck if the
brakes are adjusted properly. If it goes down, adjust the brakes up and check again. Still down? Suspect a leak at a wheel cylinder.

3. Water. Or should that be water and antifreeze? Check the level. Water normally finds its own happy level and this varies from car to car. If it’s above the internal fins in the radiator
leave it alone. If you really need to top it up, use a mixture of antifreeze and water made up in an old pop bottle.

4. Oil. The A-series engine unlike modern lumps was designed to use oil. The amount varies from engine to engine but half a pint over 500 miles is not undue cause for concern. Top it up. When the colour becomes anything darker than caramel, consider changing it and the filter.

5. Dashpot oil. The black plastic or brass knurled nut on the top of the carburettor unscrews to reveal a plunger. If you remove it and then pop it back there should be some resistance
and you need to force it back. If not, top up with 3in1 oil or similar, about a teaspoonful or two.

6. Battery. Check the electrolyte levels. The liquid should be above the plates. Remove the battery and wipe with an old cloth, smear the terminals with Vaseline, very lightly, The negative end of the battery will most likely need topping up regularly. Here you can use water defrosted from the freezer or a bottle of de-ionised from the corner carparts shop or, if it isn’t a new battery, from the tap. Wipe the tray and remove leaves and debris.

7. Washer bottle. Enough said. It’s not in the Haynes manual but then washer bottles hadn’t been invented in the fifties. Unblock that nozzle on the bonnet that you’ve been meaning to see to for three weeks too!!

8. Lights. Just make sure they all work and replace the bulb, scrape the rust, as necessary. Reminds me, my interior light………

Next checks at 1000 miles…………

Winter Minor foibles

t’s not over yet! I was called out the other night to a Moggie that wouldn’t start. Winter Blues. It was very frosty, I suspected a flat battery and very little else. I packed the jump leads because my back won’t swing a handle these days and took the every day car so the 56 amp alternator would charge it in no time.

Sure enough, the beast wouldn’t start. The battery had had it, the owner told me. He’d been using the handle for weeks but this time she just wouldn’t go. No kick, no nothing. I looked at the ignition light and it looked healthy enough but while I was there I noticed there was no ticking of the fuel pump. I opened the bonnet.

There was a veritable cauliflower of growth – something like the crystal gardens we used to grow in glass bottles as kids, blue and green and white, all over the battery terminals, the steady bar, the J-bolts, the battery compartment, the earth stud – and most important of all, the mounting bracket for the petrol pump and the pump itself. Under torchlight it looked scary. Like Topsy.

Oh! Said the owner.

We carefully prised off the metalwork without allowing crystals to fall all over the engine compartment and into a plastic bag. The battery went onto the garage floor and had several kettles of boiling water poured all over it. Likewise the petrol pump. Then all went back to my place for a revamp.

The metalwork was scraped with a wallpaper scraper and then into the washing up bowl full of very hot water. This takes off the worst of the crystals. A little Fairy liquid helps it to get under any paint that might be left behind. All the nuts and bolts and battery connections. Thoroughly scrub with the washing up brush and leave to dry on the draining board.

{My proof reader is quite horrified by this! He says it’s because he’s a married man which I don’t understand but he’s absolutely made me take out the bit about the tea towel!]

Anyway, once all this is dry it can be red-leaded thickly with a brush. I have hot air central heating and it’s quite quick. Hammerite and the like doesn’t repel any further attacks but there’s a product called Aciderm made by Crosby Coatings whose telephone number is well out of date. If anyone knows of them please e-mail the site.

Paint the lot and re-assemble. In my case, the acid had eaten too far into the petrol pump and we had to fit a new one. The problem at the end of the day was that the battery had been well over filled, the car used on short journeys and left to stand long periods between, The control box was set too high. One thing leads to another and my new acquaintance had a hell of a problem.

Nuts and bolts and unpaintable bits should be smeared with Vaseline or anti corrosive gel, available from www.vehicleproducts.co.uk It’s a small tube but goes a long way. It’s an endless task especially in damp winter weather.

Odds and Ends

Ok, so what do you pay? Mine is due now and the reminder is for £85.00 which is a fair jump on last year. I’m on 6000 miles and limited use. I don’t insure with the MMOC and on the form where the company asks for the classic car club I usually fail to mention the MMOC and list the two other clubs I’m involved with.  So I wondered what other people pay and had a quick ring around half a dozen people in the local club with similar cars. Seems to me like the club is not negotiating a good deal. Perhaps we need more information and it’s difficult to compare like with like when some people are on 3000 miles but I still get the impression…….. Cade’s Corner. OK, so it’s that sort of article this month. It was to be something along the lines of storing your car on bricks for the winter, [perhaps tongue in cheek] but boredom struck.

My post bag has been busy again lately and some of the items are relevant to all Classic Car enthusiasts, not just the moggy fraternity. My everyday car is a Polo, nothing strange about that. It’s 17 years old, has a Pico expansion box instead of the regular two baffle and deflect silencers, a Webber twin choke in place of the Pierberg that drove me crazy and ended up in the crusher with a Sierra one Saturday Morning. Trouble was, you could still see the little piece of bright aluminium when the Sierra came out as a box! It also has a 56 amp alternator, Radyot driving lamps and Cibie fog lamps. No, there isn’t an external parcel shelf or a go-faster stripe down the side. But it does go like a bat-out-of-Hell. 15” alloys on 45 profile tyres and tuned adjustable rears with gas filled front on stiffened coils. It also has a stereo system. CD player and radio, amp, pre-amp and Pioneer speakers front and rear. The load is 600watts. It’s my last fling before I go grey or even bald and have to Settle Down! [God Forbid!!]

So a guy I know has a Moggy Pickup. He’s done a brilliant job customising it along the same sort of lines as my Polo with hand finished wood flares on the load area. Forty years ago I would have done much the same. Supercharger, perhaps. But his Sound System, two speakers, pre-amp and tuner is 500 watts. I did warn him. [Watts divided by volts equals amps.] One rendition of “Smoke on the water” at full blast and the battery is flat! Dynamo output is 22 amps at 3000 revs. It’s surprising how few Classic Car enthusiasts understand car electrics. If you slot two size AA batteries into your alarm clock and take a reading you’ll find it’s twice that of one battery. Similarly with a car battery. Put two batteries together with links, as in jump starting, and you end up with 24 volts. Starter motor will probably love it just this once but the coil might take a wobbler. No matter what the polarity of a car’s system, jump starting is ALWAYS pos. to pos. and neg. to neg. Another guy who emailed me wanted to know why he always got a belt from his plug leads. I emailed him him back with the explanation this his leads were breaking down and the belt was the result of the HT finding the easiest route to earth – through him and back to the metal of the car. He emailed back to ask why he should get a shock from a twelve volt car. Twelve volts it might be, but the spark that jumps across the contacts of the plugs to create the explosion in the cylinder has to come from a much better source than twelve volts and the coil supplies this. In our cars, with the older coil the voltage is somewhere between 9000 and 11000 volts. This is why it’s called High Tension.

On a slightly more modern car, my Polo, it might 35000 volts. Graphite leads were invented for the Mini Cooper which had a high coil voltage for the plugs that were available then. Copper leads, if you still use them, do leak a little and grabbing them should prove to be just a “tingling” sensation. Any more and your cap and/or leads have had it. And a word on overheating which remains a perennial problem to some people. On the Burnhope Rally recently [Did you visit the Calendar?] one Moggy was ticking over at about 2000 revs in case it stalled and wouldn’t start again. Mr Grumpy’s overheating kit installed too! Some cars seem really prone while others never suffer. Age-old mysteries! I’ve suggested a plate to go between the manifolds, where the inlet sits on the exhaust, to divert the exhaust gasses rather than let them heat the inlet manifold but wonder if I’m simply blowing in the wind. Some feedback from those of you with the problem would be helpful. Mike’s references to Carrie and restoration in last month’s newsletter left me with goose pimples, the shakes and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. God Forbid there be an angle grinder handy! However, a car I bumped into in a car park recently, a trav, had weeds growing out of the woodwork. The driver was young and there was a child seat attached to the passenger seat. The conversation got around to restoration and he was horrified. “Weeds!” he waved his arms. “ My girlfriend planted them one by one from the packet1” Next month, starter motor or dynamo overhaul, watch this space.

Battery Charging

Apologies to readers who can strip a gearbox, replace the layshaft bearings and uprate the Sun gears and synchromesh cones in forty five minutes, and without pin punches, but it seems there are Morris Minor Owners who are very new to their cars, having swapped from Volvo Amazons and the like and have had a really rough ride with their local Kwik Fit Fitter. Really, it¡¦s silly. There are so many Morris Minors you would wonder why Kwik Fit Fitters hadn¡¦t written a computer program for the car!!!!!!

Gone are the days when the bloke next door and him over the road fixed their cars on a Sunday morning. Today, everyone has a company Mondeo and finding someone who knows how jump leads work is another thing. The car goes into the local dealer and a hire car hired at the first sign of the top speed dropping below ninety. My gripes over. Batteries go flat. It¡¦s a fact of life. The colder the weather, the less the voltage and so the higher the current to make things work. If you only do short trips then the battery will not charge with a dynamo. This is a fact of life that would have been well known thirty years ago. So before you blame your battery for being flat, have a little think about your driving habits.

Having said all that, a battery will only last three winters. When did you last buy one? To charge the battery in the kitchen or in the garage, you¡¦ll have to disconnect it. The battery is the square lump at waist level at the back of the engine compartment. It¡¦s held in with a bar of bent steel and two J bolts. Two thick wires come away from the terminals, one each side. The one on the right as you¡¦re looking at it is connected to the car body and is usually a short wire lead. This is the first one to attack. Where it attaches to the battery, there will either be a bolt fixing or a big lead cap with a screw in the top. Undo the screw or undo the nut with a thirteen or fourteen mm spanner and prize the terminal from the battery gently. If it struggles to come off use a blunt screwdriver as a lever underneath and twist the lead or brass terminal. Note whether the terminals are at the front or the back of the battery. Do the same with the other side now. If you only have metric spanners then the J bolts will come undone with a 10mm like-as-not. Undo the nuts only enough for the bar to fall down. Lift the battery out. It might be wise now to remove any old leaves or debris from the battery tray once the battery is out. In the Spring you can repeat this whole operation and paint the battery to try to prevent corrosion.

Your battery charger may have a switch for 6V/12V, make sure it¡¦s set to 12V. Connect the read lead and crocodile clip to the lead battery terminal marked + and the black to – [neg], any lights on the charger should now be lit, plug in the charger and switch on. If you have an ammeter display on the charger, the needle should have moved as you switch on. Charging should be an overnight thing. If it¡¦s early evening, give the charger a few hours, switch off for an hour and then switch on again. If there is a trickle/boost setting, set it to trickle. Make sure the battery is sitting on a few old newspapers in case of acid spillage. Don¡¦t stand over it with a cigarette, the battery emits hydrogen while it¡¦s charging and while there isn¡¦t a lot of it, it can go pop spectacularly. One small note, if you are doing this regularly you¡¦ll need to check the cells for electrolyte [Acid}. Some cells have individual caps you can screw off with a tuppence and others have a long cap that needs to be prized off with an old table knife or similar. The two end cells dry first and if you can see the lead plates above the water then add tap water if it¡¦s an old battery or ionised water from the steam iron or melted from the freezer if it¡¦s a new battery. Just fill until the level covers the plates, no more.

Refitting is a reversal. Make sure it¡¦s a nice snug fit before tightening the bar and fit the other lead, not the earth to the body first. Fire up and away. Coat everything in vaseline if you can, to stop corrosion. Remember, anything you would like to know is only an email away To Freeze or not to freeze¡K¡K.. I don¡¦t know about anyone else but I¡¦ve had a lot of fun this year with the weather, freezing one minute and quite mild the next. It¡¦s been a funny year for frosts, fogs and winds from the south east that bit in to every spanner you picked up. I thought everyone put antifreeze in the radiator in October or November, but I was very mistaken. Modern cars need antifreeze the whole year round because it¡¦s anti-boil as well and the system runs at high pressures that were unheard of in old cars. The antifreeze stops you boiling in traffic jams on the way to Cornwall in July, believe it or not. It also inhibits corrosion which you need with modern aluminium heads and water pumps. It¡¦s not a lubricant though, as the manuals tell you. I wrote an article much like this last year, the subject is so easy. But then not everyone reads this newsletter, more¡¦s the pity.

The girl with the metro should have read it. The temperatures dipped dramatically one night and only the lack of water saved her engine block. The lower hose split so beautifully along its length you¡¦d think there was a Stanley knife involved. But then she didn¡¦t hear the hissing, never noticed the temperature gauge and couldn¡¦t smell anything either because of the Chanel Number 5 or whatever it was. She ground to a halt. In the moggy, well looked after and water topped up regularly [isn¡¦t it?] the damage would be a lot worse and I¡¦m not talking just core plugs. My uncle who should have known better once left his Thames Van parked outside when it should have been in the garage and where he would have remembered to drain the water. [You could do that with the Thames and it was common practise with the old side-valve Fords!] Instead he went to the pub and stayed longer and drank more than he intended. In the morning there was an icicle clinging to the inside of the radiator. The ice had split the core nicely and the leaking water formed the icicle. It¡¦s so easy to drain some water off. There¡¦s a tap on the block under the manifold and usually another under the radiator. Drain off what looks like three pints and fill up with neat antifreeze. Two pints would do in these UK winters, three would take you to the edges of the arctic circle. With the Moggy you can¡¦t drain the whole system like the old Fords. The heater rad stays full. There used to be an optional extra of a leatherette muff for the radiator but few people bought them. The wind chill factor being what it is in modern driving at speed down the salted trunk roads, it¡¦s an idea to use a fertiliser bag and slide it in between the radiator and the grill. That helps the engine warm up quicker and keep your toes warm. If you get stuck in a snow drift with idiots in front who don¡¦t know how to drive then you simple jump out and whip out the bag to stop you over heating. The old AA advice from the fifties still holds good with one or two reservations and additions. Keep a blanket in the car, a rug or an extra anorak, just in case you get stuck. Keep a shovel in the boot. Keep a flask of brandy, sorry coffee, in the glove box. A large bar of chocolate comes in handy as does a supply of Rock and Roll CD¡¦s to help you move to stop frostbite!! If you do get stuck, a mobile phone is the best accessory. At least you can order a pizza!

Get You Home tips

Through your emails and feedback it’s become very obvious that your local KwikFit Fitter is about as much use as a set of metric Torx Bits when it comes to even basic servicing of a 1950’s car. Trouble is, unlike 1965 when I had my first car, all the neighbours have a company Cavalier and not a clue about points and plugs either. There’s no-one to turn to. I hear the same story a couple of times a week. “I’ve had the car in Halford’s and they replaced this and that and it’s no better. What do you think is wrong?”

A Regional Directory of word-of-mouth approved back-street garages would be the answer and perhaps we should, at some stage, work towards that. Not a lot of help when the starter motor won’t turn or the car coughs to a standstill after a few miles every day. Perhaps, since we are into Winter, a few get-you-home tips and perhaps we might get some feedback on simple problems that the franchised dealers can’t fix and I’ll print the solutions here with instructions to print out and take in with the car!! Starter won’t turn. Chances are your battery is flat, there is corrosion on the terminals or on the cables between battery and starter. To get you home, dig out the handle, open the bonnet and insert the handle in the hole in the bumper until it engages in the dog at the front of the engine. Turn the ignition on, set the choke if you have a cold engine and make sure it’s out of gear. Turn the handle clockwise gently until it’s at the bottom and then pull quickly upwards. You may need to do this several times. Starter turns but engine doesn’t fire. If everything is cold and damp it’s probably ignition. Wiping the inside of the distributor cap with a dry towel has been known to work. Wipe the outsides of the HT leads too, the large black wires in the left of the engine. Have someone else spin the engine on the starter, you can often see an HT leak as a spark along the leads. If everything is hot it’ll be petrol.

Leave the ignition switched on and listen for the petrol pump ticking. No tick? Thump it with the wooden handle of a hammer or big screwdriver until it ticks several times in succession. Engine runs but cuts out or misfires after a few miles. Could be lots of things but most likely a worn float chamber valve. Not an easy thing to replace by the roadside even if you carry a spare. Revving the engine helps clear away the excess fuel and might get you a few miles before it happens again. [February newsletter will carry step by step instructions to replace the valve.] Puncture. One wheel nut is too tight and you can’t shift it. If all you have is a silly L-shaped wrench, “borrow” a piece of wood from the nearest fence and use it as a lever across the wrench. Grease the nuts tomorrow. Carry an “instant” puncture repair aerosol and drive home slowly. Fan belt snapped. So be a hero and repair it with your wife’s tights! Be prepared for them melting after a mile or so. A short piece of tow rope is better, especially the sort that splices into itself. Wrap it around the water pump and crankshaft pulleys only and make it home on sidelights without the dynamo. Make a note to carry a spare. No lights. Probably a blown fuse. The headlight fuse is separate from the fuse box in the loom just below and this is usually the cause though god knows why. There should be a spare in the fuse box itself, end on and facing you. Use that and replace it tomorrow. Split water hose. Empty the system completely to get rid of any anti freeze. Repair the split with PVC tape, bandages, torn rags, anything. Refill with plain water from the nearest farmhouse and leave off the radiator cap. This should see you for quite a few miles, but I hope you thought to fill an old pop bottle and carry that along too! As usual, your requests for advice and information are always welcomed.

More homemade heads

Cost: machining and inserts £48.00. gasket set £12.00, small hose and clips, about £2.00 Sucker £0.50, valve paste (Mine has a pre-decimal price tag still on it!) some new valves too, exhaust, take a pattern old one along to your local wholesaler and you might get them, like I did, for two quid the set from the obsolete box. Time, about eleven thirty and into my second glass of wine. My subjects skip and vary depending on the emails for help that I get from various sources and the inevitable winter breakdowns. Someone I know is on his third head in as many months and is contemplating a “real” head from a MM supplier prior to a journey to the Outer Hebrides. This will cost about a hundred and fifty sterling and will probably go to the local KwikFit Fitter to become part of the engine again. The sums above are always presuming you have a standard valve compressor and a torque wrench though before technology was invented I used to swop heads with a piece of wood under my knees and some Williams Superslim OE spanners. Open the drain plug on the radiator and the one on the engine block underneath the manifold and let it all drain out. If you do this while it’s hot, some of the radiator gunge will go with it and also leave you a nice warm block to work on. Undo the accelerator cable from the turn screw at the carb and also the choke cable, don’t lose the screws because they are like rocking horse dung. Fasten the cables back out of the way. Use a ½”AF socket and 6” extension with your ratchet to undo the nuts along the manifold. Retain them, they should be brass, and the large cast washers that go with them. Unhook the manifolds from the suds and slide back without disconnecting the exhaust. Once they have cleared the studs you can let them sit. At the front of the head there is a rubber bypass hose between the head and the water pump, only a couple of inches long. It may be solid rubber or a concertina. Undo the jubilee clips or if you’ve got the original BL ones, cut through the bolts with side cutters, remove the metal clips. Squash the hose in some molegrips and twist a couple of times to release the hold. Remove the heater hose from the back of the head. Remove the heater control wire from the screw if there is one. Save the screw. Remove the advance/retard pipe bracket from the thermostat housing if you have one of the original metal ones. Remove the two bolts securing the rocker cover housing (5/8” if I remember rightly) Lift off the cover and the gasket. Make a note to fill it with paraffin overnight and attack it with an old washing up brush tomorrow. Remove the plug leads and plugs. You are now looking at the head. There are four bolts holding the rocker shaft in place. Undo them gently from one end, a little at a time. You may find the pushrods sticking in their cups as you lift off the rocker shaft. Pull them all out, lift off the shaft and away. The pushrods must go back into their own guides and the easiest way of ensuring all of this is to have a piece of plywood mounted on some 2×1 spacers with holes drilled for the pushrods and holes drilled for the valves, one end marked front. Beware, gunge in the cam followers will make the pushrods stick at the other, unseen end, rattle them well as they come out and don’t be in a hurry. Pop them into their place in the wood. Cylinder head nuts come out in a prescribed order to save distorting the head. Start with the one to the left of the thermostat housing and slacken one quarter turn, next is the one on the right of the housing, next is the back left, back right, second from the front etc until you reach the middle, Now go round and undo each one until there is no resistance and you can remove virtually by hand. All off, all washers off, the head can come off. Sometimes they come off, sometimes they don’t. There are lots of brilliant ideas to get off a bad one, but one that you should never attempt involves a chisel, old screwdriver and a mell hammer. Grab ther thermostat housing in one hand and the heater valve in the other and “rock”. Turn the starting handle a couple of times with the plugs refitted. Tap all round with a hammer against the wooden body of a wire brush. Note that a head will only come “straight” off. If the front is higher, tap it back. When it’s off you can check your pistons for bore wear. The wear is evident if you press a crown with your finger and try and move the piston round in a circle. Some wear “front to back”. Check the ring around the top of a bore with your finger. The ring should be an equal amount in each cylinder. If you’ve got serious movement in one cylinder, or, god forbid, all of them, a set of Cords Rings used to do the trick for another twenty thousand or so. Removing valves is easy with a compressor, a bit scary with a piece of thin timber. One part of the compressor goes under the head in the chamber, against a valve and the other sits on top of the stem. It’s easier to do this with the head on its side. Adjust and then compress the tool, remove the two collets from the stem top and release. Pop the valve and the spring (springs on an A+ 1275) into the drilled hole in the wood. Remove the rest of them If the head is going for machining you’ll need to remove the thermostat housing and the heater valve. These can be stubborn. The thermostat housing can even disintegrate. Get another from a scrapyard from a mini/MGB/etc Studs may come out complete with nuts but no matter. The remnants of the gasket will need to come of the cylinder head and a wallpaper scraper is the best tool, followed by sandpaper for the bits but go easy with it. Off she goes for new valve seats. Only the exhaust valve seats are renewed. Obtain your new valves ready for the head coming back from the machinist. Have it done locally. There is a machine shop near you, honestly. Grinding your new valves in brings into focus a high technology tool called a sucker. Basically, it’s a double ended piece of round wood with a sucker at each end. With the head upside down and the ports facing you, take a valve, smear it with coarse grinding paste and attach the sucker to the face. Pop the valve stem into the guide and rotate with the sucker between your palms, backwards and forwards, lift and move the valve to a new spot. Keep replacing the paste on the seat. Lift it out and wipe the past off the seat, if the surface is an even matt finish, you’re nearly there. Wipe the seat clear of paste and apply fine grinding past and do the same all over again. Now, when you wipe it clean it really should be a very even surface, matted and not in the least bit shiny. Build the head leisurely, take your time, grind in the four new valves and the four existing inlet valves providing they are OK. You can compare faces, the sloping part you are grinding. If the inlet faces are getting thin then you may as well invest in some new ones too, Assemble up with your compressor, rubber seal from your gasket set and then spring from the pile on your piece of wood, top and collets. I presume you attacked any carbon around the compression chamber underneath? Clean the gasket residue off the block face, especially around the studs. Pop the gasket on. It’s marked “front” and “top” or should be. Pop the head on. Pop the little rubber bypass hose on with its clips. Fasten up all the cylinder head nuts, washers or studs finger tight. Go around with the ratchet and fasten them all “just say tight”. Go around again, clockwise from the middle, the opposite of loosening, and “nip”. Then go around again with the torque wrench set at 40lbs. But take it easy, just a “nip” at a time until you get there. The rocker shaft goes on at 25lbs. Remember the pushrods first and make sure they are all seated in the sockets of the rocker shaft before you start to tighten. Everything else goes back exactly as it came off except that you will need to do your tappets. Set them at 14 thou, turn the engine either with the handle or starter, no plugs in and then set them again. This should give you the clearance to start the engine but once it’s warm, reset at 12 thou. (remember the rule of nine!! No1 tappet with number eight fully depressed) Re torque the head at 100 miles, engine cold and reset the tappets afterwards. Check the torque at five hundred and reset the tappets. Change the oil and filter after you fit the new head and again at 100 miles. Life is not easy on 1950’s technology.