Work on the car.
As you can see from the pictures below the poor Morris is in a bit of a state!
It started off when the MOT ran out. At the time the front brakes were as useful as throwing a brick out the window on a piece of string! After a few heart-stopping moments (one included the need to throw the car into a T-junction!) I knew that it was time to rebuild them. While it was off the road I though I might swell get these two tiny bits of rust sorted out. The rust was in the typical Morris Horror spots, just behind the back window where the roof meets the rest of the car. It was only about a 2p size area of bubbling paint on either side but because it was right in the middle of two joins it meant that I would have to have the top and the bottom of the car done! (The roof needed doing anyway)
So with the idea of a full re-spray in mind I started to prepare the car. After stripping a few things out I realised that the engine bay could do with a good re-spray as well so out came the engine. With most of the running gear off I though I might as well do the entire underside. I was planning on sandblasting the old paint and under seal off and then starting again from scratch. Ah! Another problem! The entire steering etc would get grit in it so off came ALL of the running gear! With all that out there wasn’t much left to the car so I decided at this point that 'what they hell' I might as well do a proper job and do a full rebuild!
Below is a photographic record of the work I have carried out so far. Enjoy!
The car is coming along nicely now, While I have been back at home for the Easter Holidays I have been able to roll the car over onto a matress and start cleaning the underside. Years and years of road grime and old underseal clung to the bottom of the car like tar. Some layers where dry and flakey while some areas where gungey and wet. The bottom line was that it was so old it was alowing water to get underneath it and start attacking the metal work.
After ALLOT of elbow grease and late nights scraping the underside of the car it was ready to be painted. I had already painted a small rear section to see how the paint would hold and to stop the bare metal from rusting.
This is the car tucked away in the garage ready to start stripping down all the crud on the underside.
Getting the car into the garage was allot of fun! we ended up making a pulley system that tied onto the front of the car and then ran to the back of the garage, round a pulley bolted to the bench (which was bolted to the wall and floor) then back down the drive to my mums car :-) lukily she did not see all this until it was too late! she poked her head out the front door just as her car went flying down the driveway and the morris came shooting back up into the garage. With a little guidance from friends and with the matress tied to the car, it went in a dream.
By the end of the day I had managed to get the car in the garage, clean up a bit of the back of the car, clean it up and paint it in red-oxide primer. Not bad for the first day.
Little did I know when I started this job that it would be the hardest and most frustraiting job I have done to date. Everything so far had gone very well but getting all the rubish off the bottom of the car was pure hell! There were areas where the scrapers wouldnt get to or panels that were too pitted/bent. then ontop of that some bits of underseal just wouldnt budge! after about a week of scraping and washing with white spirit the underside was clean and ready for the re-oxide. Above is a picture showing the car with the whole underside done. I was so relieved at this point!
Now the restoration started to pick up speed again. After a few days when the red-oxide had completely dried the morris was dragged out the garage again and the first coat of Hammerite went on. The bottom of the car started to look realy slick now.
While this was going on all the suspension parts were stripped down and hammerited, new polybushes, new brake cylinders, new brake pipes, new springs and new dampers ordered all round.
Now all of the rear suspension was ready it was fitted to the bottom of the car while it was on its side to make it easier. The the original castors were tied to the front again and the car was rolled back over.
Now the front wheel arches could be worked on. They had the same treatment as underneath, they were cleaned up (back to metal) red-oxide primed and then painted in several coats of hammerite.
Still needs lots of painting on rear arches and under the floor (Where the steering rack is), in the boot and the floor inside. At least now there is some good progress happening and it is slowly now going back together.