1946 Morris 8 Series E - off to storage

Nice build! Looks like you've got a great workshop to play in too!

Is there a reason you build bespoke wishbones instead of using something from another car?

All excellent reasons, carry on

So made a little bit of progress with the morris. Made the jig for the upper rear wishbones.







Also went and picked this up as a parts car for the morris. Was rather fun driving it, so have decided to drive it round for a while. Managed to source a load of parts from a local crashed MX5 both bits for the morris, and bits for the MX5.



The passengers side rear arch looked ok, but something didnt seem right to me so thought i'd have a dig about with my trusty exploring hammer......





Unsurprisingly it was uber bodged. Welded plate over the rust hiding it all in side. It looked like there had been two previous repairs made to it, and all the poor work hidden by about 1/2" of filler.

I started making some quick repair pieces and got to use my shrinker / stretcher i bought a good while ago but never needed to use.



Was surprising easy to use, and really effective.







I've bought some sill patches and will hopefully fit them next weekend.

I'm only intending to do a couple of quick tidy up / fixes them actually use the mx5. don't wont to spend loads of time doign that instead of the morris.

Hmm. Been a while since I did an update. Been away for a week and also been doing some home improvements which have eaten up a lot of my spare time.

I made the upper rear wishbone for the passenger side (no pics, but the same as above).

Test fitted and engine and gearbox (both mx5 as this is what I had lying about. Needed to re-position the front bulkhead gearbox opening to give greater clearance for my feet. Still going to be pretty tight in there and definitely wont be driving in work boots!










Made a start on the jig for the lower (and upper) front wishbone. This has taken me ages, although not too sure why. Probably due to the amount of hacksawing thick steel and it tiring me out i think!



The D and P 's are to remind me which holes to use for drivers and passenger sides (they're offset to the mounts by about 25mm so getting them wrong will nicely cock up the suspension :-)












I also spent most of today machining up the bits for the lower wishbones and the adjuster bushes. Just got to turn up a couple of small bosses and i'm good to start fabricating. Unlike on the rear i made them all in one batch so i don't need to go and re-visit for the next wishbone.










It'll probably be another couple of week till any more progress is made, mainly due to work on the house, gigs, and some last bits of studio work.

You got some links to where to get them? As when I've looked for them in the past I've not been able to find any, at least not any that aren't made the same way.

Or if not, any idea what the proper name for them is?

Thanks. I'll look into those.

Pop Brown sells them, Not sure of the thread though,

www.popbrowns.co.uk/pdf/Catalogue.pdf

Not really had chance to do much on the morris for a while.

I've been doing a fair bit of work on working out what i'm going to do pedal wise. It is very tight around the footwell. Still, having made some models i think there is just about enough room width and length wise to get it all in.



The grey box is showing the space envelope for the pedal area. This is fixed by the bulkhead and gearbox tunnel.

Doable, but wont be able to drive in boots though....



This is the start of the actual assembly to be made (the other is a rough mockup). I may have got a bit carried away with it as all the pedals presently feature roller bearings in them...

Apart from that i've welded in the roof cross braces and made up the harness bar.... but forgot to take any pics.

I was using the lathe to make up some bobbins for a removable front cross brace and the power tripped off. After doing some investigation it turned out one of the windings has failed and iscauing a earth leak. Que new motor...

This turned up and I decided that i may as well replace the belt at the same time as they're all looking a bit worn. When setting up to do this I noticed how filthy the lathe was (i hadnt cleaned it fully after the last owner used it to machine some wood)so decided to give it a bit of a once over.....

I may have got carried away.....



















Turns out that its all in pretty good order. A small amount of wear is starting on the main shaft bearing, but its only minor and there's no movement on it. The other bearing are pretty good too.

Today i should have been doing more, but having been out last night my productivity has been very low.