1970 Morris Oxford - 20/9/24 -

Yeah, alls good; been decluttering, sorting through approx 3,000 comics and still stripping that damn Rover.



Oh, and keep those TR6 rims on the rear of the Farina. Phwoar.

Hello Richie! With the money I have spent on garage rent in the years I've been doing this car I could have bought a really nice example over here without having to drag one half way round the world! But I've owned this car for half my life, it dragged me to and from university, my wife accepted my proposal while we were sat in it, it took us away from our wedding ceremony, my daughter came home from hospital in it.....etc.

If you PM me your email address I can email that article.Would love to see what you're getting up to with yours

Progress on this has been rather hit and miss over the last couple of months. MOT work on the other cars took up muck of my 'car-time' plus life happenings somewhat reduced what time was available. Hopefully things have settled down a bit now so I'm trying to get stuck back in.

Within a day or two of chopping that bit of inner wing out something appeared on Ebay that I had to have. A NOS inner wing. Never seen one for sale before and the timing couldn't have been more perfect as I was even able to pick it up myself from Walsall on a drive back home from Manchester. The BL sticker is dated 1973 so presumably a post end of production panel for crash repair purposes.



I was not really wiling to try and fit it as a whole unit as that would have required dismantling that corner of the car to a rather extreme level. But it is providing ready made, perfectly matching repair sections. Before getting in to that I repaired this small part of the door shut area to try and keep a good solid datum for the end of the wheel arch/door area.



With the donor sections ready made I chopped out a bit more of the old inner wing to hopefully make fitting a bit easier.



The chopped out bit made a useful guide for where to chop my virgin panel. I like the fact that my repair section has the rippling as a result of the stresses from the original press tooling.



Taking care not to cut too much off and with the plan to use the rest of the inner arch lip off the new panel as well, this is where I got to earlier today.



I think my current plan is to get this fitted, then do the outer sill and then hang up the welder for a while and do something more interesting.

Last week the outer sill finally went on and then on Sunday I sorted out the front closing area.



Yesterday I spent a rather horrible amount of time on my back under the car getting rid of any loose old underseal, wire brushing all over the place and then painting any bare sections. I am of the view that the original gooey gunk is very good where it is still stuck and the car is never going to be a concours weapon so I'm not about to strip everything bare and try and get it all shiny under there. Copious Dinitrol will get applied at a later date.



It felt a bit odd to be working on the car with no intention of cutting/welding steel. I wasn't sure what to do and have so many things buzzing round my head about wiring/plumbing etc. So I decided to empty the boot and get all the trim panels out. I was pleasantly surprised to find a proper SU fuel pump under there as I have no recollection of buying that one. I've got a larger MGB type one to go on though. The floor is in mostly very good order too. It never really suffered from water ingress when the car was on the road and its all quite oily/greasy too.



A battery was borrowed to consider probable locations.



I also made a start on the long planned hidden brake plumbing by positioning the original 5 way block. Need to make a spacer for it to move it away from the bulkhead a little so there is room for the light switch.



Next time more brake plumbing I think.

Seth

This car is the reason I am on RR. I have been following it's progress from the beginning. Glad to see that it is getting more love and is going to last forever.

Good luck with it and thanks.

Love this thread. I have just restored a Riley 4/68 for a friend. No two panels are the same so its a constant fight to get the correct gaps. Keep up the great work.

Still trudging along with this, in between life, having a holiday etc.

Brake plumbing is now pretty much finished though nothing tightened up as it'll probably all be coming off again for undersealing etc. Here's the four way block under the dash with the bulkhead fittings (lower one is for the clutch pipe which is yet to be done.) Also visible here is the bracket for the throttle pedal which is now welded to the pedal box rather than being bolted in using a couple of bent pieces of steel from the lower pedal box bolts.



Master cylinders were put in place to allow forming the feeds to those bulkhead fittings. All quite tight for space but there is just enough room to turn a spanner where needed.



There's been more wiring progress too and that is now pretty much all complete as far as the dash/bulkhead is concerned. Engine loom and front lights loom need connectors fitting but that has to wait until I know the steering column is fitted for the last time. Which means the engine bay needs finishing/painting. So next on the list is arranging the front wings to bolt in and making sure absolutely all welding/metalwork is done in that area.

When I repaired the edges of the scuttle they ended up low at the front pointed section which has become more apparent now the wings are being fitted. So I sliced along the top edges and lifted the front up a bit.



Then welded it all back up in that position. Some filler will still be needed here but not 1/4" of it...



With the wing in place I marked evenly spaced positions and drilled through the wing and the top inner wing rail.



The some hi-tech equipment was utilised...



... to dimple the holes in the wing.



Stainless csk screws then welded in to place in the dimple. I also replaced about a 6" long section of the channel where it had been damaged when removed - this is the second hand wing that is still very good but not perfect.



With the screws fully welded and the welds ground back in the channel I am left with a row of studs in the wing. So the finished item will be bolt on with pretty much no visible fixings.



At the back corner, where the wing was originally brazed or welded to the scuttle I have made sure to have a little overlap. When the wings are finally fitted there'll be a bead of sealant here to stop water from dripping in to the engine bay side of the inner wing but I have also filed a notch in the outer wing channel, and shaped the metal underneath to allow it do drain underneath down the A pillar.

Must admit, I get excited when I see an update on this. Such a cool car.