Tags
Bonnet, boot, Doors, gaps, Guards, Morris Minor, Panel Fitting
The last 4 weeks has been dedicated to doing a final fit up of panels. The car will be sent off to a panel beater / spray painter (once I find one) to do all the exterior finishing. My hope is to present them with a car that is well fitted together so that any imperfections are easy to spot and be fixed and they know the standard of fit I expect as a bare minimum when they hand the car back.
A fellow Minor owner once said to me ” get two minors side by side and the only thing that will be same about them is that nothing is the same”. Truer words are rarely spoken.
This Minor is a conglomerate of three different vehicles, with some other spares thrown in and reproduction parts purchased almost 30 years ago. To get them to fit in a reasonable manner has been a struggle that would have tested the most patient, but again with the help of my father and brother it seems we have to old girl back together with most of her wrinkles ironed out.
As a rough guide, it took about 4 hours per panel. So left hand front guard 4 hours, right hand front door – 4 hrs, Bonnet – 4 Hrs …and so on and so on. It just seemed to be the way it was. Whatever we went to bolt on, regardless of how straight forward it looked, it ended up taking a full half day. The right hand doors required shims on the two lower hinges. Front bottom 1.5mm. Rear bottom 1.0mm. The left hand doors trimmed in ok with multiple minor adjustments of the hinge locations. The front guards, being reproduction have always been a worry. There has always been the feeling that they are just ever so slightly out. In the end they trimmed in pretty well with a couple of 1mm spacer washer required on the door end of the left hand guard. The one big thing that fitting the front guards taught us is this, and pay note. There is a box strip of metal that sits out from the bottom of the side of the A-Pillar. In this body the left hand one had been flattened and the right hand one broken off. I had never paid them much attention and wasn’t really sure of their purpose (or worth). You will not get the guards trimmed in properly without them!! They stop the back edge of the guard from flexing inwards towards the pillars when you are pulling the fronts of the fronts guards into position. If they are missing, makes some new ones and fix them on. It will save you a lot of swearing.
The back guards went on ok, with the right hand needing two of the bolt slots on the guards elongated about 2mm. The boot was a good fit once the fixing mechanism was adjusted properly. The bonnet also took a fair bit of fiddling with the hinges and the final left right adjustment was achieved with the sliding adjustment not the bonnet catch. Hockey stick a little bit of whole rounding with a rat-tail file and the top chrome finishing strip will need to be packed with some 1mm washers to bring it out to the hockey sticks finishing surface.
The bumper valances and side finishing strips will all now be sanded back to bare metal and primed, fitted to the car and we will be just about ready to go searching for a good painter / panel beater. Big project, end in sight.