Here's the latest update on Morrie. I have the roll bar installed and the seats mounted. Will post more photos later.
Here is a better photo of the roll bar and seats and column mount. Next comes the carpet and and wiring. I still need to install the swing outs for the roll bar door bars.Getting too old to climb over the bars for every day street driving and this will be my daily driver when I am not riding my motorcycle.
It's alive! I got the car wired and fired it up last week. I am hanging the doors and installing the windows. As soon as I finish the front brakes and give it a final nut and bolt check .It will be ready for a road toast. I will post some tire tread adjustment pictures as soon as I have them
Took the Morris for a short ride up my road the other night. A few bugs to work out,but it feels like it is going to be a good build. The car went straight and stopped like it should. It needs some carb tweaking and more gear,but that is minor stuff. I will get some more photos of my hi-po beer can as soon as I can. Southcross
My first ride was my last ride for a year and a half! Shortly after my last post ,my ex-wife now got seperated and she kept the car locked up in the garage under the house I bought her. The divorce was final last summer and she still hung onto the car until last week.I went to Tn. and brought the car home to Fl. I took my second ride in it two days ago. It was much better than the first ride.Now I can go ahead and finish the car the way I had planned almost two years ago. I will start posting some more photos as I take them. Don't let the small things halt your dreams,just have faith and stay focused. You never know how these things will work out.
Neat little ride. Glad you were able to keep it. I worked on one of them, a sedan del, probably 20 yrs ago, we put a healthy 231 Buick, 350TH, monza rear in it. Fun even with that engine. Must be a blast with a real one in it. It went to St Louis, never heard of it again. The owner was about 6' 9" tall, so I had to move the seat back into the cargo area about a foot. You couldn't even see him when he was driving it.
I have, today, just bought 3 of them and a Cortina station wagon. Not sure of what I will do with them yet. But they sure are cool cars. Have had an MM van, MM ute, MM 2door & MM 4 door in the past.
I see this one locally from time to time and it is such a well built and well thought out little truck. They make great hot rods whether 4 banger or V8 powered....
Well after a complete check out the Morris is roadworthy. I drove it to work and with the cost of gas it will be my daily driver.With the 3.00 gear and overdrive it is turning 1200 rpm's at 55mph.A lot cheaper than my Hemi crewcab. Who needs to put a 4cyl. in when you can have a real motor that sounds like a hot rod and not like a turd car with a Grapefruit shooter on the back.
There is (was) a guy in Springfield Missouri that has a Pick Up that he tried to sell to me. I thought he was a little pricey, $3500. They are great little cars. A friend of mine years ago had one of the little station wagons. They make great gassers. Later, Dick
We put a Ford ZeTech motor, Yamaha bike carbs and a Mazda 5 speed in my brothers Morris.............runs a little better than the stock forty horse motor.
Here are some photos of the Morris Minor at it's first car show and getting some pin striping.It drives really well,but needs more gear. With a 3.00 gear and the AOD it is turning 1200 rpm's at 55mph and it is almost lugging the motor at lower speeds unless I manually downshift. So I am going to go to a 3.70 gear which should help and I am going to put 6 in wide front wheels and put some 195/60-15" tires on the front.I need to widen the track a little.
Update on my Morris Minor. I had some bump steer issues and am adding a bump steer kit to lower the tie rod ends. I am also adding a rear sway bar to try and stop the car from unloading when I lift from full throttle. the car gets a little spooky when the weight transfers back to the front end. I have a 4.11 posi chunk to stick in the car and a pair of aluminum heads and a Comp 35-440-8 cam to make it even more fun to drive. Short wheelbase overpowered cars are so much fun. Moving into my new shop, the car is still my daily driver and the changes will have to wait for me to build benches and plumb and wire my shop.
I have changed the heads and cam and stuck the 4.11's in and it really can to life.Still drive it almost daily.Have not been to the track yet,waiting for cooler dryer weather down here in Fl.
I drove my wife, who was in labor to the hospital in England in my 1953 MM in 1968. I used all 30 horses to achieve a top speed in the high 50s while wishing I had used my reenlistment bonus to buy a sports car.
What a great looking little Morris! Hard to stuff that much engine in it and still retain the sleeper look, but yours is as close as they can get! I love small/light cars with big engines! To me it's the meaning of hotrod.
Poll. When I go to cruise-ins or car shows ,I get about a 50-50 opinion about paint. Some say don't paint it.Some say when are you going to paint it. I have the paint to paint it Lime Green Pearl,but what to do if I get it it done and don't like it. I have struggled with this for months.How about a poll ,maybe that will help me decide.This is the way it looks now.
Nice build, good you got it back. As far as paint my thought is do whatever you want, of course they could always pay for the new paint job.
I don't know if this has turned out to be a "Morris" thread. A friend of mine used up a lot of extra '39 parts on his Morris, man he had a lot of hours shrinking sheet metal to fit....
The Jalopy Journal
