Front Panel and Badge for sale.

Yes a front panel with a good bottom edge for sale and it even comes with a badge!

Offers please.

MINI E-BAY

Bidder 1 £100

Bidder 2 £200

Bidder 1 £150?

Bidder 3 £225

These are firm bids, in writing via e-mail, any more any one?

New Shock absorbers for ROD525.

Hi all, not much progress to the vehicle fleet this week but felt I had to replace the front shock absorbers on the pick-up truck.

These are the same as the later vehicles its just the method of retaining that is different. On the early pre 1956 approx they are held in with good old bolts and washers, on the later vans they used washers and large split pins, see previous pictures of OBL432 new front shock absorbers.

I now have a cheaper supplier of these, this set was £16.50 each plus postage.

I have the following spares in stock,

One front grill panel (Morris) £ ask

One king pin set original type £30

One king pin set later type J2  £10

Pair of front shocks, New old stock, see above £33

One axle set of new bonded brake shoes £35

One very rusty 15 inch wheel rim £ free!

One Lucas PCL6 lighting/ignition switch, only needs a key FP743, I will get one shortly. £ offers.

All plus postage unless you pop in for a coffee.

Camber,Castor,Toe-in and K.P.I.

The four things that govern front wheel alignment, so your driving a J and not a wonky wheeled shopping trolley.

Correct Camber and Castor is pre-set and would only alter if the front axle is bent or you have forgotten to fit the aluminium wedges under the leaf springs.

K.P.I. King Pin Inclination is machined into the castings and would only alter if the king pins or bushes were badly worn. So regular greasing is very important. Always make sure clean grease comes out of both top and bottom of each bush.

The main adjustment is of course Toe-in.

J types toe-in 3mm, a method of checking and adjusting toe-in is in the workshop manuel and is easy to do. You could try taking your J to a tyre fitting bay that also does wheel alignment but you will find they will ask you the degree angle of toe in not a measurement in millimeters. They will guess the adjustment.

Do it yourself by the book or get a plastic drive on tracking plate for about £25.

Did you know that the type of front axle on J type is called a reverse Elliot? Why? Because the king pins incline inwards but the road wheels incline outwards.

Mr Maurice, an understanding vehicle restorer.

Here is the business card of MTR Restorations. As a fellow old vehicle owner he understands the type of vehicles we love.

Having seen his workmanship I can honestly say his panel work/welding is first class.

I have trusted him already with one of my vehicles and the JB van is next in line for his excellent talents. 

So if you need help with welding work on your project, contact Maurice a quality restorer. "Mr Magic with a M.I.G.".

Sorry about the quality of the above scan, my scanner is playing up.

Some progress this weekend!

Close up of one axle end, near side.
New king pin and bushes fitted, using the modified type.
A nice pair of stub axles and back plates.
Four of the stubborn king pins.
One front axle and four stub axles all in a heap, this cottage industry of mine is taking off, stub axles refurbished while you wait. At least I can do all this in the dry, this summer has been such a wash out round here, I hope you have had better.

Well I have made some progress this weekend, J wise, I have been in the dry i.e. the garage rebuilding two, yes two front axles.

I got the local garage to press out two king pins for me, their press went up to 18 ton's of pressure to push out the pins.

Well I then only had to do a bit of reaming on the new bushes and have started to reassemble the front axle. 

I hope my purchaser turns up  this weekend.!

No van progress this week!

Well as you can tell from the title I have been unable to work on either of my two j types this week. The reason, summer rain or in my case last weekend flooding!

Last Sunday we ended up with rain all day and then a cloud burst in the afternoon leaving us with 4 inches of water all over the rear garden.

I will try to do a bit over the weekend, check out the blog on Monday.

I hope you all have a dry weekend.

How to fit an alternator to a Jb.

This is the kit I used at the time. It came with most of the bits that you require. The only extra parts are some connectors and two battery clamps.

The current price of this kit is £60.00. I purchased it from www.morrisminorspares.co.uk p/no ALT200. I bought a kit so I would have all the bits and not a scrap yard, unknown condition second hand unit.

You can get kits from many part suppliers or if your inclined you can visit your local scrap yard.

I fitted an alternator to my JB type soon after I got it, I have recently been asked how you do this and so as I still have the pictures I took then, this is how I did it.

First I must explain, my dynamo at the time was noisy so needed repair and I remembered from my previous JB that at night with lights on and wiper motor switched on the dynamo was only just coping with the load.

Another advantage of an alternator is that they have a more sensitive control of their output and do not over charge the battery.

Over charging heats the battery, distorts the lead plates and excessive gassing will consume distilled water leaving the plates/cells dry.

First thing, disconnect your battery, chassis earth terminal first.

So remove your old dynamo, remove rear support bracket, fit new longer bracket, fan belt and adjust the belt in the normal way.

If you have used your old fan belt, you might find that the alternator pulley now touches the throttle shaft that passes across the front of the engine. This is due to the fact the alternator pulley is smaller than a dynamo's, the alternator will spin faster so it will charge the battery on "tick-over". Use the one in the kit, or visit Halfords for a smaller one.

Once fitted and adjusted you will have to remount the coil, I used the top rear bracket mounting bolt. This has been fine for the last four years and has caused no problems.

Now the tecnical bit! You can wire this alternator "earth sensing" or "battery sensing".

If you have no extra electrical items i.e.  a standard van, wire it "earth sensing" and you do not need any extra wires.

If you have fitted extra driving lamps/fog lamps/heated rear window/heated seats/ sat nav/etc etc, you will have to update your wiring.

For this blog I will cover the easy way.

The two wires that were on the dynamo, thick and thin, the thick wire is the out-put wire and if not already fitted with a spade terminal fit one from the kit or join to the prewired plug that fits in the rear of the alternator, repeat with thin wire.

So thick wire, wired to large spade terminal on alternator (there are two large terminals and you can use either one of them).

Thin wire to small spade terminal on alternator.

The next part is to bypass the old regulator and just leave it as a terminal box.

Remove the large wire from the "D" terminal and connect it to terminal "A".

The two small wires on the "F" terminal, remove them from the regulator box and join them together. From now on terminals "D+F" must remain empty.

Nearly done now! 

If the vehicle is not already negative earth you will have to turn the battery round and fit new battery terminals. (do not connect up just yet)

If it was positive earth, swop over the wires on the ammeter and swop over the two wires to the coil.

The last thing to do is to make sure you have tighten all the bolts up and all wires are connected to the right terminals, wires have been routed  so there are no short circuits/trapped wires etc.

Fit the battery terminals to the battery, with the negative terminal wired to the chassis.

Now start the engine, the ammeter will no doubt show a very high charge rate but will soon drop down to a "normal rate".

Now that you are negative earth you can fit "modern" electrical items like a radio or even electronic ignition to improve the vehicles performance and economy.