November 61 morris deluxe

[mk1]

Luigi,

I had a good look at your car at the weekend, sorry not to have met you too.

It is a lovely original little thing a great basis for you to find & finish the odd missing detail.

On a separate note, the Almond Green Cooper next to your car. Do you know anything about it it looked awesome.

[Luigi64]

Hi,

Would have been nice to see you and thanks for the compliments about her, any guidance as to what you think I should do to her please say!

That car is my Uncles. it was on a farm round the corner from our workshop for 20 years, He had it soley to teach his children to drive on the farms driveway. The owner finally gave in around 5 yeards ago and sold it to us and that is how she has been as my uncles daily driver ever since... Plan is to restore it at some stage however she did get a hell of a lot of attention this weekend so maybe she will stay like that a little longer!

Cheers,
Lewis

[mk1]

so maybe she will stay like that a little longer

I do hope so. It was the car of the show for my money!

[Luigi64]

I will pass the kind words on.

If you knew how much/how little he paid for it you may not say the same thing!

Hope to get to meet you some time soon!

[mk1]

The price is totally irrelevant!

The thing about that little Cooper was that it was genuine & original, the work that had been done had been to enable it to be kept going and it had never been pampered or spoiled rotten by a poor "restoration".

It was an absolute GEM.

Any chance of posting some pictures here? I am sure that lots of other members would be very keen to have a look.

[Luigi64]

I will get some pictures of her when im next at the unit
Its a 64 cooper 998 with Hydro suspension althought it appears the front and rear are no longer connected.. not sure why.
It has had a lot of floor patches over the years before we got it.
Ideally it needs a new set of inner and outer a panels, scuttle, front end.

[Luigi64]

First time at a show, Stanford hall

[Luigi64]

Been working hard on the bodywork over the last week and also the interior has handsome work and a good clean, ready for a show tomorrow

[Luigi64]

Hi everyone,

The time has come to rework and rebuild my 61, I’ve never been happy with the panel fit or paint quality so the major jobs revolve around those. I will also be trying to add more period parts
To get her as close to original as poss. I must confess to planning on fitting an alternative to the
850 that she should be driven by. Before I get into the progress pics. Here’s some as she last saw light of day.





Gardeners world cameo!

[Costafortune]

I had 7134DD back in 1984! That was an Austin.

[Old English White]

I owned 9025 DD in the 1970s which was an Austin Mini Super in Tartan Red/Black
Good luck with the bodywork on your car. Getting good panel gaps on an old Mini is not always easy

[Luigi64]

I owned 9025 DD in the 1970s which was an Austin Mini Super in Tartan Red/Black
Good luck with the bodywork on your car. Getting good panel gaps on an old Mini is not always easy

Hopefully the poor panel fit is due to the door skin fitment not the A panel, I am fully ready to cut it all off and start again if I have to!

[Luigi64]

Hi All,

over the last few months I have been cracking on with the car- unfortunately my work gets in the way a lot. If I am not travelling with the F1 circus I am back at base working on customer cars so progress is slow.

In short, the car has been bodged.. I am quite surprised by this given the previous owners 'reputation' but never the less I will return her to her former glory in due course.

So the first steps - strip the engine etc out and make a start. Basically I decided the front wings were going to need to come off because of the poor repairs and panel fit. Once these were off, it was clear the front panel needed some attention and so did the scuttle.
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr

4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
The repairs:
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr


Next step - the dreaded door fit. I decided to start with the cheapest option, a reskin. unfortunately once I removed the skin I realised the door had been poorly repaired and I decided to buy a new set and see how these fitted, in short - they didn't. So I moved onto the a panels, guess what.. another poor repair. So they came off too. once I had the new panels all together, I still couldn't get the gap I wanted so I made the brave/stupid decision to remove the skin from the brand new door(this felt like I was cutting my own skin)
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr
4956 DD by Lewis fox, on Flickr

unfortunately with the F1 season in full swing and an ever expanding business I don't get the time I would like to keep making progress. Currently the Inner a panel is dry fitted using screws and the outer is clamped. The door is almost fitting how I want and ready for the skin to be fitted properly. hopefully I will make some more progress soon.

However I did buy this lovely Barwell head which is now awaiting some X-ray and Dye Pen NDT before it goes off to the machine shop.

Barwell Head by Lewis fox, on Flickr

[Luigi64]

Annoyingly I can't find a good hosting site that I can resize the images on, so I have had to put them as links rather than embedding them, sorry!

[Daz1968]

I use Flickr for my pictures seems to work ok

[Luigi64]

pics sorted in the earlier post

[AndyB72]

Looks like the Barwell head has gone to a good home.
Keep us posted with any progress.