'64 Aussie Morris 850

[roger mcnab]

hi tim
you scored a bargin with those tools some people seem to toss all sort of stuff it would have been a shame for them to go to land fill
cheers roger

[AndyPen]

I was left a Gedore socket set when I was in my 20s. Still have it and use it to this day

[timmy201]

End of the year update:

In October we had a Minis in the Gong trip up through the Southern Highlands, morning tea stop at Moonacres in Robertson & had another nice lunch at Sutton Forest Inn. There was only a few minis along for the trip, but we had a nice smooth drive and not much traffic


I was happy with how well it’d been running, so for the past few months I’ve been driving it to work once or twice a week. It’s been nice to have it fire right up, idle smoothly and generally work like a car without any problems. I’ve also been happy with the mixtures on the HIF44 and I’ve taken out the O2 sensor for the moment. I think ultimately it's not quite as responsive and fast as with the Dellorto, but it is definitely "nicer" and easier to drive



On the middle December weekend we headed up to Warragamba Dam for the Mini Club Christmas picnic. There was a great turnout & we found some nice roads on the way there and back via Cobbity and The Oaks














On the way home I ended up with a few freebies, one being a disassembled remote gearbox and the other being a mystery rocker covered in masking tape.




It turned out to be a chromed Aussie rocker cover




And a few months back I spotted a Maxrob on facebook marketplace for a super good deal. It's a mini boss & horn trim ring, unfortunately it must have been held together with sticky tape and needs a good polish. The trim ring I think will end up on my 15" wood rim (that I finished a year ago and still haven't fitted)

[timmy201]

I decided it was finally time to get the rear radius arms rebushed. The LH side has had a little bit of play for a while, and I'm due for a new set of tyres soon and prior to that I'd like to install my KAD rear camber/toe brackets to get the new tyres wearing correctly.

I'd previously worked out that I could remove the rear radius arms without removing the shocks (as I didn't want to have to remove the fuel tanks at this point in time) so this was the plan:
Remove radius arms
Get arms rebushed
Assemble using the KAD camber toe brackets
Get a 4 wheel alignment
Get some new tyres

Day 1 - I started on the LH side. Drums came off next, hub grease caps, hubs, brake backing plate, Hilo and cone, handbrake cables.


As this was the first time I'd attempted to remove any rear arms it took a while to work out the order (and attempt to work around things like the fuel pump which was in the way of the inner radius arm nut). Unfortunately one of the bolts into the subframe broke on the way out, but at least the pin was confirmed to be quite worn and pitted.


The bush inside the arm was also scored and worn


There were some good things, like how nice the subframe looked in a few spots like behind the cone.


Day 2 - After the struggle of the LH side I thought that the RH side would be a little easier as I'd worked out the disassembly order. I spent a long time trying to undo the inner radius arm nut as it was obscured by the brake line from the limiting valve to the RH softline. I ended up having to remove the short line to get access (after spending too much time trying to do it the "easy way"). Cleaning up the dirt in the wheel tub revealed the original red painted sound deadening, which was nice to see.


Day 3 - I cleaned up the arms as they had 60 years of solidified grease and dirt. I found some paint splotches on the bottom, which might be factory marks? The LH arm had a grey/orange colour and the RH arm had blue.


The RH arm was actually in decent condition considering I think it's the original. The rubber seals were also still soft and stretchy


Day 4 - At this point I'd come to terms with the fact I'd have to drop the subframe to repair the broken bolt. I removed the exhaust, fuel pump, brake line to the limiter valve. I started to wind the 4 front mount bolts in and out to try and make sure they weren't seized. Both long top bolts came out and looked really good. Both lower ones didn't come out as they started to get very tight. I did about an hour of winding them in and out while adding penetrating oil before I managed to get them all loose. The lower ones got wire brushed so they'd go in and out easily


Day 5 - I was expecting to come in, undo the 8 subframe bolts and lower it down.


I went to undo these rear bolts and realised that I couldn't access the bolts from the boot as the tanks were still installed. This was the one job I was trying to avoid


The flip top fuel caps I'd installed a few years ago were preventing me from taking the tanks out. I wasn't going to keep them long term as they leaked worse than the factory caps and they were starting to corrode. They were a firm press fit with a hammer so weren't going to come off easily.


I came up with a 2 jaw puller, a big tapping die and a washer




They ended up coming off smoothly with the puller. I will be going back to a normal screw on cap


Next up I removed the tanks. I had about 3/4 full in each tank, so I removed the RH tank and capped the hoses and removed it with all the fuel in it. The LH tank has the drain valve which pokes through the boot floor, so I drained it first and removed it too.


After an hour or so of petrol fumes and frustration I undid the 8 subframe bolts with little fuss and dropped down the subframe. It all looked fine with no surprises under the floor or on the subframe. Once slightly strange thing was one part of the floor was rubbing on the subframe




I took the subframe over to Justin and he was able to weld a nut onto the broken bolt and remove it!


Kev has also finished rebushing the arms


So where I'm up to now:
I'm considering getting the subframe sandblasted and painting it
The underside of the boot is covered in decades of dirt and grease, so I'm considering stripping it all back and seam sealing and undercoating.
The drums need a coat of paint
The rear brake lines need to be cleaned and may need to be replaced

[roger mcnab]

hi tim
you know sometimes when you go to drain the swamp you find you need to get rid of the alligators first frustrating wen a simple job turns sour and takes so much longer 1step forward 2 steps to the side or back never fails murphye and sods law seem to get us in the end
cheers roger

[Ronnie]

Hi Tim, why did you not weld a nut on first to at least try removal of the bolt first before thinking about dropping the frame, especially when you see the visual condition of your subframe and the top bolt hole

[timmy201]

Hi Tim, why did you not weld a nut on first to at least try removal of the bolt first before thinking about dropping the frame, especially when you see the visual condition of your subframe and the top bolt hole

The main reason is I haven’t got a welding machine at home

And with my limited tools I could easily make it worse trying to extract it with vice grips or similar. If it was broken off flush it would have been harder to remove. My first attempt with vice grips tore all the threads off

[Peter Laidler]

Great pictorial lesson there Tim. Lesson learned there too I hope...... I trust that all of the nuts and bolts were replaced with stainless. As soon as I got my brand new Rover Cooper Sport, the first thing that I did when I got it home was to replace every nut, bolt, washer etc with stainless. Second thing I did was to push a long aerosol 'straw' into rear facing front sub frame attachment point - where your bolt sheared - and flooded it back to front with Supertrol 001. Ain't corroded yet.

Would have been a good idea to modify the inner end of the radius arm axis pin and fit an inner grease nipple. That will eliminate any future were at either end

Pete the Pom from frozen Oxfordshire......

[timmy201]

Hi Peter, I’ll be cleaning up the threads and reusing the factory bolts where possible.

The KAD rear camber/toe brackets came with new button head hardware which I’ll be using

I’m not a metallurgist but I have memories of bad corrosion from dissimilar metals from my time with boats, and the grade of stainless and standard bolts are different so I’d prefer to stick with the factory grade bolts. I’ll be adding anti seize and some kind of anti corrosion coating in the subframe pockets

[winabbey]

I trust that all of the nuts and bolts were replaced with stainless. As soon as I got my brand new Rover Cooper Sport, the first thing that I did when I got it home was to replace every nut, bolt, washer etc with stainless.

I’m not a metallurgist but I have memories of bad corrosion from dissimilar metals from my time with boats, and the grade of stainless and standard bolts are different so I’d prefer to stick with the factory grade bolts.

Overwhelming online advice points to corrosion problems when using carbon steel and stainless steel together without an insulating layer.

[Peter Laidler]

I take that on board Win, but modern 303 and 304 stainless material won't cause the doom and gloom you speak of, believe me. Here in the UK, we know an awful lot about corrosion in BMC cars! And stainless steel nuts and bolts ain't the cause of it...... But to be fair, boats and salt water might be slightly more susceptible to any form of corrosion than a car - even a BMC car!

Even our heavy armour uses stainless. We call it 'preventative'. Just as I did 40 years ago when restoring my S and 25 years ago on my new RCSport 5. That's just my take on things from an engineers point of view

[timmy201]

One step backwards but thankfully also one forwards!

I started to wire brush the subframe yesterday to remove the crusty paint & grease. After about 20 minutes of making mess unfortunately I found a rust hole



The inside had about an inch of dust and it’d corroded the inside of the subframe significantly. The captive nuts were half gone and all the inner metal was getting thin. It could probably be repaired with some time and a welder (and I’ve got neither)


I put out the call to a few local mini guys and Justin saved the day again. He had a spare dry subframe in his workshop and even dropped it off on his way home


This one seems much better than mine from the initial look at it, once the layer of dust is cleaned off there’s still a lot of factory paint.


It even has the factory stencilled paint markings on the front

[roger mcnab]

hi tim that was a lucky find had simular rust in my rear s/frame but it welded up fine some times a quick tidy up can be a right pain but your mini looks great
when i had a mk 1 mini a long time ago we were going from woy woy to wellington dam for a holiday halfway from orange to stuart town the rear trumpet broke at the knuckle it appeared there was nothing between us and the moon but a lady came along and rescued the wife and 4 kids and took them to her home in stuart town and told me to limp along a few ks and there was an workshop that repaired cars and machinery so mini was repaired and holiday saved the ironic part of story is the lady and family had moved from woy woy 3 mothhs earlier
cheers roger

[Peter Laidler]

That rusty bit is a quite substantial part of the sub frame Tim and not the usual rust hot spots at the weaker longitudinal side areas. I'm sure that it'd be worth keeping as a repair/rebuild project in the winter. Especially as you've got a helpful welder mate handy. Cut out the old, fit and weld in new complete with new threaded inserts and bobs your uncle - or your auntie of you live in pan-sexual woke England nowadays

[Ronnie]

That rusty bit is a quite substantial part of the sub frame Tim and not the usual rust hot spots at the weaker longitudinal side areas. I'm sure that it'd be worth keeping as a repair/rebuild project in the winter. Especially as you've got a helpful welder mate handy. Cut out the old, fit and weld in new complete with new threaded inserts and bobs your uncle - or your auntie of you live in pan-sexual woke England nowadays

I agree with Peter too good to throw

[timmy201]

The subframe cleaned up nicely and it had the factory stars and assembly number



The initial test fit was good too


One of those jobs "while you're there" was to change the taillight gaskets. I'd ordered these in 2018 but then realised I had to remove the fuel tanks to get the lamps out, so now was the perfect time. For some reason both taillights had all the wires cut and crimped back together, and one wire fell out of the crimp, so that was fixed up too. The foam gaskets were a bit rough and looked like they'd been torn rather than cut, but at least they aren't visible once fitted


After a few more evenings in the garage I finally had it back on the wheels. I used the stock radius arm brackets to get a baseline measurement on the toe to copy onto the KAD brackets, and then I used the trusty iphone level to get the camber about -0.5 degrees on both sides. This will get checked at a proper alignment shop, then I'm considering putting a roll pin in the brackets to lock in the toe. There's a lot of weight missing from the back so it was sitting a bit high


At this point I still needed to install the fuel tanks, fuel pump, exhaust and bleed the brakes. I started bleeding the brakes first


Bleeding the rear brakes means finding a 7mm spanner for the bleed nipple. I couldn't find one so this was my next option


After that was all done I finally got it pushed outside and the engine started right up once the fuel pump primed. I'd put the battery on to charge so it spun over nice and quick


I did a 30 minute drive to get some petrol and get the suspension to settle over some of the many pot holes on the back roads and it drove much the same as before, so the rear toe must be in a decent position. After that I gave it a much needed wash


The next thing I've been working on for a while was another set of seats. I bought these back in 2021 and had been trying to decide what to do with them, so I finally got some seat brackets to suit a mini. The original 850 seats look good and I replaced the lower trim piece with NOS trims from Mini King, but the upright sections are splitting apart


Most of the vertical folded sections have had the stitching come out, and they have stretched and torn in a few spots.


The top of the passenger one is also a bit torn at the top where it touches the windscreen when folded forwards. I'll keep the seats in storage to preserve them, and will try and track down some more trim to redo the upright sections


They fit in nicely and seemed comfy on the drive around the block. I've got a longer drive on next weekend to really try them out

[snoopy64]

What’s the model number/ name of those Butler lamps? I’m sure I’ve asked before but I can’t find the answer

[timmy201]

What’s the model number/ name of those Butler lamps? I’m sure I’ve asked before but I can’t find the answer

They are: Butler Highway matched fog and spot lamps
1683/C and 1683/D

They were a BMC genuine accessory or available direct from Butler. The BMC ones like mine have “BMC” in the glass

[snoopy64]

Perfect thank you

[timmy201]

I’ve just remembered all the old photos are missing from earlier in the thread (thanks Flickr) so here’s some close ups of the lenses