New guy from Australia

[timmy201]

Hi Everyone,

I've been browsing here a bit, gathering inspiration for my Mini. It is an Australian assembled Morris 850 from 1963. It's been in our family since the early 80's when it looked like this:

My grandpa used it as a runaround on the farm for a while before he decided to fix it up. He had the 848cc engine replaced with a 998cc engine from a deluxe model, with a remote gear change. He also had it resprayed from tartan red all over to red with a white roof.

Late last year when I started to sell my last project car I started to borrow the Mini to drive to local meets. It ended up getting passed onto me in about April this year.


I've since made a few changes to it: Carpet

And got the new one in

Ugly seats

And held together with great quality brackets

And the original ones back in

And also did the mirror. Before

After


I started driving it as much as possible with the local Minis in The Gong (MITG) guys and did a big 200+km trip which was awesome fun.. Causeway on the unsealed road..

I took it nice and easy. The guy after me decided to do it Italian Job style, and ended up with a distributor full of water!

And then a few weeks ago I went on the MITG run through to Bundeena. It's the first time through the National Park and I had a great time and the car ran really well. I got a new camera the other day so I snapped a few pics..








In the last week I've picked up a set of reverse "Cooper" steel wheels which I've decided to paint off white.


I look forward to learning more from this forum!

[rich@minispares.com]

nice bit of family history

I love cars that have been in the same family for years, and wear their history.

[Gray]

Welcome Tim, as Rich says great history, great pics too, good to see it get back to a more period look.

[timmy201]

nice bit of family history

I love cars that have been in the same family for years, and wear their history.

Welcome Tim, as Rich says great history, great pics too, good to see it get back to a more period look.

Thanks guys, I think one of my favourite bits on the car is the area under the ignition key, where the paint has worn away in a perfect arc from the keys swaying backwards and forwards over the past decades. It really shows the use that the car has had.

My dad owned it before my grandpa did, during the early to late 80's. I had the car all cleaned up the other week when he was down and he took it for a spin and it brought back some good memories for him!

[timmy201]

I like the wear around the key

And the note on tyre pressures too..

[JC T ONE]

Hi Timmy & welcome inhere


I see you already picked up on the fact that we LOVE piccies inhere

Nice Min and nice piccies from the rally .

love the ignition barrel, with key number stamped on the front

Wonder who came up with that idea

I like the wear around the key

Priceless love to see cars like this.


Jens Christian

[Tim]

love the ignition barrel, with key number stamped on the front

Wonder who came up with that idea

That's a security thing. It prevents the car thieves from having to damage your car when they steal it.

Tim

[JC T ONE]

love the ignition barrel, with key number stamped on the front

Wonder who came up with that idea

That's a security thing. It prevents the car thieves from having to damage your car when they steal it.

Tim

Ahh - silly me didnt think of that

[rich@minispares.com]

That's a security thing. It prevents the car thieves from having to damage your car when they steal it.

Tim

rover never learnt either

it used to be possible to jot the chassis number down that was dot printed onto the windows of an mpi mini and mail order a set of keys, fobs and a one use pot that would re-ping the alarm box to the new fobs using just that chassis number - no other info was required.

and then people wondered why their cars would just vanish.......

[JC T ONE]

That's a security thing. It prevents the car thieves from having to damage your car when they steal it.

Tim

rover never learnt either

it used to be possible to jot the chassis number down that was dot printed onto the windows of an mpi mini and mail order a set of keys, fobs and a one use pot that would re-ping the alarm box to the new fobs using just that chassis number - no other info was required.

and then people wondered why their cars would just vanish.......

Makes me think of this phrase = "everything was better in the old days"

[Tim]

In the old days it didn't seem to matter that there was only a small number of different keys and that as soon as the locks got tired they were all interchangeable.

Its all academic anyway the ignition locks come with a spare terminal on the back that lets you 'hotwire' them with no equipment other than your fingers.

At least Timmy's car doesn't have the Aussie quarter vent windows, you can flip them open and unlock the door in about 3 seconds. Sliding windows are sometimes quite hard to open from the outside...sometimes.

Lets not talk about my Moke.

Tim

[Benny]

In the old days it didn't seem to matter that there was only a small number of different keys and that as soon as the locks got tired they were all interchangeable.

It's the same with Cortinas....most of my Cortina friends can open each others' doors, start the engine, etc.

"I'm just going to move your car back a bit".
"Oh, OK, the keys are in the house"
"It's alright, I've got mine."

[JC T ONE]

It's the same with Cortinas....most of my Cortina friends can open each others' doors, start the engine, etc.

"I'm just going to move your car back a bit".
"Oh, OK, the keys are in the house"
"It's alright, I've got mine."

Even younger Ford,s suffered from this
one day I appoached our company service van (Granada estate)
I unlocked the door, and was about to enter the car, when someone said "thats not your car"
and sure enough, our car was parked a bit further down the road

both had the same light Green (Avecado?) colour.

[timmy201]

Hi Timmy & welcome inhere


I see you already picked up on the fact that we LOVE piccies inhere

Nice Min and nice piccies from the rally .

love the ignition barrel, with key number stamped on the front

Wonder who came up with that idea

Jens Christian

Thanks, I'm a big fan of pictures too! I've just got a new camera so I've been busy trying to work it out.

That's a security thing. It prevents the car thieves from having to damage your car when they steal it.

Tim

The other thing to make it even easier was the fact that the left hand sliding windows didn't lock because the catches were broken. I managed to fix them last week!

In the old days it didn't seem to matter that there was only a small number of different keys and that as soon as the locks got tired they were all interchangeable.

Its all academic anyway the ignition locks come with a spare terminal on the back that lets you 'hotwire' them with no equipment other than your fingers.

At least Timmy's car doesn't have the Aussie quarter vent windows, you can flip them open and unlock the door in about 3 seconds. Sliding windows are sometimes quite hard to open from the outside...sometimes.

Lets not talk about my Moke.

Tim

We used to have an early 90's Camry with a really worn ignition switch. Anything with a flat edge could start it, other keys, coins, screwdrivers.... If someone actually wanted to steal it they wouldn't worry about windows or keys

I made it up to the All British Day in Sydney over the weekend which was about 300km round trip (the longest it has done for a long time). We had a nice drive up the coast and then into the city

We got our car in the spot and headed off for a look at some of the other cars

[Tim]

That's looking very nice.

Tim

[foxy52]

Wonderfull to see the Anzacs keen interest in the mini ,coopers and S types is truly alive and kicking... !!!..I really like the aussie mk2 types with the wheel arch ext,s and quarter lites very very nice !!!... rgds foxy52

[timmy201]

That's looking very nice.

Tim

Thanks, it's coming together slowly..

Wonderfull to see the Anzacs keen interest in the mini ,coopers and S types is truly alive and kicking... !!!..I really like the aussie mk2 types with the wheel arch ext,s and quarter lites very very nice !!!... rgds foxy52

Thanks. It's funny then that I'd like an Austin Cooper S in Surf Blue as we didn't get those here!

I had the day off last week so I replaced the old dented up bumpers for some much straighter ones





I also changed the oil + filter and washed the car and went for a nice drive.

[timmy201]

I changed over the gearstick to a mini one instead of the 1100 one

Before

After


I also picked up a good condition original profile front bar so I swapped that over too

I then swapped the previous front one to the back and fit the overiders which was a very fun job..