I'm Norman Verona and my much better half is known as HM
Anyway, we live in France, were both born in the East End of London, moved from Chigwell to Sheffield in 1990. We retired to France (Loire Valley) in 2005.
All very interesting but boring.
The reason you all interest me was that in 1961 at the tender age of 15 I joined University Motors as an apprentice. I was one of the founder members of the MINI Bay. In those days mechanics hated working on minis as there was so little room under the bonnet. Look under the bonnet of, say, an Austin A60 and you'll see what I mean.
The bay was a fantastic success. We quickly became real experts in all things mini. The factory mechanics would ring us sometimes with some query, mostly had we figured out a quicker way of doing a particular awkward job.
We had, but weren't telling. For example the early mini had a a black crankshaft seal which sealed the oil from the clutch idler gear. A phosphor bronze bush was introduced which had an orange seal. The small hole in the crankshaft had to have a tapered pin driven in to stop the oil feed. A special tool and cut the sharp end of the pin and it could be fitted with a special pair of long nosed pliers a long chisel and a sharp whack with a hammer. Time taken, hour and half, time allowed 9.5 hours for taking the engine out and end cover off. I could change a clutch in less that an hour. I think the time allowed was about 3 hours.
But the best job was gearbox overhauls. Early boxes had brass synchro rings and these were useless. Steel rings were introduced and we had a steady queue of cars with boxes to overhaul. If I remember correctly we were allowed 17.5 hours. We could do one and a half a day! No special tools or tricks just practice and doing them all day, every day. It was a bit boring so we shared it round a bit, rather than one of us bearing all the boring bits.
The four of us were Jimmy White, Peter Styner, Wally - Jim's brother-in-law and me, Norman Verona.
Great days, I'll never forget. Just for the record we pooled the bonus with the other 3 taking 2 shares leaving me, the boy, with one share. In the 1960's a good wage for a London mechanic was £20 a week. I had stared on £3/3/0 a week (that's £3.15). The bonus scheme was you got paid your attendance hours plus the hours you had recorded on time allowed. Even though the rate slid as the hours increased (to stop skimping jobs) I was still taking home £60 a week. At 17 I bought a brand new Red Mini (ALE477B). As a beer drinker and the price paid (with 10% discount) was £477 I'm not going to forget that.
OK, I'll just pop in and set up my profile. Speak later.
