A series of short videos on repairing my old Morris Minor that I have owned for over 25 Years and the second time I am rebuilding it! I am certainly no professional or trained mechanic, but would love to have the old girl on the road again.
Thanks. looking forward to getting this corner sorted. What I have learnt on this side will help me undertake the passenger side with more confidence. Still dreading the Chassis!
Your neighbor in canada can do more with metal and types of wire/gas mixtures than most can learn in a lifetime. He has great playlists, and does do a lot of teaching of how to do this. Kyle Carter is his name, Carter Auto Restyling is his channel name. Do watch his channel, especially the 36 chevy build list as it does deal with old rigs similar to this.
As someone who has trained hundreds of students mig welding sheet metal you would save yourself a lot of aggravation and time wasted by taking a short course in mig welding.
Great video..The only people who dont make mistakes are those that make nothing.It is interesting to see you learn as you go. When this is finished you will be able to stand back and say ,"I did that!" Just subscribed to follow your journey.
Thankyou, really kind words. I have had the car for a really long time now, and I would just like to get try and get her better than she was! Still a really long way to go, but I knew that when I started. Thankyou for subscribing.
Forget the weld proof primer, keep to clean steel. Get some 1mm steel sheet and cut some small sections off it or use an old scrap body part to set up the welder before you start welding the vehicle or any vehicle. Make sure your welding helmet lens is clean and contact tip in the torch is new. Wleding tips below if you want to see how I learnt how to do vehicle bodies years ago. Clean back using an 80grit flap wheel carefully so as not to make the test piece or vehicle section thinner. Make a good earth connection. Ideally, use 0.6mm wire but if you have 0.8mm that will do. Turn the amperage/voltage setting to its lowest setting. Turn the wire speed to No2. Turn the gas down so you can hear it leaving the gun but not hissing loudly. The above are start point settings. Pull the trigger on the torch to see how the wire feeds out onto your test piece and watch and listen to the arc. Keep doing this until you get a nice round tack, not heaped up, not elongated or odd shaped but round. You want to achieve a buzzing/sizzle sound. Any crackling adjust the wire speed only when welding thin steel sheet. With thin metal, you need to be aware of heat input and as with any welding get comfortable and do "dry runs" to make sure you are comfortable welding. Tack the piece in four places if possible. If happy with welder settings and repair patch location, go half way between tacks and tack again. When you have roughly 12 tacks in place (subject to repair patch size) then overlap tack in an alternating pattern (Like doing up a cylinder head or wheel nuts) around the patch until you have completed the continuous bead around the patch. Do not, blob sloppy slug or drag the torch. Hold it at 90degrees where possible to the pieceand one short but stead pull on the trigger for about a second. Avoid at all costs trying to run a bead on vehicles, the parent metal is too thin and you will burn through and then have to build the hole up with weld.
Hiya. I made sure it was. I'm pretty sure the shop paint on the panels isn't weld through and that is causing the problems. If I have time I will tidy up today
@@MiniorMinority Yes. Mig welders like a very clean surface and on thin metal just do a lot of spot welds and join them together allowing time to cool between them
Yes put the guard and eye protectionon I am amazed by the number of RU-vid video car restorers who do not have the guards of eye protection on . As a nearly 50 year body repair man I am horrified by the amount of people who dont have guards on especially the American sites, i know it looks good with all the sparks but you only have one set of eyes
Hi bud great work on your car. Did you find the gas mig welder easier to weld? Not blowing holes everywhere? I have a flux core welder but I'm using 22 gauge sheet metal, haven't used it yet.
Hiya. I'm finding it "okay". I am realising that preparation is absolutely critical. I need to take more time making the metal ready for welding. Flux core I think hides a lot of mistakes because it is messy in nature
Due to the extent of the repairs required, I would strongly recommend buying replacement chassis members rather than patching. Only replace one part at a time with the cars weight spread evenly. You should also have the bare doors hung so you can check for distortion as it's very easy to twist the car doing so much repairs. Good luck.
Not sure how deep your pockets are.... Strip it and dip it if you can afford it or get really dirty and clean it all off and see what you got. Nothing else you can do really. Good luck. Personally I would keep plugging away and see what I got.. Your only going to do it once, its half the fun and lets face it TV is really crap!
I totally agree with you. I'm going to focus on getting the cab back together now and then roll it over one way or another to take a proper look. If I need to lift the cab I will, otherwise I will keep repairing. Thankyou
That’s the coating on the wire, sounds like your getting too close and it’s Arking back on the gas shroud, plus slow the wire feed down slightly to stop clumpy welds, it just takes practice
I've spent a year part time cutting out the rust and replacing it in my 54. I'm hoping to get it driveable by the end of the year. Keeps me busy in my retirement. Greetings from Australia
you need a plasma cutter to cut out bad sections and a gas welder and you will be so much happier you had them both ,for that thin of metal chep ones would work
I have had the exact same problems using a gasless welder, I ended up digging out my old gas fed welder & repairing it, Then luckily I found a very obliging gas bottle delivery driver who "donated" a pub size Co2 bottle to my cause, just a shame he couldn't donate a Co2/argon one!, maybe you can find a friendly pub landlord to oblige you with a Co2 bottle as those little Halfords type bottles don't last very long & expensive for what they are.
maybe use a metal bender to make new box sections to weld back in.......any are you can see when you have cut rotted parts out run a wire brush over it then rust reformer...then blast with paint...gives it a better chance in the future
Have you tried putting brass behind the part you are welding. Best thing I did was buy a gas welder from static arc you can turn the power down to reduce blowing holds I'm very happy with mine and it was less than £200 think of it as an investment
Hiya. I've got a flattened piece of copper, but couldn't get behind very easily. Maybe on the next attempt I will put some more effort into getting it in the right place. Thankyou.
I agree. I wish I had done things differently in hindsight, but now that the floor of the cab is out it will be very difficult to lift without distortion. The rest of the chassis has good access as the box lifts off and doesn't appear rusty.
Another MM reminisce from Canada… as I watch your videos in sequence! Much like you I spent countless hours repairing my MM. patched gaping holes with fibreglass, brazed in pieces of bodywork. Bought pieces of red oak to refashion rotted parts of the frame of the estate portion. Painted it a lovely colour of… oh no what looked like ivory cream under the fluorescent lights in the store turned out to be a lurid flesh tone pink! Remember the rusted, twisted frame? That explains why it went through so many synchromesh rings. In 1970 or 1971 there were lots of old MMs rusted and abandoned and I acquired a bunch of transmissions - I got fairly proficient at swapping out transmissions and could do it in about 2 hours! Once, in an attempt to boost the power, I removed the head, ground the valves, then put the head back on substituting some gasket goo material for the head gasket to decrease cylinder volume and increase compression. It worked. Zoomed like a race car! But… wouldn’t shut off! Dieseled merrily on with no ignition on! But the fuel pump switch from the propane gas experiment came in handy! I’m lucky I lived to be 18, let alone 71 as I am today!
Thank you for all your kind comments and reminiscing. Having owned the car for over 25 years, I could regale countless stories of memories, problems, heartache and joy that I have experienced with the car. I am thinking about doing an episode on the journeys. The car and myself have been on and how much it means to me to have it repaired and back on the road. I think it will be a long process over many years but hopefully it will be worth it one day. Keep your thoughts coming!
Hi again, more from Canada. For a short time, I converted the MM to run on propane gas. Remember this was 1970 and I was just 16 or 17 years old. Drilled a hole in the intake manifold and tapped it for 1/8” pipe thread. Ran a hose to a regulator on a 20 pound propane tank located - wait for it - in the passenger foot well. Put a switch in the gasoline fuel pump circuit. Started the engine on gasoline, switched off the fuel pump, waited for the carb bowl to empty and the engine to falter, then turned on the propane valve. There was some sort of vacuum controlled regulator in the propane line which I ordered from the Whole Earth Catalogue (who remembers that?). Car would idle but that was all due to low pressure set on the tank regulator. But it worked!
Hi from Ontario Canada, I just stumbled across your channel and I’m very glad I did. My first car was a 1958 MM Estate which I bought for $25 when I was 16. The throw out bushing was destroyed so I changed it in situ which I later learned was impossible when I acquired the shop manual! I took the car in for a wheel alignment but the tech laughed at me when he discovered that the rusted frame had been patched up by welding a piece of angle iron to it making the wheels 1/2” out of true. The inside of the front tires wore down extremely quickly so I bought 4 retreads and rotated them weekly! I loved that car. Eventually the frame collapsed while I was driving: the left torsion bar snapped free, the steering veered to full right turn, and I ground to a stop over the low stump of a newly felled tree. I took a route home involving only right hand turns where I inflicted the car on my parents where it sat until it was towed away to its metallic grave. Probably got melted down to become part of a Buick or a fridge.
I have a pickup that needs a little welding and paint. I’m new to LCVs so it’s good to see what the chassis is all about. Thanks for sharing the work on the pickup 👍