3 Apr 2025

 3 Apr 2025

Down town at the Port of Echuca

So the day started with a decent light show in Echuca this morning, Though the photos were achieved with quite a few laps of the main street, so I guess people knew I was mad, they didn't just have to guess. I then plugged in the TomTom and picked the welcome sign for Mildura, it worked out the route and off we went. Great roads, nowhere near the main highways and I almost had the roads to myself. A total of three cars went the other way in about 40 kilometres, which was good as it was a central strip sealed road, so if anyone comes along you both have to drop the left side wheels into the dirt. 

Central strip sealed road, about 100 k's of this with 1 truck and 5 cars.

 One unfortunate incident though, the last car in that 40k section managed to kick up a rock that bounced perfectly to collect the headlight, the lens of which shattered completely. The good part is that it didn't het the windscreen! I would have been well and truly stuffed then (mind a later car did flick a stone which did hit the windscreen, you can see where it hit! Thankfully it didn't shatter it either!)

Ok so you recall I said i picked the welcome to Mildura sign as the route destination? Well imagine the surprise when I reached the sign and it is actually 142 kilometres from Mildura! What a joy, still it was only 404 kilometres all up today.

only 142 kilometres from Mildura!

I have managed to get a replacement headlight for the car, though the problem is that I can't get it to fit into the locking ring for the headlights, it is just a tad too large and you can hear glass grinding if I try to force it in, so back to the old lens-less one for now.

The camp ground isn't particularly close to town, though it is nice and quiet and the location next to the river isn't too shabby so plenty of time to try fitting the light and setting up the tent, even greased the trunions. 

Managed to set up the tent, not to replace the headlight though.

The mighty Murray River.

Apex River Campground

Oh and I even managed to get to the Lake Boga Silo art today as well. Lake Boga was the home of the Catalina Flying Boat Repair Squadron during the second world war.

Lake Boga Silo Art

Tomorrow is off to Port Augusta, should be a long day driving as there may be one or two optional detours along the way...

2 Apr 2025

 2 Apr 2025

Reasonably early start this morning, just because Melbourne to Perth and back isn't quite enough. To add to the excitement I decided that I would leave a day earlier than planned and spend it driving around some of Victoria. Mostly it was to go and see the Silo Art in Victoria that I haven't seen yet, as there were only a few and they are relatively close together (well, close if you remember we are driving across the country from tomorrow). In part it was also about having another opportunity to test the engine again on a decent run before heading further afield, if anything had turned to shite I would be much closer to home!

The car ran well and have to say the oil leaking engine has almost stopped doing it! It can't be completely oil free though as it is a Morris and British (by design) so leaking oil is an absolute necessity (it is part of the built-in anti-rust system). Once it cools down I will check the oil level and re-grease the trunions ready for the off to Mildura in the morning. They are going to be relatively short days driving over to Perth and back, only about 500-600 kilometres a day. So a relaxing trip haha.

Today was only 435 kilometres, but about 6 hours or there abouts, so well enough for a shake-down test-run. Route was Melbourne - Colbinaddin - Katamatite - Picola - Rochester (via Echuca) - Echuca (back track to) and all Silos done. Well not quite true, they have repainted one that I have seen before and I will visit that again in the way home to see the new painting.

Colbinabbin Silo Art - painted by: Tim Bowtell

GrainCorp Silos at Katamatite - painted by: Tim Bowtell

Picola Silo Art - painted by: Jimmy Dvate

GrainCorp Silos at Rochester - painted by: Jimmy Dvate

All in all well worth the few hundred extra kilometres. Well really only a couple of extra, some of the distance I would have had to have covered tomorrow anyway...

11 Mar 2025

 11 Mar 2025

Well, it turns out the last post from 18 Dec 2024 was a tad optimistic in the hope that the engine would be back in the car late Jan to early Feb. Due to other conflicting engine builder priorities, my engine wasn't completed and collected from Sydney 28 Feb 2025, and very shiny and pretty it looks too!  

There were a few issues with it and the engine builder was actually glad to see the back of it in the end (three head bolts wouldn't come out and one is now slightly compromised), it seems that somehow the brand new engine pulley that was fitted was actually made just slightly too small and in fitting it the crank managed to get bent by the tiniest fraction, though it was enough to lock up the engine and requiring removal and straightening and machining to fix the issue.

Anyhoo, it is now back in the car after surprisingly little actual swearing at it, those engine mounts must have been designed by whoever created the front trim hockey sticks, they are both nigh on impossible to get on and off. 

I know nothing about timing, it is weird magic to me, and of course, it was impossible to start the car. The pictures will show anyone who knows anything about timing what is wrong. I had to go back through an old bunch of photos to see what was wrong (and pestered a couple of friends for advice, they noticed what the old and new pics were showing too) the dizzy was completely out, so the car was overly retarded and there was no way it would ever have sparked at the right time. Turning the dizzy to match the old photograph and swapping the leads back to the correct locations made all the difference. It was running enough to do the initial running in of the engine, and then a short drive before its full retorque and valve clearance adjustment check. It has had the oil and filter changed so far, and things are looking good. Now I just have to clock up some miles on the engine and do another oil change, so I have been doing a few hours of aimless driving around the suburbs.

So we're back on the streets and ready for anything, well maybe not anything, and we need a full running in. Oh, and a steering rack gaiter, well at least one. The two-year-old one has a hole in it already! The car could really do with the roof being sanded back and repainted as well to be honest. Not to mention that "bubble" on the driver's door has returned too, so that needs looking at. It just doesn't stop!

Leaving for the drive to Perth 3 April 2025.

18 Dec 2024

 18 Dec 2024

Well, to date the Count hasn't been doing much. It is actually cooling its tyres in the garage of another home. Unfortunately, it hasn't been well, so none of the planned drives have happened and won't be anytime soon. 

This is how it should look.

Let's go back a bit;

14 Nov 2024

The car has, over a few days maybe a week or so, started to make a random knocking noise from the engine. Not really sure where it is coming from or what is causing it, but it doesn't happen all the time, though it is definitely getting more frequent and louder. It seems to be deep down in the engine, so lower engine, not upper. 

The engine was a second hand item a fellow Canberra Region Morris Minor Car Club member gave to me when the original (not to the car just original to me since I had owned the car) engine self-destructed following a rebuild many, many years ago. The engine had come out of a Minor he had bought as a modifying project and so he didn't want the engine. The history of the engine wasn't known, well other than it needed a new head gasket as it was blown. So that engine was installed in The Count and a new head gasket added and this is the engine that has taken the car on almost all of its journeys up and down the east coast of Australia and right around Australia as well. It has been in the car for close to 30 years now, so it is probably due some attention and rebuilding.

I contacted a classic Mini specialist, who are relatively close to me, to get an opinion on what was happening, and what the knock could be, and their response was, "It has rear drive mate, we're not interested". Regardless of the fact it has the same engine, in the most part, they didn't want a bar of it. 

A friend in the Morris Minor Car Club of Victoria recommended a Sprite specialist in Sydney who was more than happy to offer suggestions and discuss the engine. It was decided the engine needed a rebuild.

Now before all this I had arranged to have the carby rebuilt. It too had come directly from another car, a late model classic Mini Clubman, a 1.5" SU to replace the standard Minor 1.25" SU. The Mini was going for breaking due to terminal rust, and it looked like had probably never had any work done to it since it was new. The carby was a great improvement over the original and it has been in the car for longer than this engine, without ever being rebuilt or serviced. 

The carby specialist came and removed the SU and took it away for a full strip down and rebuild, he replaced just about anything that could wear and even polished it before bringing it back to fit up to the car. Hopefully, I'll get to see how it has improved once I get the engine back...

23 November 2024

It is always fun (NOT) to have to take the front off the car to do any work on the car and this time was no exception. Lots of unbolting and a surprisingly small amount of swearing saw the front end stripped and all the bolts holding the engine in place removed. A hire company delivered an engine hoist and, again with minimal swearing (this is quite surprising for working on this Morris Minor), the engine was removed from the Morris and put into the rear of the Santa Fe for a trip to Sydney for a Spa and Rejuvenation package holiday.

To date, the engine is still off on its break, though work has commenced already so hopefully it's looking good for a return and re-install late Jan, hopefully at the latest by mid-Feb, it needs to "run-in" properly before April as we're off to Perth for a drive.

14 Sep 2024

 14 Sep 2024

Well, not a lot has been happening with the car and it hasn't been anywhere either. I have a 3d printer so I designed and printed some parts for the car that have been fitted, who knows how well they will last given the summer temperatures here and especially inside the car, but we will see how it all goes I guess.

So The Count has a heater unit out of a classic Mini Clubman and it seemed strange that the only vent hole in the car heater points directly at the floor (or of course at the windscreen), so quite some time back I designed a vent cover that would direct the airflow from the vent into the centre of the car rather than just down. I had the vent 3d printed professionally before getting a printer of my own, but I found it needed some modification, so I have now printed it again with better vent fins in the model. It sits flush over the hole in the heater unit and directs the air forward with the vent fins directing the flow centrally and to either side. Amazing how quickly the car warms up inside now.

New directional vent 

 Additionally, it has always seemed weird to me that the heater controls and fan switch sit so far out front of the unit and not in some kind of housing, it has never seemed finished. Further, I wanted to install hazard lights on the car and have somewhere for a switch or two, so I designed a facia for the heater that incorporates a tray on top for pens or change (or whatever really) and places for the switches. It makes the front look finished and not some finishing trim had been forgotten. It isn't the greatest, but it does the job, and the heater vent sits nicely underneath it.

The 1st design of the vent under the heater with "floating" control panel

The new facia panel with hazard and switch, vent just underneath

Another item that needed attention was an unusual metallic rubbing/knocking sound that had developed which was unusual. Inspection under the bonnet highlighted that the engine steady brace had snapped the actual mounting plate, the stabiliser bar itself was fine. Very strange that the mounting bracket fatigued, though it snapped clean through the centre of the plate. The original, way back before I ever owned the car (and I feel that I can say way back as I have owned the car for 35 years now), had done the common Minor trick of tearing the battery support box, where the stabiliser is bracketed through and had been welded back together. The difficulty was that the remaining half of the stabiliser mount had also been welded under the battery box and wouldn't come out.

A new Mr Grumpy stabiliser kit was ordered from ESM in the UK, this kit mounts a plate into the two spare bolt holes next to the driver-side shock absorber mount and a new longer connection bar stabilises the engine. This is supposed to be a twenty-minute job and to be fair probably would have been, except that my coil has always been mounted on the firewall and could not remain there if the new stabiliser was to fit. So a day and a half later, coil relocated to the inner guard (have an alternator, so can't mount piggy backed like in a generator car), modified wiring, found a longer HT lead to reach and all is now good. 

27 Aug 2024

 27 Aug 2024

Have just put the new "Dealer's Decal" in the car. The Count is a Lane's Motors car and I have always wanted a dealer decal for the back window, though to my knowledge the car didn't have one. It does have the Lane's Motors brass stock plate in the car and previously I had a window decal created from a photo of that plate, it looked ok and suited the purpose as far as I was concerned. Move forward to just recently and I wanted to get the windows of the car UV tinted as the sun does terrible things to the upholstery with alarmingly quick speed. This of course lead to the problem that the window decal had to be removed and I decided to see if there was anything on the internet that would give me some idea of what an original Lane's Motors dealer decal might look like. The internet didn't turn up too much, though I did manage to find a copy of an official Lanes Motors receipt from 1955. This is the same age as The Count, so it provided some idea what an actual dealer decal might look like (if indeed one existed). I created some similar images to the ones on the receipt and managed to get the original shade of blue and pieced together a completed image which was then printed to make a dealer decal, which is now on the car. OK it probably isn't original or what the had, if anything, but I'm happy with it.

7 May 2024

 The time has finally come, it has been a long ride, but it can't be put off any longer. 

The timing chain that has happily been rattling away for years finally has to go. 

I asked a mechanic many years ago to do the job, but they possibly weren't interested in doing it as they stated "Why the hell would you want to do that, they last forever, there's no need". As a true believer of the "if it ain't broke" principle, I decided to just let it go and keep running with that chain in place. This course of action has been just fine and the car has done many miles quite happily, rattling away as the chain got longer and longer. 

The thing is, with a trip to Perth coming up next April (2025) for the Australian Morris Minor Clubs National Rally, it is probably best that any issues with the car are sorted out before setting out to hopefully minimise any possible problems on the 6,920 kilometre (4.300 mile) round trip from Melbourne to Perth and back. To that end, the timing chain's time has come and it's time to go. The required parts have been lying around the place for a while now as the level of enthusiasm hasn't been high, though given that there is plenty of time available there is no excuse. 

Stripping the front, hockey sticks (seriously what psychopath designed the mountings for those), bumper and nose panel surprisingly didn't take all that long, possibly as it hasn't really been that long since it was last off the car. Removing the starter "dog" (where the crank handle mounts to the front of the crankshaft should you ever wish to hand-start the car) was surprisingly easy, a good fitting spanner, a pile of rag on the passenger side chassis rail and a light push of the starter solenoid it comes loose. Everything else came away easily, two different-sized bolts holding the timing cover 7/18 and 1/2 from memory, the hardest part was getting the old gasket to let go (well not quite true, the hardest part was getting the old gasket off the mounting face!).

Ensuring the car was at TDC and lining up the marks (dots) on the two cogs was easily done and that then positioned the two key blocks on the crank and the camshaft at 12 and 1 respectively, where they are supposed to be positioned. Releasing the nut on the camshaft was somewhat difficult though manageable and then the two cogs and chain slid off as a single unit. To reinstall it is simply put the new chain of the two cogs, ensuring the two "dots" are pointing at each other and then sild the cogs and chain as a single unit back onto the crank and camshaft over the locating keys, ensuring not to turn either shaft at all in the process, and there you go...

Timing dots all lined up

So I did the nut on the camshaft back up and cranked the engine over on the starter (no ignition) and everything seemed fine. Reinstalled the new timing chain cover (the old one had the early felt oil seal and was forever randomly leaking oil) with a new oil seal and tightened everything up. Cranked the engine over on the starter again and everything sounded good and went well. Then reassembled the front of the car, swore a lot about the hockey stick mounting nuts again, filled the radiator with coolant again, started the car and it was fine.

It seems that not everything was 100% fine as there appeared to be a few random noises, though they quickly went away, so decided to go for a test run. All was going well at low speed, though trying to accelerate there was just nothing there, managed to nurse it off on a bit of a run about and stopped for a bit of a break and head scratch. Trying to start the car again and it really wasn't happy to do it, it just cranked and cranked. Finally, it haltingly fired up, barely running and only just managed to get it back home again, hmmm.... this doesn't seem great, definitely a timing issue.

Now the timing shouldn't really have been an issue as it was running fine before, we knew where TDC was and the chain was fitted correctly and the keys and timing marks were all in perfect alignment. There is an additional issue to now in that the new timing cover, fitted so as to do away with the felt oil seal, is from a Mini and just in case you don't know, the Mini has timing marks on the flywheel, easily seen through the bell-housing of the mini gearbox. 

The Morris Minor on the other hand always had its timing marks in the most pig awful place, on the bottom of the timing cover, where the only way you could possibly see them was to lay flat on the ground and try to get a view between the front chassis cross member and the sump and look up at the bottom of the crankshaft pulley. Wonderful as all that sounds, given that the 'new" timing cover is from a Mini, there are no longer any timing marks at all, anywhere...

Original timing marks at the bottom in red. Now imagine the front panel and rad in place!

Next job them, strip the rocker cover (needed to do the valve clearances again anyway (though they were all actually fine)), find TDC again with a drinking straw in the No:1 cylinder, make a mark on the timing cover and the crankshaft pulley, refit the spark plugs, new gasket and refit the rocker cover, give the dizzy a bit of a tweak to get the new mark on the crankshaft pulley to about the right position under the timing light and Bob's your uncle, happy car running again and all pulling fine.

Well, fine until later on the test run when it started making an odd squeaking sound like the fanbelt slipping. Home again and some lube to the water pump bearings and the alternator bearings and some stop squeak on the fanbelt and all seemed ok again, until later on again when it started making a bad squeaking and squealing sound. The best course of action was to give up in disgust and leave it. Next day and pulled the front of the car off again (yes predictably more swearing and cursing the name of the hockey stick mounting designer). Pull the fan, belt and the starter dog off again and attempt to get the timing cover off, which proved difficult as it was now very difficult to get a spanner onto one of the bolts that had gone in so easily the day before. Once finally managed to get the bolt out and managed to get the new gasket to release (it split!) the timing cover and everything looked fine, though there was a bump in the cover where I couldn't get to the bolt and some very light scratching.

It looked like somehow the timing chain had hit the cover and then scratched against it. Maybe the dent was always there or something else strange had happened, but another new (second-hand) timing cover, oil seal and gasket later and the car was running fine, not a problem and no strange noises at all. The test run was ok, though no power at all, another twist of the dizzy and it was mostly ok again, though a bit down of acceleration, and being a Morris with a 948cc engine, there isn't a lot of acceleration to begin with, so it s noticeable when it is lacking. Further runs and it seemed to sort itself out and start to come good, or so it seemed.

I have to say that the car running is a revelation, as long as I have had this engine in the car, and that is well over twenty years, it has always rattled, but it doesn't any more, it is like having a new car, so quiet it seems weird...