The Count around Australia, travelling in a Morris Minor.: HIstory

The Morris came to me as a 21st Birthday gift from my parents in 1989. It was relatively sound but somewhat tired example and was originally Valley Green in colour, but had been repainted in a rather fetching mustard colour with a brush in “Solarguard” house paint. Hopefully the previous owners got their money back on the “Solarguard” as it certainly didn’t last a life time. The car came from the Wodonga / Bandiana area, though its previous history is not known to me, and had been purchased through friends of friends of my parents. Originally the car had been supplied, as were so many, by Lanes Motors in Melbourne. The first sight of the car was somewhat of an exciting time and somewhat a bit of a surprise.

We were living in Canberra at the time and the car was local to Wodonga so assistance of a couple of mates was enlisted and a car trailer hire quickly arranged. A friend, Stephen, had recently bought a XB 302 Falcon 500 coupe and as it was a V8 it was determined that this would be a good tow car for the “rescue” mission. Mates were organised and trailer and car were on the road for the not quite 4 hour drive to Wodonga very early on a Saturday morning, uneventful trip, though the V8 made light work of it and one would not have known the trailer was there if the excess safety chain didn’t hit the road every now and again with a lovely note.

On arrival at about 7 am there was no sign of anyone about and concern that we had arrived on the wrong day was worrisome. It was unfortunate that we were so early, the day was correct but expectation was not of our arrival at such an hour. After waking everyone at this house, we discovered the Morris was actually at another house, so we were shown the way to that location where we woke everyone there as well, sorry everyone!

Shown through to the back yard and there was the Morris sitting resplendent in its mustard paint, loaded to the gunnels with boxes of parts and looking somewhat comfortable in its temporary home but unloved, with patches of white paint here and there and surface rust showing through the mustard. It was decided that as the Morris had been driven in there is would probably be easier to just start it and drive it onto the trailer and thus efforts to start it were made, though being a Morris and having sat for so long it was extremely reluctant to so such a thing. All these efforts lead to the house owner Greg ending up with a rather nice mouthful of petrol at 8 o’clock in the morning, sorry about that Greg.

The car had a relatively hard life judging by its condition, though to be honest for a car that had survived 34 years at the time it was not too bad. It had obviously been in a minor front end collision as the drivers side front bumper mount was not attached to much and is still to this day not sitting correctly, with a slight end droop that is somewhat unseemly, though one of the cars quirks. The front chassis rails had also suffered the usual “thinning” of the metal internally around the point of the engine mounts, though this had been “repaired” by welding in a section of 10mm thick plate steel, seriously not pretty, though seems to have proven effective as the car is still running with it. Replacing the chassis rails is still on the list of items to do one day.

So the Morris, now known with great imagination as Morrie, was pushed out of the yard and on to the trailer and following a great breakfast for us all, cooked by Mrs. H we were back in the Falcon and on the road home. The trip was entirely uneventful and the V8 didn’t even know there was something behind it, and the Morris probably had never been, or has ever been since, so fast along the road. Once back home the car was pushed from the trailer into the garage and the assessment started. It was rough and tired and needed lots of work to make it all nice and shiny again. The strip down highlighted some areas of rust, most notably the previously mentioned chassis rails, around the rear spring hangers and the lower four corners where the guards mount to the body at each end of the sills. The nose panel was looking rather sad too and was determined that it probably should be replaced.
Work on the Morrie progressed and it was at this time dealing with stripping it down and repairing and repainting it that the name The Count was coined, specifically as it seemed it was impossible to work on the car at all without it drawing blood! A later series two door, about 1960, was purchased specifically to get the nose panel as it had proved hard to get one by any other means and at $60 for the whole car it seemed like a decent investment, turned out the nose panel was about the only useful thing on that car as everything else was so rusty it looked like it had been sitting in the ocean for a few years, every time jacking was attempted the jack would just go right through!

Following the rebuild the car looked substantially better and was back in an eye matched resemblance of the original “Valley Green” painted by some mates in the drive of the house, thanks Stephen and Bevan for your help with that. Mind you the colour match was not very good and the colour was almost an identical shade to a Vauxhall that a mate was given to restore. A Couple of years back I attempted to repaint the car again (well I did it but it is rather amateurish unfortunately, though looking better than it was after 21 years between paintings!) using paint mixed from an original colour catalogue which highlighted that the original respray colour was completely wrong, it should have been much more grey than green. Mum had made a whole new upholstery set for the car using the old upholstery to make a pattern and following a trip to the UK and to Mr Wares’ Morris Minor Centre in Bath a new speedometer and trafficator completed the work. Mind the speedometer has turned out to be incorrect for the car and actually reads about half of the actual speed one is travelling at, it appears it is actually out of a Mini. Guess you can’t trust everyone knows what they are selling you!

The Count was used off and on over the next few years and attended a number of runs with the Canberra Region Morris Minor Club. It was on one of these club runs that a discussion was held about the silly people running around in Series II cars with mismatched rear mudguards on them and I have no idea why or how but my car it turns out had just that going on. I have a Morris Minor 1000 guard on the passenger side and a Series II guard on the driver’s side and up to that point had actually never consciously noticed that they were different. How embarrassing is that, they are so obviously different! I have to admit at this time I got another Minor 1000 guard to replace the Series two one as I really don’t like the look of the high cut away arches on the Series II guards. At one time the Count was used as a daily driver for the run to and from work and all other requirements and did the job mostly without complaint. The original fuel pump decided one day not to play any longer and a mini mechanical pump was fitted instead, yes I know no comforting tap, tap, tap when turning on the ignition, but this was just before you could get the new circuit board powered repairs done and this trouble only started after I had the damn thing “reconditioned” as prior to that it had given no trouble at all, I guess sometimes preventative maintenance really is over rated! The stop of course happened on the only two lane section of road any where on the route I was using and of course there was a line of traffic behind me too. Mind some solid knocks with the wheel brace got it to work long enough to get home, so it wasn’t as though it left me stranded at all, just slightly embarrassed. Some people really have little tolerance and have filthy mouths too, I mean ok I may have held them up for a few minutes as I quickly pushed the car off the road, it’s not like I blocked the road for hours!

There are only two other memorable difficulties, one was the fact the brakes were never good, I mean even for a 1955 Morris Minor they were not good at all, actually they were terrible! Most of the time they had to be pump them up to get any pressure for stopping action and that was despite everything having been replaced and the car attending a few brake specialists for inspection. It was this way for years and years and it was not until about 11 years ago when I was searching through an old manual that I noticed what looked like a hole in the picture of the master cylinder cap. Close examination of The Count’s cap revealed that there was no hole and locating where the hole looked to be in the picture showed a tiny, barely discernable impression which was duly poked with a strong sharp implement and low and behold there was a hole in the cap, the brakes were re-bled and amazingly there was substantial pressure that didn’t drop, without need for pumping them up. Brakes that actually work, what a novelty!! Would have been so much better if that had happened many years ago and then perhaps I would not have ended up half way into a hedge at the old dirt car park at the Kingston shops in Canberra! The only other occasion was driving home after the “C” link for the clutch decided to snap one day. Nothing quite as exciting as trying to get through the already tired gears with no clutch! Poor Morrie had a hard run that day.

Briefly mentioned earlier The Count has been on a few runs with the Morris Minor club but the longest trip to date by far was to attend the 1993 Morris Minor “Nationals” in Ballarat, with travel being from Canberra to Ballarat via Tasmania, as you do. It was a trip undertaken by a mate and I in the car which was given a bit of an oil change and greasing and that was it, tires checked and petrol in and away we went. Travel was down the east coast route and then across to Port Welshpool in Victoria to catch the SeaCat across to Georgetown in Tasmania. The old SeaCat was an unfortunate disappointment as a business venture as it closed up shop not all that long after we travelled on it. It seems that in the rough conditions of Bass Strait the ship could not sail and it would only operate in fine calm weather. Point in fact, we were very lucky to get home on the booked sailing as the ship had not been able to run for a few days and as such there was a huge back load of vehicles waiting to get back to the mainland. The Count managed to get included on the sailing as it was a “small” car to fit in!

Whilst being exceptionally noisy (one of the other Morris owners that was staying at the same accommodation in Ballarat and caught a lift with me remarked “Now I recall why I have upgraded my car”) the Count didn’t miss a beat and went everywhere asked of it. Mind getting up one hill in Hobart and another on a dirt road to the Cape Tourville light station on the Freycinet Peninsula almost required the use of reverse gear. On arrival to Georgetown a circumnavigation of Tasmania with travel down the east coast to Hobart and back via the west to Georgetown was undertaken. Photos of the car taken all over the state were duly made and highlighted the usual spots such as Constitution Dock in Hobart, The Port Arthur prison ruins, Morris General Store in Swansea and in the west coast wilderness area heading for Queenstown. Arriving at the accommodation in Queenstown was somewhat amusing; the staff were most entertained by the fools travelling around Tasmania in the old heap!! It was during this run about the place that a wheel alignment problem drew attention to itself by scrubbing the entire inside edge of the front driver’s tyre. The type was changed for safety sake but the alignment could not be checked at the time and surprise on arriving home the inside edge of the passengers front tyre had been scrubbed, the drivers side was fine! What!
Time passed and the Count was used less and less often and tended to reside in the garage with the paint looking less than pleasing and often needing bits done but usually not getting the attention it deserved. That said the engine was sent off and reconditioned, though this proved less than satisfactory when one of the oil channels obviously blocked the number two conrod decided that there were better places to be and made a break for freedom through the side of the block!

Surprisingly with the number two piston shattered and a gaping hole in the block the car still ran quite smoothly. This happened on the way home from a show and thankfully another club member Bruce was trailing me due to the death knocking form my engine on leaving the show, and in no time had the count tied to the back of his Datsun powered Morrie convertible and the Count was towed home with the minimum of effort, amazing the extra power a 1200cc Datsun engine gives a Morris! Thanks have to go to Geoff B in Canberra for giving me the engine he had removed from his project car at this point, a new head gasket and it has been excellent since! Additionally a change from the standard 1 ¼ Su to a mini sourced 1/ ½ SU actually gave it the power to get up hills without the need for dropping down to second gear!

A few years later I moved to Melbourne and the Count travelled on a truck to Gympie and has resided in the shed at my parent’s farm for 9 years. During the 9 years it has had some work done to it during visit with my parents, though not much at all, it is covered most of the time and is always started and driven when I visit. The Count was even repainted due to the sadly deteriorating condition of the paint and the surface rust starting through the paint due to the humidity in the area. This is where I discovered that the local paint supplier in Gympie had access to actual colour codes and mixed up a tin of the correct shade for the car, which as said previously was a much more grey colour than the original eye matched paint. Throughout all of this time there has been a plan, actually there has been a plan for a lot longer than the 9 years it has been on the farm, but still has yet to come to fruition.