Find below some more shots of Peter’s very cute Morris/Suzuki hybrid as can be seen from the pictures he is making good progress and he reports that the car is now running.
a guard goes on
the grill panel has been modified to allow the towing loop to come throught and it will be cut to allow the fitting of an alloy Bull-bar.
what was I saying earlier about the instrument panel looking good with a coat of paint?
that piece of wood to hold the bonnet up is only temporary
I had hoped that I could re work the alternator bracket to make the engine mounts but it just did not work properly so I have had to make up this complicated set up instead
I originally planned to have an non boosted braking system but have thought better of the idea and now I am using the Barina booster with my Nissan master cylinder. On the cross member is the rocker arm that will be necessary to connect the pedal to the hydraulics
Boy its been a lot of work to get the floor-pan to fit on the chassis. Firstly the chassis is flat on top whereas the saloon floor dips down behind the front seats . It might have been easier to remake the whole thing from scratch but I want to use as much original metal as possible
The green section was once the roof of the Barina and if you look closely you will see the roofing screws that I have used temporarily to hold the sheet tight to the chassis rails
the front floor section patched with new steel
Ute and van bodies have an extra section that I have reproduced in steel tube here
Find below some more picture of Peter’s go anywhere Morris/ Suzuki Hybrid
The Suzuki speedo has been fitted into a Morris case.
I love the look of this car.
I have not made much progress on our Morris but I have done a couple of little things for my brother’s 4WD Morris project first off I made him a new bonnet brace because the carby on his engine hits the cross brace on a standard Morris bonnet my solution was to make a new “u” shaped piece out of 40 x 20 RHS that roughly follows the shape of the inside of the bonnet and attaches at the same point as the original. the two bracing bars that pick up on the hinge bolts were retained, re-bent and then welded to the new brace.
It took me the most of a day to cut and shape this part using and old bonnet as a jig to ensure that it will fit
The other little job involved customising a RH glove-box lid so that it could take the extra instruments (tacho amp and fuel) along with the idiot lights.
firstly I took a standard lid and cut out the raised section in the middle replacing it with some flat sheet. which I carefully welded in from behind taking care to “dance around to minimise distortion Clamping the two pieces to some Aluminium helped prevent burn through as did turning the mig down to a lower setting .
Holes cut
dials installed and looking real good all it needs now is a smear of bog a quick rubdown and paint to make it look perfect. personally I would have mounted the Tacho just a shade higher though.
Looks good eh?
Cheers Comrades
If there is one thing that I am certain of its that when it comes to custom cars the only limit in the imagination of builders and today I’m sharing with you a very cute project. essentially its a re-body of a Suzuki Sierra with a cab made from a Morris minor four door that has been cut down to a king cab ute.
To make everything from the Suzuki fit properly its builder has grafted in the firewall and floor from the Suzuki,
thus the body attaches to the chassis just as it did when it left the factory and by using a fou door body the car has enough room for Aussie sized blokes. any way enjoy the pictures of what is a very classy looking steed.
Is that Cute or what?
Time for another Progress report, after all of the disassembly of the last post its nice to be able to report that I have now trial fitted the rear springs and the diff and I was delighted to find that the diff will clear the fuel tank (only just) and that the disc brakes for the back won’t be too much trouble
Well here is the body shell sitting on its trolley on the veranda of my studio it only just fits bit at least it will be out of the weather until I’m ready to reattach it to the floor pan
The arrow points to an old “repair” to the passenger side front chassis leg that has had me worried since I got the car I just knew that this very dodgy patch was covering something nasty.
Boy was I right! this is where the front suspension attaches!
Obviously this was damaged in some kind of bingle but the so called repair is just so bad I can’t believe that anyone drove the car in this condition
I want to fit disc brakes to the rear and this picture shows the 929 rotor on the diff it should not be too big a deal to make up a bracket for the calliper but the parking brake will need a bit of thought to make it work properly.
Although I need to buy one new shockie for the back I do have some clapped out shockies to set up the mounts on the bottom plates. Thanks to my brothers parts bin I had two Morris Ute bottom plates and I cut off the pin along with a strip of the 7mm steel about 20mm wide. Here you see it clamped in place ready to be tacked
the other side tacked on
it looks more like a car chassis with the diff in
One of the problems with building something like a car on your own is the need to move yourself around the Job and to this end I have made this trolley out of the base pallet used to transport a fancy “zero radius turn” ride on mower. My local mower shop has a large stack of these steel pallets that are Gratis to anyone who wants one with the help of a friend I got a trailer load of them and what a good score they are too! all I did was take off some of the 1,5mm sheet used to carry the tyres, added some castor wheels that I had laying around and some risers to bring the chassis up to a good work hight and Robert is your dad’s brother! It even has these very convenient trays for tools and other odds and ends. made mostly out of 1,6mm wall thickness RHS these are such a good source of steel for my future projects I just wish that I had room for more of them in my other shed!
This trolley makes life so much easier during the build.
Made some progress on the chassis, having repaired the rusted sections and removed the original bump stop perches I have began replacing all of the entrapped nuts with metric alternatives, this is purely to make getting replacement fasteners easier and cheaper.
Having cut out the rusted section and replacing it with new steel the chassis is ready for another fifty years of service
drill an 11mm hole in your chassis and insert an M6 flanged nut apply weld and viola you have the perfect fixing point
In place of the spot welded strips of steel that previously retained the fuel and brake lines I have drilled the rails to take M6 flange nuts that have been welded in these will hold the special mounts from the Barina. Its amazing just how much of that car I am managing to use!
The engine sits quite nicely into the chassis and the front pulley just clears the cross member by enough to fit and remove the fan belt. Having cut off the flange from the Barina exhaust pipe I found that a U section from a treadmill was precisely the right diameter to make up the header extension pipe that I wanted these two pipe lead to a merge just behind the gearbox / engine block join which in turn goes onto a bolt on flange which the tail pipe will connect to. I did have to trim the flange on the inside of the chassis but this will not compromise its integrity especially as I intend to weld it up once I strip the whole thing down again.
the exhaust extension is rigidly mounted to aluminium plate that bolts to the gearbox and then attaches to Suzuki transfer case rubbers
As I am about to cut the floor out of the body and that means it will be hard to move around without its wheels I have made another wheeled Trolley to move the car around on it has bigger casters than the previous creation because I intend to store the body on the veranda of my studio to keep it out of the weather while I work on the chassis and running gear.
when you cut big sections out of a car body the big risk is that things will get out of alignment this is of course the reason that I have made a brace that goes between the sills of the body I am also going to make some that connect the door frame across the car. I am using self drilling roofing screws to attach these to the shell
