Little Blue's Big Makeover

[LittleBlue]

I've made this thread to record the makeover of my Morry, Little Blue.
She is not too bad overall, but her bad paint job is peeling and each panel has some rust... some have quite a bit. She needs a few dints straightened out, and a new paint job, all of which I am hoping to be able to do at home.

Seeing as she is my everyday car, I am working on her panel by panel over the weekends and when I have time off, to keep her drivable. I realise this makes it a lot more difficult, but that's the way it has to be.

Dad will be helping me a lot, at least until I'm competent. He's no expert, but is very handy!

I would really appreciate any comments and advice, including constructive criticism, as I want to do this as best as I can.

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[LittleBlue]

We started on the boot lid this week. This was the rustiest panel, and was so bad we considered replacing it, but decided that if we could fix this then we could fix anything! So far we've chopped out the rust on the outer skin, and cut the pieces to weld into place. Tried using my new Cigweld MIG welder using the gas-less option, but it just blew through and made a mess. We now have the gas, regulator, and the correct wire, so should be able to get this finished soon.
We left bridges in between each chunk that was cut out, just to hold it all in shape. Is this a good thing to do, or not needed? I think the idea was to chop these out later on, once these holes have the new metal in them, and then work on those. I'm just worried about the panel warping. Any advice would be great.


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[John Ballard]

Car looks great. You can buy the inner and outer boot lid bottom about 100mm wide. UK best source East Sussex Minors or Bull Motif.
Rubber boot lid seals are best with the one on the car not the boot lid.

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" I still have all my marbles, they just roll slower "

[jimmy_d]

Unfortunately,some degree of heat distortion from the welding process will be unavoidable,even the best welders suffer from this.Basically,just take it slowly and dont weld to much in one place at the same time,lots of little tack welds are often better,move around to different locations to help keep the heat down and allow it to cool.Good luck,its all a learning process.

[DON58VAN]

[Binda Blues]

Hi little Blue
Jimmy and Don are spot on. The replacement panel from ESM or Bull M are great to use. You have a nice straight section there to work with. I try to preserve the raised area around the external handle as much as possible. It seems you have a good 15 to 20 mm below this to align the new piece. As Jimmy said take your time with the welding, tacking and allowing to keep an acceptable temperature.

You will have the ability to dress the area up with body filler once the replacement panel is welded in place.

Your photos and work look great. Keep up the good work.
Tony

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Binda Blue

"Everything Old Is New Again."

1957 four door, 1970 commercial van.

[LittleBlue]

Thanks for the help guys. We have pretty much finished the outer skin now and are working on the inner skin. We have gotten out as much rust as possible, but some bits we just had to treat with rust buster as we couldn't chop it out (such as the bottom fold). The job is pretty good, but eventually I will need to cut off that whole bottom section and put in the replacement part. This little job was just to get by for now, as we want to get some good practice in before working with expensive replacement pieces.

The outer skin of the boot just needs one last layer of filler and it will be ready to paint (once the inner part is done.)

Pics to come.

[LittleBlue]

Pulled off the front passenger guard today. It revealed some nasty rust underneath (the panel between the guard and the door) That'll be easy enough to fix though.

Stripped the guard using a flap disc on a grinder (this does a great job, but is very time consuming and rough on the muscles!) and there was a bit of a surprise underneath. There is a large dint, about 30cm across, which was totally filled with bog, and a very bad repair in a very bad place. I will put up a picture tomorrow, but I think I may need a little advice with this one. I really hope that the rest of the car isn't quite so bogged up...

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.

[Scouse]

[LittleBlue]

This piece. What do you mean plated, Scouse? I was going to cut it out, clean the inside and maybe spray some fish oil/paint in there and weld in new metal. Would that be the best way, or is there a better way?

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This is the panel I have just stripped. The dodgy repair is at the top right hand corner.

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Here is a close up of the repair...

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.

[LittleBlue]

And this is the bit I am unsure about... it's right at the end of the crease of the mud guard. The previous owners had just welded flat steel in there and then shaped the crease in using thick bog. Has anybody done a repair here who may be able to give some advice on re-making this part using steel? I am thinking I may have to do it in 2 different sections, the top and the bottom (either side of the crease) It's got me a bit stumped, seeing as I'm so new to this.

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.

[Scouse]

[jimmy_d]

Honestly,I think your best option is to either source another guard or weld in a repair section for that specific area. I probably have an old guard that you could cut up for that piece if you were interested,I'll check it out if you are but you will have to take a lot of care and time to get the panel alignment right.

[DON58VAN]

Anna

The repair you are discussing with Scott (Scouse) is a common one.

I have just had it done professionally on my Traveller.

I am about to attempt to do it on my 2-door sedan.

Perhaps we can swap notes and photos on progress.

Cheers
Don

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Don
1970 2-door -- on the road
Trying to get some Morry projects done, but ultra slow. ;(

[brundahted]

It would be great if you guys could document the process for some of the others struggling with these sorts of repairs

[LittleBlue]

I've had a busy week with work this week, so haven't had a moment to touch this guard. Hopefully I should get to it this week, or I'll just have to put a temporary coat of paint on it to get her back on the road and have another crack when I have more time. I can REALLY see the benefit of taking the car off the road and doing the whole job at once, but unfortunately as a 20yo student I just don't have the money for another car and can't be without the Morris. Will just push on.

I've been doing some research on both problems with this guard, and think it will be okay. I will post progress photos (and probably ask more questions!)

I probably will use another guard... luckily I have one, but thank you Jimmy.
Don, that'd be great!
Thank you for the link, Scouse. I really hope it's not that bad!!

Thanks for all the help, guys.

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.

[Monk]

Inspiring thread this. Talking about repairing panels with complex shapes, the Canberra club visited Sydney Vintage Car Restorations at Crookwell a few weeks ago. Their work is amazing. Obviously they are pretty experienced craftsmen but they will often repair panels in sections, to cope with changing curves and creases. So doing this section of guard in two segments is probably a viable solution for you Anna. Interesting too, that they rarely use MIG on panels, and use oxy consistently.

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Should you ever find yourself the victim of other people’s bitterness, smallness or insecurities, remember things could be worse … You could be them

[grant69]

Yeah I used to braze panels all the time, till the gas became too expensive, I have just bought a small set with disposable bottles, brazing is good because you can warm the whole area your working on so you get less warping and straighter flatter repairs needing less tidy up than with mig, you can also stretch and shrink with heat

[LittleBlue]

Had another crack at it yesterday. That hole that was seen in the previous photo of this pillar... I shoved a screw driver in there and pulled out all the muck, then when we could see what was behind it, chopped into it. Underneath it looked like this. I'm unsure about this bit and how to fix it. I will probably need to buy the replacement panel, I am guessing? Should be fun to get in there and clean it out properly... I'll need to do extensive research on each of these bits to make sure I fully understand what to do, before diving in!

How's yours going, Don?

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I sort of came to the realisation when doing this bit, that being a coastal car for most of her life, she really is in need of a full overhaul. Looking inside the guts (under the outer panels) she's not in as good a nick as I thought she was. There are chunks of rust, weak metal and holes in places I've never looked. It's going to take an extensive amount of work I think... it's certainly not a panel by panel clean-up job... more of a gradual full-restoration. I'm still positive, but I think she will have to be taken off the road and done properly. I really need to be able to work on it slowly, rather than drive her all week, then pull bits off on the weekend and hope to make any progress.

So, I think she will be shedded and restored. I'm excited by this though... at least I can be sure to do the job properly with no time restraints![/img]

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.

[grant69]

I'd be getting some molasses and mixing with water so its runny and painting on all that rust on the inner panels, leave for 24hrs and hose off, will arrest the rust and stop it corroding further

[LittleBlue]

I will do that. Would you suggest cutting it out a bit further up, past the corrosion?

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.

[Monk]

I've had a bit of a tinker around a similar looking pillar, you really need to cut back to where you have reasonable metal to weld repair patches to. Otherwise you'll just burn more holes. But only work on a bit at a time so you continue to have points of reference.

Having said that I've done some repairs that, with the benefit of thinking about it (I haven't touched my main project for around 12 months) I will have to go back and cut more out and redo the repairs because I'm not happy with what I have put in there, or have left after cleaning up the seagull poo!

With respect to my earlier post about Sydney Vintage Car Restorations using oxy, of course they have the luxury of being able to have it on tap all the time because bottle rental is a business expense. Oxy welds can be really neat and not need too much tidying up. But a bit of practice and a good MIG weld, done in small bits to keep heat distortion to a minimum, can come close.

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Should you ever find yourself the victim of other people’s bitterness, smallness or insecurities, remember things could be worse … You could be them

[LittleBlue]

We're using a nice Cigweld MIG. Dad is the welder at the moment, as I've never touched one before, so he's doing the welding now to get in practice, then he will teach me when he's mastered his own technique. The welds are so far very neat, with only a few holes... getting better every time though.

It's going to be interesting to go in deeper and see what lurks beneath.

I am going to properly join the MMCCV and start coming to club meetings ASAP... it'll be good to meet people in the know.

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.

[grant69]

I would want to see a bit more just to make sure you've got it, but I have had great results with molasses. I normally brush it on but I have also used spray bottle, I normally leave it on 1-2 days but use your judgement if it needs more. I have used it in my early late teens to unseize an engine that had been left full of water, I filled the bores and left it abit more than a week, I drove that car renault 12 for about 3yrs with that engine with all the original parts. Here's a good youtube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZCFcxf5IBw After stripping with molasses, I use fish oil (deodorised) on the bare panel until I need to paint them, wipe them down with metho to remove the fish oil. I have panels 10yrs plus covered in fish oil still as good as when I coated them

[LittleBlue]

Thanks for the info, Grant.

Update!

Today we pulled off the kick panel to see what lurked beneath. I was pleasantly surprised! The thing was full of dried mud and gunk, but after cleaning it out with a wire brush it looks great.

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I am wondering whether you can get the boxing panel off to get in and repair the bit behind it? I can't imagine trying to weld new pieces in, working through the boxing plate holes.

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So, here is the stage we are at. Dad and I are feeling positive, and I can't wait to get it all cleaned up. Still a bit concerned about the bottom of the A pillar, but we'll get there. Hoping to get a lot done tomorrow, so any advice would be great.

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-Anna

'Little Blue' 1961 Morry 1000, sky blue 2 door.