My flatmate Alan Hill is the owner of Over The Hill Motor Company, which specialises in maintenance & restoration of Morris Minors. Handy huh? Well, nearly everyday he comes home in a different Minor. "Alan's Daily Driver" is a pic of what's parked outside our house. Expect it to change regularly!

18 May 2000

The multi-coloured four-door came in for a new windscreen rubber, some welding to the inner floor sills at the front, a grease job, and refitment of one the front doors. The owner is doing a gradual running restoration of his car, but when it came to removing the doors the bottom hinge securing plate fell into the pillar cavity where it can't be reached and means that the door can't be rehung! Well, good ol' Alan knows the trick - a length of wire with a hook on the end poked through the bolt hole and the plate was retrieved after much fishing around and was finally the retrieved and bolted back in place.

Tip! If you're taking the doors off, before you undo all the door hinge bolts get an old front shock absorber bolt and cut the head off. Remove one of the hinge bolts and screw the shock absorber bolt in its place. This will hold the plate in place whilst you remove all the other bolts and slide the hinge over the shock absorber bolt head. 'Refitment is a straight reversal of this procedure'.

The black Series II is in for a boil-over problem - it was left over winter with no anti-freeze in the engine and the water froze solid, pushing all the freeze-plugs out of the block and it even cracked the thermostat housing! The head has already been replaced in an attempt to cure the boil-over problem but on the way back home it did it again. It's rare but now Alan suspects that the block may be cracked. It looks like a new engine coming up ...