Ricky and Madeleine

Ricky's Home Page

This is my Morris 1000 Traveller called "Ricky".

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History

He was purchased in May 1969 by a Mrs Irene. B. Peireira, who owned the car until her death in 1996. I purchased the car from the dealer to whom Mrs Peireira's estate had sold the car. Ricky literally is the classic- "only 1 old lady owner from new"- type of classic car.

With Ricky came the original Bill of Sale from 1969, which interestingly lists "underseal" as an optional extra. That and the fact that he only covered 53,000 miles from 1969 to 1996 (I have MOT's dating back to the early 70's to confirm this) and the "one owner from new" status gives a clue as to why he has survived in such good condition.

I have owned the car for the last eight years, and in that time he has been very reliable, and cheap to run.

Modifications

Ricky is totally to original specification, except for a Mini spin on oil filter kit, that I fitted a few years ago. It does make changing the oil and filter a much more pleasant task. Dave in the EKMM club supplies the conversion kit for £5, very reasonable as it comes with the necessary gaskets and new nuts and bolts. It takes a Champion C103 oil filter, available from all motor accessory shops. The spin on filter is supposed to do a better job than the original paper element type.

Restoration

Ricky has had what can best be described as "rolling restoration", the previous owner allegedly had new floorpans, and all new outer wings fitted. In my care, he has had new jacking points and a new near side sill panel, plus repairs to the drivers side door and wing.

I stripped, bleached, clear cuprinoled, filled the cracks, and stained 3/4 of the woodwork with Sikkens light oak woodstain (two pack system). This is a microporous UV resistant woodstain. The colour is rather darker than expected, but does match the colour of the of the wood on the inside of the car. I'll let you know how this stands up to the winter weather. Ricky needs a new offside rear pillar, and lower o/s wheel arch piece, so the off-side does not currently look as cared for as the nearside. A new front panel is also to be fitted- I bought a sound secondhand front panel at a classic car show for the bargain price of £3.

The plan is to drive "Madeleine"- my recently purchased 1971 white four door saloon as my main car, whilst Ricky is off the road being repaired.

Watch this space. I will soon add a section describing my experiences of what its like to live day to day with a classic Morris Traveller as your car in the year 2000.

Finally......

Ricky is not only the oldest car I have ever owned, Madeleine included, but also with the lowest mileage and fewest previous owners. He has inspired more comments (all positive) from total strangers than any other car I have driven or owned.

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News Spring 2001

Now both my cars are out of action- Ricky is awaiting an MOT, at least I now have the wood needed, courtesy of Travellers Timbers.

And Madelaine has disgraced herself by blowing her top- or to be more precise- her head gasket. I've had the head off- and thats all it is:- a gap about 1 1/2" between cylinders 3 and 4. I thought she was sounding a bit rough! Newly converted unleaded head on- and all is well with Madelaine, except a higher oil comsumption than I'd previously seen.

Summer 2001

backfire!

Two years of almost trouble free motoring were brought abruptly to an end on a trip to Rochester. Ricky would run on after stopping the engine, and then made an embarrasingly loud backfire and a cloud of black smoke every time the engine was started, just like some clown's comedy car. Topping up the coolant, got me home, and with the help of an AA man recruiting outside Halfords- the cause of the coolant loss was identified, a pin hole in the bottom hose.

Bottom hose

New, re-enforced bottom hose in place- and one oil and filter change later, I was ready for the hop, or at least I thought so. On the way there, driving down Detling hill at a steady 55 mph, a loud ticking noise started. On arriving at the start of the hop, it became apparent that the manifold gasket had sprung a leak- the ticking being exhaust gasses escaping from no 4 cylinder through the hole in the gasket!!

Fuel Pump

OK, we set off on the hop, before leaving the grounds of the lovely country manor, Ricky abruptly ground to a halt, with a decided lack of ticking from the fuel pump!!! I managed restart the engine and struggle to the side of the track, and luckily had my tool box and a spare fuel pump, which was on the car in about 15 mins. Ricky started first turn of the key.

Thanks to the chap and his wide in the very nice early convertible who led the way to the Hop proper.

Autumn 2001

Having fitted a new manifold gasket, and heater valve (coolant had been leaking from the valve onto the manifold gasket and contributed to its premature demise, I believe), I confidently set off for the October club meeting. All appeared fine, until the ignition light sayed on after stopping the engine?? On driving home it became apparent that the dynamo was no longer charging- as the red light remained resolutely lit, and the headlamps became determinedly dimmer. We just made it back home, and I resolved to order a set of dynamo brushes. These arrived in a few days (thanks Bull Motif!), and a stripdown of the dynamo revealed brushes worn to 1/4 of the size of the new ones! Dynamo back on- fully charged battery, and would the car start??? errr, no.

Fuel pump, OK, carb, OK, no damp on the ignition, new condensor, new coil, cleaned and re-gapped points. Still, no starting. After a few head scratching Sunday afternoons, I gave up and called the AA- luckily, I have home start. To my relief, the AA man took over an hour to get the car going again. He did all the usual checks-spark, fuel, etc.... I'll let you know what the cause was soon- stay tuned!!

The AA man, after consulting the AA on-line database found that the car started easily after adjusting the position of the distributior. As the dynamo is situated immediately in front of the distributor in the Morris Minor engine bay, he concluded that in removing the dynamo for the bush replacement I had inadvertantly nudged the distributor thereby throwing the timing out sufficiently to prevent the car from starting.

After this unusual spell of reliabillity problems, (many of which were down to the learning curve the cars main mecchanic is still climbing!) the car was in use as a daily driver untill the early summer of 2003. At this point, I had to admit that Ricky needed rather more than a mere "rolling" restoration, and I decided to take him off the road for a while, due to the condition of the right hand side woodwork, not to mention the bodywork the wood bolts onto, and a large hole in the left hand side sill, just behind the crossmember.

It wasnt that the car just needed "a bit of welding". It was a case of needing quite a lot of welding and some wood replacement too. I did not even attempt to put the car through an MOT as I knew it car would not pass, and my local MOT garage would not be happy to take on the job.

Time to get practising on that MIG welder I bought last year, and to press Madelaine, the 4 door saloon into service as my main car.

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