Dan Pockrus wrote:
>
> All this talk of Morris Minors today reminded me of my
> slightly-whacked older brother, who happened upon a 1959 Morris Minor
> Traveller panel sitting out in the middle of a farmer's field about
> twenty years ago. I went out with him to pull in back to my eldest
> brother's garage (a small-town mechanic by trade). He went digging
> around and found a 1275 out of an early 60's Healey, and topped that off
> with a Judson supercharger. Only one problem - the transmission in his
> donor Healey was toast, so he was stuck with the original Morris tranny.
> It took off and accelerated like a rocket - but thanks to the
> outrageously tall gearing in the Morris tranny, the top speed was only
> about 50 mph.
>
> Dan Pockrus
> Systems Integration Engineer
> Efficient Networks, Inc.
> dpockrus@efficient.com
> http://www.efficient.com
For my sins I was the Morris Minor Technical Editor for the UK MMOC,
1980-88. I saw some really fearsom Minors, enough to make your eyes pop
out. The biggest problem was, as always, insurance. I ran a 1959 grey
convertible with a tuned 1275cc Marina engine, giving out about 80bhp.
It was fun to give some Hot-Hatches a problem, but half-shaft would snap
like carrots if you booted it too much. As I mentioned a few weeks ago,
the most popular fitment was the Fiat twin-cam engine. Today you can
have a Rover 'K' series from the Rover, or even MGF VVC fitted, with a
five speed Ford Mundane ( Mondeo) gearbox. I have only ever seen one
Ford Three Liter Granada V6 fitted, but the whole car was modified to
suit.
My wife ran a four door 803cc Morris Minor Series 2, with 34bhp on tap
built in 1953. Just for comparison.
Neil
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