812 replies to this topic

[Twin Window]

Branching-off from another TNF thread, here is the TNF Worldwide BMC Owners' Club!

The original - and clearly somewhat random - thought was for a Wolseley club but, most wisely, Catalina P suggested otherwise...

So, to kick-off, here are mine;











I'm sure my brother will post the pics of his up here when he gets the chance.

[Catalina Park]

How about a TNF BMC club? I have 2 Morris 1100s and a Cooper S

[LotusElise]

I have a Wolseley Hornet - can I join the forum Wolseley Owner's Club?

[Gary Davies]

Wolseleys may end up being better than the futures market. Look at the opening bid requested here! :

[frogeye59]

Originally posted by Catalina Park
How about a TNF BMC club? I have 2 Morris 1100s and a Cooper S

Me too, '59 Mk1 Sprite and '65 850cc Morris Mini would qualify me for the TNF BMC'ers

[Ray Bell]

He heh!



Style!

[Twin Window]

On Sunday last, I held in my hand a brand new (ie NOS, and *mint*) ash-tray like the one seen under the overdrive switch in Ray's upper pic.

Could I convince myself that it was correct for my car? Could I buggery. It was only five quid...

[LotusElise]

Unfortunately my Hornet has an electrical problem at the moment which means its front badge doesn't light up!
It needs a new fuse and a little soldering.

[Twin Window]

My brother and I learned something today; the Morris Oxford Series III dash is not the same as the Series II Morris Isis one...

They look identical, but the difference became apparent when the glove-compartment doors were offered-up for exchange - and the driver's-side Isis one is about 1.5 - 2.0 inches narrower!

Bro' Howard nailed it immediately, citing the difference in their steering mechanics. But, just to just look them, you'd never have guessed it!

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by LotusElise
Unfortunately my Hornet has an electrical problem at the moment which means its front badge doesn't light up!
It needs a new fuse and a little soldering.

If the badge doesn't light, it doesn't qualify for the grand old name of 'Wolseley'!

That's not my car, by the way, that one belongs to a friend of my uncle, yesterday I drove it. First time I've driven with the wonderful Borg-Warner overdrive (love them!) and first time I've ever driven a 4-speed with the Borg-Warner overdrive. I photographed it and today I have to write a story about it for Australian Classic Car.

In the meantime, if someone wants to create their own, there were some core cars on hand...



And Twinny, what do you notice here?

[Twin Window]

Clean under the bonnet, Ray!

So, does the B-W overdrive make a significant difference in your opinion?

[Ray Bell]

It's not how clean it is that I meant for you to observe... look more closely!

And as for the Borg-Warner overdrive, they are just great things... I really don't know whether I'd prefer it as a 3-speed (where the B-W unit nicely splits the gears) or as a 4-speed (with the overdrive taking each ratio quite near the next one up).

But I would certainly have preferred a floor change...

BTW... the owner reckons it's the difference between 26mpg and 31mpg to have the overdrive.

[seldo]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
It's not how clean it is that I meant for you to observe... look more closely!

And as for the Borg-Warner overdrive, they are just great things... I really don't know whether I'd prefer it as a 3-speed (where the B-W unit nicely splits the gears) or as a 4-speed (with the overdrive taking each ratio quite near the next one up).

But I would certainly have preferred a floor change...

BTW... the owner reckons it's the difference between 26mpg and 31mpg to have the overdrive.

I'll bite Ray...the twin 1 3/4" SUs ?

[Ray Bell]

You can't trust these Poms... he's gone to sleep on us!

No, it's not the 1 3/4" SUs at all, in fact they're 1 1/2" anyway. No, something that's visible there, but only just, and significant. Not something a C-series owner should pass up, but non-C-series owners simply wouldn't know.

Col had C-series stuff too, as I recall?

[stuartbrs]

Would love to join..

Will get some pics of my Mini shortly.. but she`s in my avatar.

It wsa a Minimatic... and I should have restored it as one.. but its now a manual and great fun. I bought her from the wreckers and she took 5 years to build.

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Twin Window
M...the Morris Oxford Series III dash is not the same as the Series II Morris Isis one...

They look identical, but the difference became apparent when the glove-compartment doors were offered-up for exchange - and the Isis ones are about 1.5 - 2.0 inches narrower!

Hah! Eccentric British car manufacturers! I believe that the only external difference between the RME and RMF Rileys - apart from the latter's slightly longer chassis which itself wasn't blindingly obvious - was that the Riley badge on the RMF featured a slightly lighter blue!

So you buy the 2.5 litre car for considerably more dosh, you have near 100mph performance capability and the only thing to mark you out as a man to be reckoned with is a slightly paler blue on the Riley badge! :

[cosworth bdg]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
[B



[/B]

A good South Australian name............

[Huw Jadvantich]

Is a Morris Minor Traveller allowed in?

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Huw Jadvantich
Is a Morris Minor Traveller allowed in?

Why not?

We all have to have someone to laugh at...

[ian senior]

Your cars are Nuffield, Stuart - not BMC!

I'll get my anorak....

[LotusElise]

Ray - I am a little worried that the Hornet's lack of lighting-up badge affects its "Wolseleyness".

The badge did work for ages but the fuse blew, taking a couple of little cables out with it. It is fixable.

My dad and I own another Hornet jointly. This one does not run at all yet so I don't know whether the badge works or not. This one is a Mark II with the hydrolastic suspension intact, unlike the first one which is a Mark I with a salvaged VIN plate from a couple of years later. (Not my doing...)

[2F-001]

On something of a tangent... does anyone else recall the John Hipkiss Riley Elf (the 'booted Mini' type) with a Cosworth BDA that ran in up-to-1300 Special Saloons in the UK?

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by LotusElise
Ray - I am a little worried that the Hornet's lack of lighting-up badge affects its "Wolseleyness".....

Fear not...

It's a very simple job to run fresh wires to the badge light, either from the parking light wiring or from a switch you can mount on the dash. I'd go from the parkers... or do you call them 'sidelights' still?

[ian senior]

Originally posted by 2F-001
On something of a tangent... does anyone else recall the John Hipkiss Riley Elf (the 'booted Mini' type) with a Cosworth BDA that ran in up-to-1300 Special Saloons in the UK?

Vague recollections of that, but I also recall a Special Saloon Wolseley Hornet with an engine lifted from a Fiat 124 - presumably one of the twin-cam engines, otherwise what was the point? Rather naughtily, the car had a Mini Clubman front end.

[Twin Window]

Ian - the Nuffield Group and Austin were merged to form BMC in 1952, as far as I'm aware. Or were you being *Toleman* so to speak!

[275 GTB-4]

I will put my hand up too.....my first car was a Mini in the mid-Sixties. Currently in a Mini car club and enjoying celebrating the marque.

This CC actually...


Current project...


The one that got away

[ian senior]

Originally posted by Twin Window
Ian - the Nuffield Group and Austin were merged to form BMC in 1952, as far as I'm aware. Or were you being *Toleman* so to speak!

Probably! But there were still separate Nuffield and Austin engineering teams in the early days, and the Isis and 6/90 were strictly Nuffield. Even the C series engine which also appeared in Austins of the same period was designed by ex-Morris Engines staff. And of course the design of 6/90 was lead by the excellent Gerald Palmer, and it was sad that he lost his job through the perceived inadequacies (in the eyes of Leonard Lord at least) of that car.

[Ray Bell]

That's interesting...

There are some details of the C-series engine that brand it the same as the Austin-based stuff, but two points are distinctly different. These are the log manifold and the lack of a row of head studs stuck outside the rocker cover on the spark plug side.

It did have, IIRC, the big ends split at the BMC angle in those early cars, and I think there were split pins on the rod bolts, or at least on the mains caps, in the 2639 engine.

What really amazes me about the engine is the number of dolts who think it's a truck engine.

I've just done a story on a Series 1 6/90 for Australian Classic Car, as it happened. But I owned a couple of them back in the seventies as well. Mine were both later cars, would have loved to put the coil spring rear end under them.

[Huw Jadvantich]

I don't remember the twin cam one, but i do remember Alec poole having an extremely potent booted Mini -don't remember whether it was a Wolsely or Riley though...any pictures of that around?

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
There are some details of the C-series engine that brand it the same as the Austin-based stuff, but two points are distinctly different...

... It did have, IIRC, the big ends split at the BMC angle in those early cars, and I think there were split pins on the rod bolts, or at least on the mains caps, in the 2639 engine.

Well I didn't know that. I'd always believed that the C-Series engine was essentially the same in all its applications, being a part of Lord's rationalisation plan, designed by the Morris Engines people, built in Coventry and used in the A90 first, then the 6/90 (both in 1955), followed by the Isis (1956), the 100/6 (1957) and finally, the Riley 2.6 in 1958 ... with the differences being no lower (in the sense of altitude) than rocker covers, carburettors and camshaft profiles.

[Ray Bell]

6/90 first...

I only ever had one 2.6 engine apart, and I do remember the big ends being cut diagonally. I'm fairly sure there were split pins or something else different about the fastening of the crank somewhere.

The 3-litre (2912cc) versions definitely had straight cut rods. Oh, yes, that's right, the earlier engines also had the bolt-up pinch fitting of the gudgeons, the 3-litre had full floaters.

Did you pick the non-standard feature of the engine pictured, by the way?

[LotusElise]

I saw a supercharged Riley Elf built by the BMC factory at a show once. I think it was last summer. Is this one of the racing Elf/Hornets mentioned earlier?

It was for sale but just out of mine and dad's price reach.

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by ian senior
And of course the design of 6/90 was lead by the excellent Gerald Palmer, and it was sad that he lost his job through the perceived inadequacies (in the eyes of Leonard Lord at least) of that car.

Quite. We of the MG brethren (see below a pathetically romantic pic of The Pampered One at Aldinga Beach South Australia complete with Vanwall's clumsy attempts at Photoshopping) have issues with Len Lord over his treatment of Palmer... and many other things.

GP was also responsible for the rather nice ZA Magnette. If they'd ever got on top of the reliability problems with the twin cam engine, and been allowed, by the BMC big kahunas, to put a couple of bob into chassis engineering, Britain might have had a 2002Tii at a time when Bay-Emm-Vay were still building bubble cars!

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by Vanwall
GP was also responsible for the rather nice ZA Magnette. If they'd ever got on top of the reliability problems with the twin cam engine, and been allowed, by the BMC big kahunas, to put a couple of bob into chassis engineering, Britain might have had a 2002Tii at a time when Bay-Emm-Vay were still building bubble cars!

However, comma, the ZA/ZB was still a nice piece of kit....good enough for the Constabulary??? etc etc

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by Vanwall

We of the MG brethren...

In these parts (just a couple of miles from Abingdon, it's worth noting) MGBs are known as 'Morris Oxford Convertibles' and MGB GTs as 'Morris Oxford Fastbacks'...

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Twin Window
In these parts (just a couple of miles from Abingdon, it's worth noting) MGBs are known as 'Morris Oxford Convertibles' and MGB GTs as 'Morris Oxford Fastbacks'...

Oh that is priceless!

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Twin Window
In these parts (just a couple of miles from Abingdon, it's worth noting) MGBs are known as 'Morris Oxford Convertibles' and MGB GTs as 'Morris Oxford Fastbacks'...

I have few legs upon which to stand, what with a 15/60 parked in the 30x50 galv shed awaiting a good radiator flush and servicing. But coming from an Isis* owner .... (the infrontery, as my old cockney mate used to say.)

When people in our local MG club attend their first general meeting, they are required to stand before the throng and describe their pride and joy.

When they declare that it is a B, boos are the inevitable result. When they say it is a recessed grille BL model the boos are more intense. If they utter the words 'Rubber bumper', olde vegetables are thrown!

So everything's relative. I've bonded with my Oxford Convertible. Bastard!

*It looks terrific by the way Bastard!. Original or restored?

[Mark A]

I'll add my BMC car to the list.

1962 Mini Cooper finished 18th O/A on the 1963 Monte Carlo Rally (about 9 years before I was born) being driven by Geoff Mabbs and Mike Wood on the maps. It's not finished it's rebuild yet so no decent pictures of it currently.

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by Vanwall

So everything's relative. I've bonded with my Oxford Convertible. Bastard!

So, by your own admission, you're only *one version short of a vegetable-pelting*...

*It looks terrific by the way Bastard!. Original or restored?

Howard - who's known the car for over twenty years - is better-placed to answer that than me, but I'm pretty sure it's mainly original (in the sense that, TTBOMK, it hasn't been stripped to the final nut & bolt and then been rebuilt).

Originally posted by Mark A

It's not finished it's rebuild yet so no decent pictures of it currently.

Stop being shy, and get them on here!

And who should be credited for that pic, BTW...?

[Mark A]

Only picture I have of it was taken a few years ago when I threw it together to get it running for a Mini Cooper show I went to. Car next to it also did the '63 Monte.




The picture above I'm not sure on. I got loads of pics from various sources, BMIHT, LAT, (Autosport sent me an original they had in their files, still has the With compliments typed note on the back from the British Motor Corporation), and from shows etc I've attended. That one has no stamp on the back, all the LAT BMIHT ones do so no idea.

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by ian senior

But there were still separate Nuffield and Austin engineering teams in the early days, and the Isis and 6/90 were strictly Nuffield.

But I have been programmed to search for BMC parts at autojumbles. I have been programmed to search for BMC parts at autojumbles. I have bfffffffffzzzzzzzppphhhhhhhaaaaaapopopopophhpingblart

[Ray Bell]

Back to the mechanical heritage of the Isis and 6/90... as well as the pre-57 Magnettes and 4/44s...

These were great cars in the suspension. Nothing else of the BMC ranges ever lived on our roads well. My old A99s (I had a string of them when I was racing, very economical tow cars) went from good front end and tyres to knackered in 9,000 miles.

But they cruised nicely... car on trailer in tow, 90+mph on any kind of road, safe as houses. The disc brakes would be a nice mod to do to a 6/90 or Isis, I think I could live with one of them fitted with discs and a 3-litre engine even today.

And the overdrive box... here's what I just wrote about the 6/90:

Sitting on 15” wheels, the car relies on twin leading shoe drum brakes to arrest its forward motion. They’re big enough to do the job well, too. Not that we tried them out all that badly when we took it for a drive down the picturesque road to Baroon Pocket Dam, near Neil’s Maleny home on the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Neil was taken with showing off the characteristics of that Borg-Warner overdrive as we wound our way down the hill, and on the return journey he offered me the chance to reacquaint myself with the operation of the system.

Control for the overdrive is mastered by a lockout low down on the dash. Pull the handle and it’s locked out, the car is operating just as it would if the overdrive wasn’t there. With the handle in, however, all drive is taken through a ball-ramp system (like the drive in a back pedal brake on a bicycle) and there is no engine braking.

A governor is fitted, and at a preset speed (about 25mph) power is fed to an electromagnet that sends a plunger into the system to engage overdrive. But it doesn’t actually operate until the driver lifts his foot from the accelerator.

Once in overdrive, the car drives exactly as it would with a regular gearbox, but the engine revs are cut by 30%. If a hill is encountered, or power is required for overtaking, pressing the pedal ‘to the metal’ switches off the electromagnet and cuts the power to the ignition for just long enough for the overdrive to disengage.

This semi-automatic gear changing is a delight and very handy to use on the road. It makes a huge difference to the car. Many cars used to have them fitted, particularly 6-cylinder Chrysler Royals and their predecessors. In this car it helps enhance its character as a ‘Knight of the Road’.

I would prefer the 3-speed, I think, in which it splits the gears neatly and can be optioned (I mean rewired...) to run as a 6-speed clutchless gearbox. That's how one of my A99s was set up.

I will say, though, that my preference in these cars would be for the early 6/90 with the coil sprung rear (which is effectively a torque tube suspension with coils) and the right hand gearchange.

[Twin Window]

Here's another one of our squadron; a recently-acquired 1957 Series III Morris Oxford.



As is always the case, the pic flatters the paintwork somewhat, but it is an extremely solid example and essentially all it now requires is a professional respray. Howard has done the first welding it's ever needed (three small areas) in nigh-on fifty years and, having owned many, many examples over the last twenty-plus years, he was most impressed that this one had retained its jacking points - I think on all his others they'd dropped off before he'd acquired them!

The interior is also in amazingly good nick - check out the front passenger door ashtray... not bad for a 50 year old!



So, depending on the progress of the 6/90[s], this will either become my daily-driver for the time being, or be sold on.

[Howard Dent]

My turn!!

Just a few of the Isis collection - past and present



Series 1 Traveller - awaiting restoration!




Series 1 Traveller - earliest known survivor, currently in the recovery position in the garage. Here having a little help in the stripping a couple of years ago




Series 2 saloon - now stored (in bits)




Series 1 saloon - more spares methinks




Possibly the worst Series 1 Traveller ever seen - chassis broken, so scrapped




Series 1 saloon - might be the current steed




Family and current steed.




Love is......

Originally posted by Ray Bell

Did you pick the non-standard feature of the engine pictured, by the way?

Electronic ignition??

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Howard Dent


Series 1 Traveller - awaiting restoration!

Gimme! Please?

I've never seen one of them, never, they never came here!

.....Electronic ignition??

Nope... very fundamental thing... look harder...

[RTH]

My BMC car was the mini clubman (here following another Mini Seven through Russell at Snetterton in 1972 ) which started life as a 1961 mini 850

[Cris]

A couple of ours...

P Special (Sorry, pre-merger...)


Arnolt


Also have a TD with a Devin body being done right now.

Cris

[Ray Bell]

Hey, no, you're disqualified, Cris!

Unless there's some BMC underpinnings in that Arnolt, you're outa here...

[Twin Window]

Today I did a little bit of digging, and it would appear that our family's association to Nuffield/BMC is quite longstanding...

Here's our Mum posing with Grandad Roper with what she thinks might be an Austin. If so, it could be the car which she was sleeping in on the rear seat when they had a head-on crash, which saw her propelled through the window...




Mum - on the left - thinks that this was her father's Wolseley 8, around 1939...




A jump to the 1960s; me, Howard and mother by the Austin Cambridge next to the Powis Castle Park gates, circa 1963. This was our second-ever car, the first being a F**d Prefect...




Dad traded the Cambridge for an MG Magnette. From memory, we were allowed - maybe even encouraged - to involve ourselves in helping to fettle this car (and so logically, it was in its latter years). One distinct memory I have is of being able to take the hub-caps off and to stick a *X* of tape across the headlights before we went to the shops. Heck; as far as we were concerned, that turned it into a real rally car!

Check out our school caps! Boy, did we ever love wearing those...






Anyhow, however good the MG looked, I'm advised it was a pile of poo - which would explain why Howard and I were let-loose on it!

Mum's first car was a F**d Popular 105E, and then she had a similar F**d Anglia (which was stolen from the drive - whilst I, my brother and our Granny were all in the house!). But after that, sensibilities took hold and she was duly entrusted with an Austin A40.

Not long after taking the reigns, she managed to execute an unprovoked 360 in the snow on the way to work...




The Magnette was replaced by a lovely motor; a Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre. As kids, we simply couldn't believe the *luxury* afforded to us as back-seat passengers; we had wooden, fold-away picnic tables! Seriously, it was a smashing vehicle - and I'm just sorry that this is the only photo I can find which shows [most of] it...




The Vanden Plas was replaced by a Rover 3-Litre around 1969, but I can't find a photo of it anywhere. Hey-ho.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Twin Window
.....Here's our Mum posing with Grandad with what she thinks might be an Austin. If so, it could be the car which she was sleeping in on the rear seat when they had a head-on crash, which saw her propelled through the window...

Judging by the 3-stud wheel fixing, I'd say it's an Austin 7...

.....Replacing the Magnette was a truly great car; a Vanden Plas 3-Litre. As kids, we simply couldn't believe the *luxury* afforded to us as back-seat passengers; we had wooden, fold-away picnic tables! Seriously, it was a smashing vehicle - and I'm just sorry that this is the only photo I can find which shows [most of] it...

Ah yes, these are the cars that I owned... A99s, 6/99 and 6/110, Vanden Plas 3-litres. Though I only ever really used the Austins (I had plans for the Wolseleys, and the 6/90s, to do weddings... never happened), the others were all in my yard. I don't think the Austins had the picnic tables, the Wolseleys might have done, but the all had the fold down armrest in both back and front.

Was yours a manual with overdrive? That really made them into grand touring cars if the roads were kind to their front ends.