An Introduction: Chris Collins and Morris Tilly Project

[jack neville]

So after assessing what we had we decided that although the first chassis was restorable, the amount of work did not warrant it and a replacement would be a better option. We located a 1946 model car which shares the same chassis and with some modiification came be made to look identical. That is Chris posing next to what should have been his new pride and joy. Shame it was to be sacrificed as it was quite restorable itself.

[jack neville]

The Tillys share the same B pillar as the car, it is just moved back a few inches to accommodate the wider door of I think the Morris 8. The roof is the same, just chopped, folded and re-enforced with timber. The rear floor is a different panel so I had to remove that from the original and after repairing that it will be fitted. All the surplus sheet metal from the car was removed. I found that repairs had been made roughly to the rear chassis rails so that presented a problem but the rear chassis on the original Tilly seemed salvageable. Luckily Tillys are small enough to work with on a bench. Helps having a small excavotor.

[jack neville]

These photos show the rear floor layout of the Tilly showing where the sill is chopped and the B pillar located, and the main mounting point for the rear body sides. All that has to be relocated or fabricated onto the car chassis.

[jack neville]

The floor panel was removed by drilling out all the spotwelds. It is pretty solid still with one small area rusted through. The rear section is badly rusted and will need to be replaced. Chris wants to tow a trailer so I will replace the rear section with some heavier 3mm sheet re-enforced so I can incorporate a stronger section to mount a tow bar.

[jack neville]

This is the sheet folded up to re-enforce the rear for the tow bar. Everything is done X 2 as both Tillys will be the same.

[jack neville]

Once the floor was removed I cut off the rear chassi rails of the Tilly complete with the rear side mounting points. I then altered the floor pan of the car to match. This only required squaring off at the rear most end. A folded section was removed from the Tilly that goes under the rear to brace the end of the floor. I then cut away the outside skin of each chassis rail to the sill leaving as much of the inner section as possible.

[jack neville]

Once the unwanted material from the opposing pieces was removed I clamped them all up to see how they lined up.