An Introduction: Chris Collins and Morris Tilly Project

[cliff]

awesome, just awesome Jack.

[jack neville]

Canvas tilt and seat cushions are being made by Frank Brown in the UK and we anxiously await their arrival. In the meantime we carry on with the fiddly last minute bits. Wiring is largely complete with a couple of modifications. The side lights have been converted to indicators using amber LED globes so they still look like white glass lenses. The side lights have been incorporated into the headlights by drilling a small hole in the headlight reflector and mounting a small daisy cup holder. Headlights have been upgraded to halogen bulbs.
Chris wanted seatbelts fitted but the construction of the Tilly does not lend itself to too many strong points for the fitting of belts so some reinforcing of mounting points was required. The B pillar itself when belonging to the original Morris four door car body, the Tillys were fashioned from, would have been one thing but once you take the back half of the roof off it substantially weakens the ability of that B pillar especially since its only other support is the piece of timber bolted behind it. I fashioned up some steelwork in 3mm plate to reinforce the upper section of the B pillar which encapsulated the timber support utilising all available existing upper hinge bolts. Similarly the lower anchorage point wrapped around the bottom of the B pillar as well as anchoring through the floor and also picking up the bolt that secures the rear spring mount. This is probably now the strongest part of the car. The drive shaft tunnel was utilised for the inside mount with an anchor plate underneath.

[jack neville]

Greg Nichols selected some colour co-ordinated belts to be as inconspicuous as possible.

[jack neville]

Another area of attention was the air filter mount.
The Tilly should have a Solex carburetor but we only have one which will go in the second Tilly. We have several SU carbys of which one has been rebuilt for this engine. The carby is mounted at 90 degrees to the inlet manifold and has an air tube that bolts to a solid steel mount and has the air filter mounted on top. The solex carby being smaller means to have a similar appearance using an SU carby required a facsimile air tube to be made slightly larger. Easiest way to explain is to show the end product compared with the original set up.

[jack neville]

The air tube was conveniently similar in size to a 65 x 35mm tube so it was a simple matter of forming up the bend and added mounting tubes and shaping the mounting bolt anchors. The mounting plate being a cast piece I made by laminating a couple of 8mm pieces together and cutting and grinding it to shape.

[jack neville]

The other thing we decided to do was ditch the oil bath filter in favour of a paper element. Once the oil bath setup was gutted it was a simple matter of measuring up to find s suitable paper element.

[jack neville]

To compare the SU set up with the Solex original.