An Introduction: Chris Collins and Morris Tilly Project

[jack neville]

Yes Mike. Just acquired the lathe recently. It is in very good condition.

The Tillies do require alot of work but Chris has been very lucky to get his hands on plenty of parts sufficient to rebuild two of them. They are however easy to work on and not big heavy components to lug around.

The steel I use for resetting springs is actually a bucket wheel pin, a relic from a floating gold dredge that used to operate on the Avoca River at Amphitheatre back in the 50's-60's I think. The dredge sank in mysterious circumstances and was broken up for scrap. An uncle of mine who was working on it around that time told me they found bungs missing from the pontoons when it was scrapped. My father who was a local plumber in Amphitheatre at the time acquried the pin and used it as an anvil. It is a little over 2' high and 5 1/2" in diameter. The smaller legs were added for stability. I welded the two pieces of flat to the top to make the bridge and hammer the spring leaves between them as I move the leaf across the top. You can see they have distorted from use. Works well.

[jack neville]

Body primed and upside down to repair a couple of rusty sections in the right side chassis rails. You can see where I started to cut out the rust with tin snips. Also shown is the reinforcing piece for under the passenger seat and the seat bracket mounts in position of where they need to be welded in.

[Mike K]

OK and thanks for the pics .


There seems to be little information about on cold spring resetting.

I found this:

http://redcliffesprings.com.au/springs-suspension

The other method in use is to bend with a cheap hydraulic pipe bender . You bend each leaf individually, similar to hammering . Mark out with chalk on the floor, the camber you started with and use this as a guide .

I reset a series 1 land rover rear spring with a cheap pipe bender . On the UK LR forum a guy objected , writing that it would not be a effective fix .

I'm not sure if Jacob spring works in Oakleigh, Melb. is still there

I read somewhere that spring steel has a 'memory' . The hammering process disrupts the molecules and they go back to their original position.

[Lynn Eades]

About 45 years ago, I bought a low light Morris Minor and re set the back springs with the back of the axe, at the chopping block, with a section of RSJ as an anvil (Dad gave instructions and left me to it) I overdid the job and ended up carrying a couple of bags of cement around in the boot, to stop the shackles turning inside out. They did settle a bit, but she was certainly nose down when I sold her a year or two later.

[Mike K]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS0XgPTyU3A

this guy is hammering

[jack neville]

I cut a bit further along this rusty section of sub frame as it had another pin holed area a few centimetres further down so rather than have two small patches I put in one bigger one. You can also see holes drilled in the ribs in the floor. The previous onwer had stored the car outside and to prevent water sitting in the ribs he drilled drain holes. Luckily he periodically smothered the whole vehicle in lanoline which had crept into everywhere and helped preserve it. All these holes need welding up as well as some extra holes in the floor where the cars had attaching pins to retain carpet and different seat mounting holes.

[jack neville]

Next to attach the passenger seat re-inforcing panel and seat brackets I drilled some holes in the floor so I could plug weld from the top to the panel and brackets. To get the panel and brackets to sit tight I lowered the body onto a chisel and block of wood and moved it after each weld. To align the seat brackets I bolted up the top side of the seat mount and then removed it once I had then brackets in the correct position with the chisel.