A short diversion off-road
With Lily my 1967 Morris Minor now back on the road, I had intended to help dad get the 1970 Morris Minor Van ready to paint. However, dad was driving his 1962 Series 2 Land Rover and suffered a rather catastrophic mechanical failure, which meant there was no drive to any of the wheels and some expensive gearbox noises. Naturally, this happened during rush hour at traffic lights, causing much embarrassment and a traffic jam. There was no hope of getting it fixed at the side of the road, so dad admitted defeat and was taken home on a low loader.
However, we still had the difficult task of getting it down to the shed at the bottom of the garden. A little internet research suggested a broken layshaft was the cause of the problem. This meant that by engaging fourth gear and low ratio in the transfer box, it was possible to crawl along and get it to a place where we could affect a permanent repair.
Having got the vehicle undercover, we set began dismantling the Land Rover to change the gearbox. It had been fitted with a fairly agricultural Sherpa diesel engine in place of the original petrol unit before we got it. These engines aren’t that common, so dad had a used one and a gearbox ‘in stock’, the justification being that there was no point waiting for the engine to break before getting a replacement as you’d need the Land Rover to collect it!
Naturally, when taking apart an almost 60-year- old vehicle, the job began to snowball into a much larger task than either of us had hoped. A Land Rover is simple enough, but compared with a Morris Minor everything is vastly heavier. The gearbox comes out through the passenger door, and this meant tackling a great many rusty bolts to remove the floor, the seats and their base. Once this was done, it wasn’t so difficult to swing the gearbox clear using a hydraulic hoist.
The removal of the gearbox meant that a lot of the chassis and bulkhead which had hitherto been inaccessible was now in plain view, so with