restoration Morris Tilly late model

Completed side panels back from sandblasting ready for paint and assembly.

I agree; It is a real pleasure to follow this outstanding restoration projects on here. I only wish I had the time and the ability to do the same! You must have had a good 'teacher' if you are not in the auto crash repair business already.

No formal qualifications or training but plenty of tips and advise from the many people you meet over the years in this hobby. The comraderie of military vehicle restorers always means people prepared to share their knowledge and help others. And then you just need to have a crack.

The sides are now painted and the timber frames nailed on and most of the hood bow fittings added. I have salvaged screws and bolts where possible as like Colin Jones has found with his counter sunk bolts, trying to get slotted screws and bolts in Australia these days is very difficult unless you have old stock. Very annoying when you only need a few of each different size. In fitting the sides I found they didn't marry up to the chassis as good as I would like them to. Some further study at the remains and scraps of wood I have been working off found that I had made the body 20mm too wide. So it all had to come apart again and the holes to the B pillar widened and the cross beams shortened and then on reassembly everything went together perfectly. I had to redo the front B pillar lower timber supports as I had made the gap between them too narrow to allow the rear seat to fit when folded down and they were also a few millimetres too low and the floor boards would have dipped at the front. That is the problem with not having an accurate body to copy from. In places it has been repaired over the years inaccurately so what I thought were accurate facsimiles looked good until it went together. There is an awful lot of trial and fit and refit with this sort of coachwork restoration but I am happy that it is now ready to lay in the floor boards. Incidentally, I had to get my timber man, Nigel Effemey at Streamline Timber in Geelong to machine up the tongue and groove floor boards as the modern boards have a 'double frog' (grooves) in the bottoms that wouldn't look right.

What ever make syou consider they came out of the factory 100% accurate? Nice to see such a beautiful restoration,

What type of wood are you using for the frame /floor please?

I believe its the locally available hardwood known as "Tasmanian Oak" which is a Eucalypt, so completely "incorrect" as what we've found looks like a softwood, but we've gone for something that will be a bit harder wearing.

Its a shame its destined to be painted as its an attractive timber.

the dance floor is cut and fitted complete with seat bases. The rear passenger seats we have,(one original set only), are not complete and have been patched up and repaired (butchered). I have modified some modern hinges to suit for lack of original pattern and we can fabricate the rest from what original bits we have plus photo references.

I might add for those who don't know, the rear passenger seats fold down when not in use to lengthen the cargo area. The Morris also has this strange little panel to access the rear diff dipstick.

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This is what we have remaining of the rear seats.

And just as swords when their work is done are turned to plough shares, old Tilly timbers having given up their measurements, become firewood.

This rear timber piece has been added. It was a bit confusing to work out as it was missing on all our wrecks and didnt make sense until Andrew Bloxham sent some clarifying photos from the UK. Thanks Andrew.

Tailgate put together over the last couple of days. I first glued and clamped the planks together then assembled the outside frame complete with mortise and tenon joins and then glued and clamped that all together.

Tailgate fits very nicely. We need to make another set of hinges as we only had one set.

As mentioned above, (despite Chris amassing 10% of all the Morris Tillys that came to Australia), we only had one set of tailgate hinges from all the remains.

Each hinge is a strange shaped cast piece with a fixed pin which holds the long upright flat piece. It also has slightly raised bumps where the bolt holes are.

A piece of 4" heavy angle iron gave me the shape to cut down to form the hinge base. The rest involved a bit of lathe work, angle grinding and file work. The raised bumps are little pieces turned on the lathe and bronzed on.

Hinges completed and tailgate finished off ready to paint.

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Amazing work....thanks for sharing it with us!