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1973 UTE RESTORATION
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Status: Original
Type: Series V factory wellside
Year: 1973
Engine: 1098cc
Owner: Damon Hurley
Location: North Canterbury, New Zealand

The Story...

I thought, 'wouldn't it be neat to have a little old ute that was kinda rumpty and you'd bounce around in it.' It would probably be a flatdeck and be fairly cheap but tidy and old enough to be a bit more than just an old dump. I don't know when it was that the Morris Minor idea came. There must have been something from way back that was stuck in my head. Dad had a '58 4 door when we were kids - it was green.

I figured I'd get a fairly good flatdeck and tidy it up a wee bit and paint it green. But someone mentioned that a wellside might be better. Funny - once you know the situation it's not necessarily what your original taste was that dictates, but relative factors of the market. Flatdecks were more common — factory utes were hard to come by so I had to take the challenge — more of a challenge perhaps than I first thought — and now, 'who would want a flatdeck really anyway?!'

After a few months of looking around for something decent to start on, I was beginning to see the reality of the situation — there are very few about when you are looking. So then after three weeks of intensive searching I came across one that wasn't advertised. I tracked it down through word of mouth. This guy had taken on more projects than he could handle and I was fortunate that the ute was the one he was prepared to dispense with.

It was rusty - the deck had been taken off, cut to bits, and had the rust cut out, then blasted and left to rust again with no primer. The cab had rust in the sills, floor, A pillars, B pillars and back panel. The doors and guards had rust too.

"Should be only a thousand bucks to get that rust done," he said.

So it had the rust, some dents, no WOF, no registration etc and it was cream (except where there was gray primer on the drivers door), but the fact was that it was a factory wellside Morris Minor ute!

We discussed a price and I bought the thing home with the family coming out to see this new prize vehicle come in on a trailer with half the panels and a box of lights etc in the back of our van. It wasn't hard to tell that this was more than a 'tidy up' job!

Like a studious would-be restorer I took a few photos of it in its 'just arrived' condition — shame there was no film in the camera, else I'd have some photos. Later I put the panels together to get it close to its original state and took some real photos.

That was August 2001, by September I was hard at it, plus I had bought another vehicle for parts. I had contacted a panel beater to get the deck looked at while I disassembled the cab section — I might as well have dialed 0800 HOPELESS as he was about as good as those first photos I took — nothing developed from it! (and I'm not sure if he even clicked). I certainly don't mean to be cynical but after chasing him up for six months with heaps of promises coming my way and the end result being he took four parts away to 'work on' ("I'll take these to keep you quiet") and in the end I collected only three parts. The other one happened to be the rear panel where the tailgate hinges on, (unique to utes) and "it must have been chucked out when his son was having a clean up."

It didn't take much CRC to get the main panels off and then I stripped out the engine bay and dash areas. Unfortunately some previous owner had put a tacky tar type stuff on the inside floor and pressed carpet underlay into it. That took a fair bit of getting off.

Then I proceeded to take out the front suspension and steering etc. From there it is a simple matter of a few bolts and the cab lifts right off. I took all my cab panels and rims to be blasted while I washed down and repainted the motor and worked on the chassis.

I had the chassis right down with every thing unbolted from it and it needed a little work to the drivers side area under the master brake cylinder (typical place). During this time I was chasing other panelbeaters to get the cab looked at. After a few failures I got on to a contact who was pretty good considering he only took about a week and a half over the two weeks he first predicted. That got the cab itself done so then I could be working again.

So with the chassis all painted and the rear-end back in (diff, fuel tank etc) I dressed the welds on the cab and gave it a few more coats of primer for it to wait till I was ready to top coat.

I invited an experienced friend from Auckland to come and spend a couple of weeks with me to work on the project especially as the deck was presenting a problem as it needed a fair bit of work and I had no joy after chasing more totally slack panelbeaters.

It needed a new floor so I had been previously looking for new floor panels but that is rather expensive so the option was a van floor as they don't tend to rust as much being fully contained. I found a real good one — a complete van, so I bought it, and after showing a few folk they said it was too good to wreck. So I parked it up for future attention. I managed to get a free wreck — a total basket case that had a white cab, green back, three wheels, most panels missing and a rotten van top but excellent floor.

So we spent quite a few days making up the deck.

Now with that and the cab waiting in primer, the chassis all black and ready, I turned to the tailgate - too bad. A complete replacement was in store and I managed to get a virtual prefect one that had only one tiny rust spot, which we fizzed with the mig.

While he was down My friend and I 'perfected' a bit of the work done on the cab section and I took the better panel from the cab-back of one of the parts machines and painted more primer.

I was now starting to get a fair few parts in primer and was contemplating getting some top coat on.

Question was, what colour? Well green — naturally, but by now I was bitten by the 'originality bug' and wanted an original colour. I soon discovered that no one knew what was original. That cream colour it started with was original (Almond) and I did manage to track down a few others but after much research I came up with a green colour, Midori Green which is original to the year of the vehicle (1973) and was used on Austin/Morris vehicles.

It was totally another saga trying to get someone to mix the paint from the old colour charts, which gave formulae not known to mankind these days. When I did get it, (simple as walking into a shop which had previously mixed that colour and saved the new formula) I compared it with the colour of a green '57 four door I had since purchased for parts and it was very similar — almost that same green as Dad's car!

I got to and painted the inside of the cab section in the Acrylic Lacquer (Dulon Acrylic Lacquer is original for most NZ MMs). I did a black satin finish on the underside and then put a very thin type of underseal coat on. This done, I remounted to the chassis and fitted out most of the engine bay, dash area and electrics as well as getting it back onto four wheels again, I just used odd wheels for now to avoid damaging my good 4½Js which were repainted, ready to go on near the end.

Next focus was the guards and doors. They all had rust and were repairable but as things worked out it was going to be cheaper to replace than repair so I got them from various places including my 'parts machines'. (By now the second vehicle I bought was looking rather robbed.) I left the replacement doors and guards with a panel beater to have a few minor dents and holes repaired. Meanwhile I worked on getting the grille assembly and gearboxcover ready to paint when the doors and guards returned. When they did I got the doors primed and the grille painted but then the weather turned sour and it snowed so that halted any painting for a few weeks. Then I went overseas for a number of weeks so progress halted for 3 months. In October 03 I got onto finishing off the doors, gaurds and a few other odds ready for their top coat. Also did some trial fitting up of the deck, cabback and doors. Everything looked ok to take back off and start painting.

I gave all the bits a few coats of paint before fitting them, at least where they joined to the cab. Then I hung the doors and mounted the guards. It's a bit of a patience test getting them all to line up nicely. Whe ni sucseeded I masked off the engine bay and windscreen and gave the whole cab a few coats of paint as a complete unit.

After painting the cab I fitted all the grille assembly and the chrome around it - At this point it was rewarding to see some of the outside being totaly finished. Then we worked on getting it running. By this time the vehicle had been sitting for four years and the engine hadn't run for two years and had been out of the vehicle and put back in. After we figured the firing order (different to the manual) and the right piston to fire first it started first turn of the key! Since this time I have actually taken the head off to replace the bypass hose and the corroded fittings. Since the engine was running I figured it was time to go for a drive. I had no idea what the gearbox was like but it worked fine. I almost fell off the nailbox seat out the back of the cab at first, and the doors kept flapping open and shut as I drove around the paddock and managed to stop even with no brake fluid!

Next I took to finishing off the enginebay and fitting the front lights and bumper - really starting to look like it should! I also painted the inside of the deck and where is meets the cab. Then hung the tailgate and fitted the deck fitted it to the chassis and but didn't bolt it to the cab until giving the whole outside its coats of paint. This was part was held up with running out of paint, having poor weather and being away. But by May 2004 I had all the green painted on the vehicle and after cutting and polishing the bonnet I put that on which ment the whole front from the firewall forward is totally finished - except the brakes need bleeding.

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This page last updated May 2004 

Note: If you can assist with further information or correct any, please let me know. I have gathered pictures over a period of time and have used a few as examples on this site.
 If you recognize a picture which you feel should not be displayed please let me know at morrisminorlcv@yahoo.co.nz