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Sefton Branch Monthly Meeting
Minutes

Keith welcomed everyone to the monthly meeting, there were 14 members present, and apologies were given by Roy Brown, Andrew Rudman and Derek Swift.

Nigel had no matters arising from the last meeting.

At the last committee meeting the events list was discussed.

Events List

Keith had information on Sefton Branch events list to see if any members were interested in any of the events and runs out which were discussed.
On Sunday the 12th February a few members went on the snowdrop walk,
It was very enjoyable. The next event is a week on Sunday at the Manchester
Transport Museum. There is an Area 1 meeting at Cleckheaton on March 12th.
At the Area 1 meeting opinions are aired about anything to do with Morris Minor and Branch issues. Nigel asked if there were any concerns from any of the member within our branch.

At the monthly meeting in March there will be a talk on concours cars given by Jeff Johnson and Ian Dale. On the following Sunday , Phil proposed a run out to Lady Heyes in Frodsham meeting at 12 o’clock at Burtonwood service station the north bound side on the M62. In April on Easter Monday North Lincs Branch are having a host day at Sandtoft Trolley Bus Museum, also on Easter Monday there is an Easter Fun Run being held.

On April 23rd to commemorate St. Georges Day there is going to be a drive it day where members use their Morris Minors to go anywhere they are going that day. It was suggested that the members of our branch should have a run out to Formby to the squirrel reserve and also go for a walk in the woods. The event for April 29th is to be discussed also events for May 13th and 14th although on the dates in May the North Regional Rally is being held at County Durham.

Workshop Sessions.

Nigel stated that on the survey he compiled last year 13 members expressed their interest in holding workshop sessions. It was agreed that we will go to Mel’s at a date to be decided.

            Guest Speaker

             Nigel handed out a list of names who were interested in giving a talk at our
              monthly meetings, these were as follows;-

              Tony Seed                           The pit and the pendulum
              Keith Sartain                        The art of Harmonica playing
              Peter Gannicliffe                  Shipping
              Derek Swift                           No substitute for wool and the Crimean war.

               These talks will be arranged at a later date.

               Branch Merchandise

                Keith had brought with him a box containing branch merchandise it was
                 suggested that we try to sell some of it on ebay he also sold a few items on
                  night,

                Next Meeting

                 The next meeting will be on March the 15th.

Future Events

Wednesday 15th March, Concours, Myth and Reality, presented by Ian Dale and Jeff Johnson, together with raffle for branch funds, The Blue Bell, Barton, 8pm.
Sunday 19th March. Run out to Lady Heyes, Kingsley. Meet at Burtonwood services, M62, on the NE side at 12 o’clock.
Sunday 26th March. Workshop session, looking at the fuel pump. 55Altcar Rd Formby from 10am to 12 midday. (See separate article for directions)
Wednesday 19th April. Social evening, i.e. no speaker booked. Blue Bell, Barton. 8pm.
Sunday 23rd April. ‘Drive it Day’ It is anticipated will involve a Drive to the Ainsdale Nature Reserve. (More details later).

Next Meeting- Wednesday 15th March. Concours, Myth and Reality, presented by Ian Dale and Jeff Johnson.

The presentation, which I first saw at Merseyside Branch last year, is a digital slide show, so it is all on the big screen. It is well worth seeing.

Ian and Jeff are both heavily involved in Concours. Jeff’s car, known as the Green Goddess, is a very original 1954 late series II, bought specifically for its originality. About the only non-original bit is the paintwork, number plate and heater. When Jeff bought it, it still had no heater. Ian’s car is a Minor 1000, which he totally refurbished to a very high standard, but not with concours in mind. Because it has a non original interior, and stone chip underneath, points are always lost.

Run out to Lady Heyes Craft & Antique Restoration Centre – Sunday 19th March

Phil has organised a run out to Lady Heyes Craft & Antique centre at Kingsley, Cheshire on Sunday 19th March. Meet at Burtonwood Services, M62, NE side 12 o’clock midday. They offer a range of craftworks, candle making, and there is a Garden Centre. Also there is a café. More details on their web site, which you can get to using www.google.co.uk and type in Lady Heyes Craft

Workshop Session- Sunday 26th March 10am to 12 midday.

Sefton Branch’s first workshop session will be on Fuel Pumps at Mel Smallwood’s garage in Formby. Thank you again Mel for the use of your garage.

Location & Directions

The location is 55 Altcar Road Formby L37 8DS. Directions from the North. Get on the Formby bypass and at the traffic lights by Tesco turn right, head into Formby, and Mel's house is on the right. Possibly best to park in the cul-de-sac just before Mel's house. Coming from the South, at the traffic lights by Tesco turn left into Altcar road, and follow the details above.

Activity

The fuel pump is said to be one of the most complicated components on the Minor that are known for failing. Mine failed on the way to the National Rally at Donnington a couple of years ago. The reason the fuel pump fails is due to lack of maintenance. Would you expect the contact breaker in the distributor to keep working with out any maintenance? Bert Taberner has kindly agreed to come along and guide us in how we should look after the fuel pump. If it stops working on the roadside, a sharp knock will often get it going again, but it will soon fail again if you do nothing about it. Please bring along your spare fuel pump, and under Bert’s guidance, you can maintain it. Remember it is a low maintenance, not a no maintenance item.

Nigel’s Natter

I will keep this natter short this month, to leave more space for Derek’s excellent article entitled My Cars [Part 1]. Normally it is just Keith, Shirley, and myself, who are making contributions to the newsletter, so it is excellent when we get articles from other members. Contributions should preferable be typewritten, but for those who don’t have these facilities, hand written contribution, like Derek’s, are gratefully accepted. On the financial front, at the last meeting the auction / sale of branch merchandise raised £21.80, and attendance fees raised a further £6. Thank you for your contributions.

Nigel

MY CARS [Part 1] by Derek Swift

I was taught to drive at the age of 17 by my Uncle Bill in 1948/1949. He had served in North Africa with the 8th Army and was chauffeur to General Horrocks. This involved a good deal of very careful work coupled with periods of complete madness as Horrocks, was always in the thick of it and had on several occasions, to be extricated in great haste. Thus my teaching followed this pattern.

The vehicle used was a 1939 Standard 12, CWR 500, devoid of brakes and with a gearbox where it was very easy to beat the synchromesh. Accordingly I soon learned to double de-clutch and change down fairly rapidly.

I passed my driving test is spring 1949 and immediately acquired my first car a 1935 Jowett Kestrel, again devoid of brakes.

This car UP 8549 had in its day been quite luxurious, having velour upholstery, sunroof and a very well equipped dashboard even boasting a centrally placed wind up clock. It was supported on wire wheel sporting 4.50 x 19” motorcycle tyres and was a bit skittish in wet conditions. Its engine was a horizontally opposed twin cylinder, set low in the chassis with a
half exposed flywheel, and boasted 12 BHP. Flat out with a following wind it managed 47 mph but was good for 38 mph. At that time I knew absolutely nothing about car mechanicals, thus I neglected the car terribly. Even so it never let me down over a period of about 3 years after which it was sold and replaced by a 1939 Morris Ten Series M. HPA 478.

This had good hydraulic brakes but the only things holding it together were the roof and the floorpan. The rest of the underside was endowed with vast amounts of rust, and was certainly in danger of collapsing. I travelled far and wide in this death trap braving the A1 to London from Bradford and back on more than one occasion. By now I knew a little about servicing so it did get some attention. The engine rattled heroically and was eventually replaced by a reconditioned unit, which was ashamed to be in such a bad body shell.

About 2 years later the Morris was traded in against a 1950 Land Rover. NRB 491. As it turned out, not a wise move. It deposited oil from its hubs everywhere it stood, and its distributor waggled from side to side when the engine was running, and was replaced with a new unit. After a short time two exhaust valves burned out and the speedo cable severed. Failures of bits and bobs were ongoing and the thing cost me an arm and a leg.

Nevertheless it certainly was a fun vehicle. When courting you could go literally anywhere on any terrain and be sure to get out. It could climb almost vertically, by upping the transfer box and the lowest of its 8 ratios. But it struggled to get 18mph, and was responsible for my first speeding ticket.

Again after about 2 years it was sold and its place was taken by a 1951 Austin Devon which turned out to be a very refined car, registered number JOL 469.

More of this car and many others that followed, at a later date.

Calendars

At the last meeting Phil brought along a couple of Morris Minor calendars which he had produced. The 12 month calendar is on a single A4 sheet, which is laminated, and includes pictures of 2 Morris Minors. Phil can personalise the calendar, so that it’s your Minor on there. They can be purchased for the princely sum of 50p each, with all proceeds going to Branch funds. Everybody at the meeting wanted at least one calendar, which can’t be bad. Thank you Phil for organising this.

Nigel

Computerised MOT’s

A riddle for you.

Question: When is a Morris Minor called a Rover Morris?
Answer: When it’s had its first computerised MOT.

This can happen occasionally. Let me explain.

Bert Taberner‘s 1955 Series II recently had its first computerised MOT, and it changed from being a Morris Minor to a Rover Morris. This was then quickly corrected after Bert wrote and complained, but I think it would be useful to explain how this mistake occurred.

To us, a Morris Minor is not unusual vehicle, but to a MOT testing station it is quite unusual. There are around 26 million vehicles on the road, but only around 27,000 are Morris Minors. The new computerised MOT can quite adequately cope with a Morris Minor, but the problem can be that your Minor could possibly be the first one that the MOT tester has had to deal with since the testing station was converted to the computerised MOT testing system.

In the majority of cases all is dealt with properly, the tester refers to his manual, and you hopefully end up with an MOT for your Morris Minor.

However, the MOT tester might not refer to his manual, and you end up with a Rover Morris, as did Bert.

If the MOT tester is having difficulty in entering the correct details, e.g. Morris, into the system, VOSA has indicated that we should feel free to inform the MOT tester that VOSA have a solution to this problem.

I quote directly from a letter from VOSA as follows:

It appears he [the MOT tester] only followed the Vehicle Specific Information (VSI) search which failed to give him the option of manufacturer Morris, his correct course of action should have been to abort the VSI search as detailed in the VTS User Guide appendix 10.F4 page 4 and manually enter the vehicle details.

For future MOT inspections should the same situation arise please feel free to inform the Vehicle Testing Station of the above.

I gather that it is anticipated that all MOT testing stations will have been converted to the computerised MOT testing system by March 2006, so by March 2007 all vehicles will have had at least their first computerised MOT.

As I said in an earlier article, the other essential is to check that the chassis number on the V5 logbook is the same as that on the chassis plate on the bulkhead on the car.

Nigel.

FROM THE SECRETARY

Well here we are, another month passed quickly by! Our events list is no longer creeping up with us, but has arrived!!! The first of these being the run out to the Lady Heyes Craft and Antiques Restoration Centre on Sunday 19th March – as the details have already included I don’t propose to add anything. However, it would be helpful if any members intending to take part will not be at our meeting on 15th March could let me know by telephone – thanks in anticipation.
Mention has been made earlier of the St Georges Day “Drive it” run out. Well, the intention is to start out at the Squirrel Reserve in Formby at 10.00am on Sunday 23rd April, where hopefully we will be taken round. This will be followed by Sunday lunch at either Shorrocks Hill or the Bay Horse in Formby. After lunch we will then move on to see Anthony Gormley’s “Another Place” – the iron men on the beach at Crosby – fast becoming Sefton’s biggest tourist attraction – there will be further details together with a booking form with next month’s newsletter.
I hope you’ll all agree that this newsletter has added appeal with the inclusion of the first part of “Derek’s Cars”, and like myself are looking forward to the second instalment.
Submissions for inclusion in the newsletter are always welcome – please note however that my ukonline email address is not operational at present.
The weekend after our run out to Lady Heyes sees our first ever workshop session – I urge you all to support this.
Our next meeting on 15th March is being given over to Jeff Johnson and Ian Dale who will be giving us their concours presentation. We will also be holding a raffle which will replace the usual 50p collection – please come along and support us – and PLEASE BRING US SOME RAFFLE PRIZES!!!!
Keith.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

WEBSITE – www.sefton.mmoc.org.uk – email: sefton@mmoc.org.uk

See you all on Wednesday 15th March 2006, the Blue Bell, Barton at 8.00pm.
Keith
keithsartain@ukonline.co.uk
KeithSrtn@aol.com
0151 931 2557
07950125498
DISCLAIMER
The Sefton Branch Committee would like to point out that any advice, articles or views expressed in this newsletter, are entirely those of the individual contributors.