An Introduction: Chris Collins and Morris Tilly Project

[jack neville]

Once the unwanted material from the opposing pieces was removed I clamped them all up to see how they lined up.

[jack neville]

I am happy that this section will all go together well. I will get it all sandblasted and primed while all the pieces are open and accessable to blasting before it is reassembled. I also took the opportunilty of installing new shackle bushes in the chassis rails while they were easy to handle.

[jack neville]

As these Tillys have the removeable roof, the A pillar on the car needs cutting and fitting with plates that bolt together. I welded some braces to the pillars so the windscreen stayed in place when cut. I cut up the required sections from 2mm plate, slipped them in situ and tacked them in place.

[jack neville]

I removed the roof from the complete Tilly and stripped the timber from it so I could take measurements and comparisons in replicating a Tilly roof from the car roof. It was cut to length and removed from the car chassis and a 20mm fold formed up with pliers. B pillar upper sections from the damaged roof were removed and grafted onto the newly formed roof.

[jack neville]

A couple of other modified pieces from damaged roofs were also removed to be fitted into the new roof. All the timber pieces will need to be replicated from the intact originals. Then all the pieces will be sand blasted before being reassembled. So out of four authentic Tilly rooves, plus the car roof I can salvage and complete two Tilly rooves. Next I moved onto relocating the B pillars. The car pillars are simply relocated back to accommodate a bigger door. I cut the sill around the pillar, wiggled the pillar until the internal spotwelds gave and removed the whole lot. The gap is filled with a patch just as the originals were done. I did cut the right side a bit too long so an extra patch will be required. I wil grind up the weld so it can't be seen. The rear curved section of the pillar is cut away to square it up.

[jack neville]

As I was completing the A pillar joints I noticed the 1946 car was finished off with nicely applied lead filler around the door frame and guttering. The wartime Tilllys got no such treatment so I melted all the lead from the entire door frame with the oxy torch. I didn't like the look of the rust behind the guttering so I unpicked the spotwelds and removed the guttering. It wasn't rusted through the body anywhere but I can now clean the guttering in my electrolysis bath and sandblast the body properly before reattaching the guttering.

[jack neville]

Another area that requires modifying on the chassis is the seat mounts and passneger floor. The car was fitted with an under floor toolbox. Strangely that appears to have been a feature of the prewar cars as well but was removed from the Tilly. The floor was patched over. As the wartime seats were different and simpler the mounting is different but can be simply swapped over from the rusty Tilly. I would have thought leaving the toolbox in situ would have made more sense for a military vehicle.