How To: Restore a Morris or keep fit

[Mike K]

Hi Bob

Yes I have looked into buying copper sheet and the composite material and then making up the gasket myself. Maybe I could get the sheets CNC cut , I would need to provide a computer file in the commonly used CNC format, something like G code ?

Yes the stationary engine guys and clubs would be a good place to ask.

There are a few people who can hand make vintage car gaskets for the car restorers but these guys are very expensive $$$$. There is a on-line business in Thailand that manufactures head gaskets for vintage car owners, I got a quote some years back... upwards of $300 plus $100 shipping for just one 6 Cyl. head gasket. https://gasketstogo.com/

Auto surplus, a business here have NOS Morris head 6 cyl. gaskets for the 1933 to 36 models, but Morris changed the gasket shape in 1937 and I need the 1937 onwards gasket.

Back to the broken bolts, I have drilled out one of the broken M6 bolts and it worked out OK. I have not used heli-coils before, so this has been a learning experience ! In order to achieve a nice and accurate hole, I bought a cheap mag drill. The drill has a electro magnetic in the base , so that you can, with a switch, turn on-off the magnet, the drill has to sit on a flat even steel/iron base, it can be used horizontally too. I made a little aligning tool out of angle plate, the holes in the plate are the correct distance from the block deck. The clear plastic rod has cross hairs like a rifle sight . How it works: you look down the rod and line up the cross-hairs in the centre of the broken bolt. You then align the drill in the mag drill in the angle plate hole and drill out the broken bolt. The Heli-coil set comes with a special sized drill and tap and the little stainless steel coils. BTW there are many cheap copies of heli-coil sets around, the Chinese sets are of dubious quality , I found a brand that is actually manufactured here in Aust.

[Mike K]

Asking around, some restorers are using solid copper head gaskets on old vintage cars. Apparently the copper gaskets have been performing OK.

A business in Brisbane CNC cuts these solid gaskets , the copper needs to be annealed before fitting. Might be worth considering going down this route.

[Mike K]

I managed to drill out all of the broken M6 bolts and tapped new threads to accept the heli-coils,

This was a long and tricky job.. the Mag drill did the job well.. I bought a cheap Mag drill on Epay but it worked out OK .

The original little M6 bolts have oversized heads .. for 3/16" BSW size spanners . I will buy some 8mm bolts and machine them down to M6 and rethread them. This sounds crazy but the larger heads are needed to seal the gasket .

Morris inherited Metric tooling when they took over the WW1 era Hotchkiss factory , the Morris oversized metric bolt heads were made to suit the common U.K. Whitworth spanners.

[David Herbert]

Re. mismatched heads vs. threads: I had a 1921 German Jung steam locomotive that had whitworth threads but metric heads. I have a Japanese bench grinder made in the '70s with whitworth threads.

David

[Lionelgee]

Hello Mike,

What brand and model is your 'cheap' magnetic drill? Are you happy with its performance so far? What changes would you make to it if you wanted to improve its performance and had the desire to do so?

Kind regards
Lionel

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

Hello Mike,

What brand and model is your 'cheap' magnetic drill? Are you happy with its performance so far? What changes would you make to it if you wanted to improve its performance and had the desire to do so?

Kind regards
Lionel

Hi Lionel

The model is MD40. It has cast iron V ways for the drill to go up/down. There is another common brand called VEVOR - I looked at a few reviews of the VEVOR and it has a few problems i.e. the twist drill chuck not fitting correctly on it's tapered arbor which means the chuck wobbles.

These mag drills are normally used with annular cutters, the annular cutters cut large diameter holes more easily than normal twist drills. . The twist drill chuck that comes with the MD40 is a accessory that you can change to, it is mainly used for drilling small holes with the normal jobber drills.

I noticed the price of the MD40 has gone up recently, I am glad I bought one before the price jumped up.

These Ebay mag drills are not industrial quality machines, they would not stand up to everyday use by a tradesperson.. but they are OK for hobby use in the back yard shed.

I had to lookup Jung steam locos !