Mega Super Service

Mega Super Service

For all Morris J type Vans, Morris JB vans and (BMC 50's vehicles)Torque! e-mail fiftiesvehicles@mail.com. The copyright of any photograph on this blog-site will remain with its owner. No infringement intended.

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Another e-bay project J type for sale.

MORRIS J TYPE VAN FOR FULL RESTORATION. THIS IS RARE OPPORTUNITY TO ACQUIRE AN EARLY MORRIS J TYPE VAN REQUIRING FULL RESTORATION. I HAVE NO REGISTRATION DOCUMENTS OR OTHER DETAILS, BUT IT IS THE EARLY TYPE WITH THE SIDE VALVE ENGINE. THE ENGINE TURNS FREELY, AND THE VEHICLE APPEARS TO BE NEARLY COMPLETE, MISSING ONLY ITS RADIATOR, LIGHTS, GLASS AND PERHAPS ONE OR TWO OTHER SMALL ITEMS. THE BODYWORK REQUIRES FULL RESTORATION, AND THERE IS DAMAGE TO THE OFFSIDE BODYWORK AS CAN BE SEEN FROM THE PHOTOS. THE VAN COMES WITH BOTH ITS STEEL FRONT WINGS, WHICH ARE ROUGH BUT PROBABLY RESTORABLE, ITS OFFSIDE STEEL REAR WING, AND TWO SPARE RUBBER FRONT WINGS. ALTHOUGH REQUIRING MAJOR WORK, THE VAN WILL MAKE A FANTASTIC VEHICLE WHEN FINISHED, BOTH IN TERMS OF ENJOYMENT AND INVESTMENT. THANKS FOR LOOKING, FOR MORE DETAILS PLEASE CALL JOHN ON 07702274887. DELIVERY CAN BE ARRANGED AT EXTRA COST.






I wonder if the Ambulance van will be for sale shortly?


Tuesday 23 April 2013

More J types than you can shake a stick at.

For sale on e-bay.
Morris J type chassis.. Very rare and sort after vintage ice cream van as seen on the main photo are two that have been finished by Whitby Morrison.
This is being put up for auction with no reserve so don't miss out.
You are bidding for the one that needs to be finished.. It has engine and gearbox and very good chassis.
Call me if you have any questions 07540141261
You can tell its a J from the inside view.
Not the best picture of a vehicle for sale.
This vehicle has been a project for many years, its not a project for the novice.
Original registration Number was 5027 N. Also it has an Austin chassis plate, JB/AR.
Needs a fair bit of work.

Here are 3 pictures when it was on e-bay the last time, about a year ago.




Two conversion's already in their ice cream fleet. The badge on 942 BYY looks a bit low or is the chrome grill edge a bit wide? Now 942 BYY is a bit strange, I have recorded on my list 949 BYY as a GPO planners van from March 1960, I don't have 942, so another one to add to the list.

Now another fully restored van is on e-bay and also in various other classic vehicle magazines.
Its the well restored JB van dating from 1st January 1959.





Excellent condition, zero vat item. for more information ring Ian 07711 880510 This vehicle is advertised elsewhere, we reserve the right to remove listing if sold.

Now the North African van I recently featured, well it turns out this is advertising a restaurant in Morocco.

Thanks to Charlie in Canada for the added information.

Another New van to me, is this one owned by Bernie Stewart.
An Austin 101, unknown chassis number or date of registration, I cannot find any trace of it on any government vehicle data base, and yet here it is.

Monday 15 April 2013

4x4 Morris J type van.

As many J van owners will know, a couple of pictures of YLH 799 have been about on the web for many years. The owner at the time who did the splendid conversion has recently published on his flickr site a full set of pictures of "the van".
I have copied his captions and these are shown in red type.

These were basically single seat delivery vans that were widely used by the GPO and other utility services. The front and rear wings of the GPO models were made of rubber, and the 'dent' on the N/S front wing would just 'boing' back into
shape.

This old van was fairly unique in 4x4 guise, and it performed well enough off-road.
This ex GPO van was mine back in the 1970's. For an experiment I decided to convert it to four wheel drive.

The 4x4 experiment resulted in one wierd looking van ! I added the Turner winch to complete the conversion.
Both BMC marques, Austin and Morris, produced these J series vans. Fundamentally they both looked the same but mechanically the Morris had a side valve engine and the Austin an OHV 'B' series engine.

I sold it to a landscape gardener named Simon who used it for his work. I was living in Birmingham at the time and he was located in London. A mutual acquaintance tells me that when he sold it he regretted it and in fact tried to buy it back. I lost his contact details so hopefully someone will see it and give him a nudge.


Mostly Austin Gipsy stuff used in the conversion, the ratio's matched which meant less faffing about and I had the parts around the place.


When I was running this one my mate had the Morris version, great vans and great fun.
I used an Austin Gipsy front axle, ideal because the 5.125 diff matched the vans own rear axle. I just had to fit some spacers between spring and rear axle to make up the difference in height. I originally used a single speed Dodge WC52 transfer case mounted independantly, this allowed me to retain the vans original 1600 cc engine and gearbox. It soon became obvious that it needed more 'grunt' so I later replaced the lot with a Gipsy engine, gearbox with integral 2 spd transfer case. Thanks for your interest.
Can you add any information about this van, does it still exist?

Friday 5 April 2013

NGY 953

I mentioned in the last posting that NGY had rather changed since I last saw it.
Here is a copy of the posting I did on the van in 2010.
A rather fetching 1955 Hi Top van. First seen 30 years ago in Hereford.


According to the DVLA web site this is a September 1955 vehicle, un-taxed but with a recent owner change and fitted with a 1489cc engine, colour Brown.

Looking just the same as it did 30 years ago it re-surfaced and was for sale with a classic car dealer and restorer.

As you can see it is ex-Ministry of Defence, Army Transport. Dating from 1955 it's actual use within the Army can only be guessed at, maybe a NAFFI wagon?
Needing a bit of work but on the whole all there. It was advertised for £950 and I assume it sold very quickly.
The new owner has left it with the vehicle restorers David Wall of Wroham Nr Norwich to be restored!!

Also out and about, spotted recently are the Pickford's van and the well known Royal Mail van.
I understand the Pickford's van is currently for sale at an asking price of £15K.


A list of chassis number and registration dates.

J/R 010 10/1949--J/R 649 1949--J/R 755 1/1950--J/R 1061 12/1949--J/R 1102 12/1949--J/L 1518 1950--J/R 1612 03/1950--J/L 2935 1951--J/R 4491 11/1950--J/R 6050 12/1950--J/R 6187 1/1951--J/R 10916 12/1951--J/R 10972 1/1952--J/R 14776 12/1952--J/R 145931/1953--J/R 15455 1/1953--J/R 16261 03/1953--J/R 18124 1952--J/R 19902 12/1953--J/R 20658 02/1954--J/R 21720 12/1953--J/R 23555 1954--J/R 24274 1954--J/R 25618 12/1954--J/R 25079 1/1955--J/R 25741 05/1955--J/R 29869 11/1955--J/R 30963 11/1955--J/R 3183110/1955--J/R 32465 11/1955--J/R 33340 1/1956--J/R 35466 1/1957--J/R 35671 12/1956--JB/MR 37200 06/1957--JB/MR 39547 12/1957--JB/MR 39012 1/1958--JB/MR 39648 1/1958--JB/MR 42533 1/1959--JB/MR 42677 12/1958--JB/MR 43367 1959--JB/MR 45648 1/1960--JB/MR 45693 12/1959--JB/MR 46009 02/1960--JB/MR 47648 12/1960--JB/MR 47907 12/1960--JB/MR 48069 01/1961--JB/MR 48219 01/1961
Approximate Production data for each year.
1949 750 vehicles -1950 5347 -1951 5051 -19524098 -1953 5027 -1954 6000 -1955 6894 -19563169 -1957 3284 -1958 3131 -1959 2965 -19602516 -1961 362
Total produced 48620


Ardingly Vehicle Show 12/7/09. Picture taken by Clive Barker.