Morgan Restoration Thread
 

This car has been in my family since new. It's a 1962 Morgan Plus Four. It was in the Mel Brooks film SILENT MOVIE back in 1978 or so, and then the head gasket was blown around 1979, and it sat in the garage forgotten under piles of junk until now. My father came across it while looking for some golf clubs, and he offered it to me. I didn't really want it, as I have my hands full with an Austin Healey 3000 to take care of, and plenty of other toys, but I thought of my daughter, who is now only four...SHE can use this car in 12 years. That gives me 12 years to fix it up and, uh, test-drive it, before turning it over...

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

My father said his Jaguar mechanic(my father drives a 73XKE, since new, it's his baby) knew of a Morgan specialist, so we called him up and he came and picked up the car from New Jersey where it was and took it to his shop in Upstate New York. The called a few days later and offered to "take it off my hands" for a couple of grand. My alarm bells went off. I asked him what the car needed, and he sort of stuttered and said, "well, everything..."
He started in with the frame being totally rusted away, the engine needing complete rebuilding, completely replacing all brakes and lines...on and on. It just seemed fishy. So I went up there to his shop, about three hours north from me here in NYC, and took a look for myself. I found the frame had nothing but surface rust, and he had a car in the barn there in much worse shape, that he wanted $14,000 for. He would not give me any firm estimates on paper for any of the jobs he wanted to do. Replacing the frame would be "somewhere between $7 and $10 grand...if all goes well..." all this kind of thing. Basically, he seemed to want to either A) take the car off my hands for nothing and resell it for a big profit or B) take the car apart completely and then charge me whatever he wanted to put it back together. What he really needed, and what he really preferred to work with, was a "mark", a sucker, some doctor who has a big checkbook and no mechanical knowledge who would just blithely write checks until a $40k restoration was done. That ain't me, I have at least a LITTLE mechanical knowledge, and my checkbook ain't that large. At any rate, I did not feel comforatble with the guy at all. I told him I wanted to bring the car an hour south to Orange County Airport, where I have a couple of hangars I use for toy storage, and work on the car myself. Then he said he did not have a transporter, and I would have to pick it up myself. Funny...he had a transporter with his name painted on the side when he picked up the car in New Jersey the week before.
We settled on $500 for the "work done", which consisted of towing the car maybe 120 miles and spending an hour "inspecting it." A ripoff, sure, but I did not want to burn my bridges with the guy, as he is the biggest Morgan parts supplier in the USA, far as I can see....

So I paid it...

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

Sooooo...the next week I borrowed a nice trailer from my airport neighbor, he's a car nut, too, he has a Lamborghini Countach all spread out on his bench now, takes guts to take apart an Italian 12 like that by yourself.
By the time all was said and done, it took 13 hours of driving, from the city, to pick up a ball hitch in one town upstate, over to the airport to pick up the trailer, then upstate to the Morgan shop, where I arrived at 6:15PM. The guy refused to stay past 6pm to help me load up the car. He just pushed it outside and locked the barn. I had to push the car up on the trailer by myself. Used a clever combination of terrain and sweat, as I did not have a winch. Had to drive the whole rig 100 miles or so, through twisty mountain roads, for the most part. Just about every kind of driving in one day, from off-road to towing trailers to fast highway driving, the old loyal Range Rover never missed a beat or broke out in a sweat. I definitely started to sweat when I was unloading the trailer back at Orange County, at about midnight...in order to get the right angle to shoot the morgan right down the trailer ramps and into the hangar(a fair uphill slope) I had to drive the whole rig off the pavement and into the grass. I did not realize it had been raining, and the ground was VERY soft. Like flooded soft. So here I am, axle-deep in mud, with a trailer with a car on it on the back. Alone. At midnight. BUT...it all worked out. Very, very carefully, in a very low gear, the Rangie backed out of the mud after I rolled the morgan off the trailer into the hangar. Loyal vehicle.
Before I unloaded car off the trailer, I took it to a self-serve car wash, which took 30 years of grime off the car, since the car would not be mobile again until the motor was fixed.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

Some pics...
The Morgan sitting outside the specialist's shop, looking pretty forlorn.
A fully restored Plus Four in white.
A brand new Morgan Aero Eight...they are still being made.
The Morgan up on the trailer getting hosed down...

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

And here she is after a little clean-up...

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

Not so bad.
Here's where I stand. The head gasket was definitely blown. The oil pan had been taken off and was sitting in the front seat. There was some rust on the internal parts, as you can see from the pics on the first post. So I hired a retired guy who has a hangar around the corner. He rebuilds cars and airplanes, he has a Lotus and an MGBGT he is working on for other guys, along with a couple of experimental aircraft. I felt like I wanted some professional help to deal with the motor, he has the tools and skills and time, and we are not sure if the motor needs to come out yet or what. He started in the other day and took of the big end bearings and such, saw some surface rust that wiped right off, did not see anything that looks like a real problem in the bottom end. Next week he will take off the head. If the pistons are not rusted into place, then the cylinders can be honed with the engine in place, and all will be no big deal. If they are really bad and need to be bored, then the motor will have to come out, and then I might as well just rebuild it top to bottom. I am prepared for either contingency.
My neighbor Mike, who is a dynamite craftsman, said he had just unpickled a Gypsy Major that had not run since 1969, he just fired the thing up and changed the oil a couple of times, no worries. He thought I should have just thrown some marvel mystery oil into the cylinders and waited for the thing to free up and just run it, but since I KNEW it had a bad head gasket anyway, I thought it better to wait before trying to turn the engine over, in case the rust damages the bearings and rings.

The interior is a mess. Back in the Early Eighties, three different cats had littlers of kittens in the car. Not a good thing. All that Connelly leather upholstry ruined. The seats are all dried up and have animal created holes in them. The tonneau cover is salvageable with some stitching and cleaning. The interior panels are mostly okay, except those over the sills, which have curled up and seem unsalvageable. I checked out a complete interior from Morgan, $3750 plus MANY hours of installation. If I do that, I will farm it out. Upholstry is specialist work, I have had only limited success doing it myself. I may dye most of the existing interior and just replace the seats. We will see about that later.

The car was originally white, but was given a pretty awful yellow paint job for the movie. Good enough for picture, as they say in the film business, but no so great in the real world. Low quality paint, and overspray on EVERYTHING, including the dashboard. Terrible. Some paint flaked off in a few spots with just the car wash sprayer. I have compounded a few spots, and it cleaned up okay, though. All the spots and animal footprints and stuff compounded out, maybe the existing paint job can be matched with touch-up paint and lived with for a few years. Repainting the car PROPERLY will be a big job, as it really will need the yellow paint job stripped off. Which really means stripping the car down to bare metal. Which really means pretty complete dissasembly. Maybe somewhere down the road.

The chrome is not bad. The bumpers have been pushed in a bit, and one needs straightening, but I polished up some test spots, and everything came up as presentable...not pitted, not perfect, presentable.

The woodwork that makes up the body seems pretty good. You know the car is built of wood, with metal panels on the outside? Really. The doors open and close properly, that tells a lot about the condition of the woodwork. I have some experience dealing with that kind of thing with a 52MGTD, beleive me, there are good reasons they don't make cars out of wood anymore.

All the hydraulics need doing. Clutch and brakes.

Engine is the first thing to deal with. Once the car is running, everything else will look much easier. A dead car that does not run is psycologically not such a great thing.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

I've seen the stuff you can pack into that RR. Not too many vehicles that can do that. Have fun with the restoration and tell Mike M. that I said hi.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

I'm on my fifth RR now, I tend to be pretty hard on my "squadron hack" vehicles!
I will be speaking to MM later today, he's working on an EDF F-84, his first electric.
He restored both a Norton and a BSA, but he keeps putting off registering and insuring them, so I have nobody to ride with up at the airport. It's a shame, as I have been riding a ton, it's the most beautiful motorcycle country in the world up there...

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

not sure how you sleep at night.....

faceless...

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

[link=http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=easytiger]http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=easytiger[/link]

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

were did you get the money for that beauty of a car???? the people you ripped off on ebay????

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

id be embarrased if the money you stole was put into THAT.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

Oh, no, it's ROB TIMKO!
Hey Rob...been busted shill bidding lately?

Item:
2855781719

Seller timr1108

Bidder: bt539

ID's: Both ROB TIMKO from NEW JERSEY.

Rob...you are a scammer and a liar and a lowlife. No more, no less. You forget I banned you from my auctions under yet ANOTHER name a few years ago. Think I forgot?
You GOT your decals, you even RESOLD them already, didn't you?
I appreciate your wacky phone calls cussing me out, your crazy letters, and your following me around on the internet, it's all very amusing, and I think you need to change your meds or lay off the caffeine. I think the caffeine is giving you an ulcer, anybody who lists their email as 'caffeineman" probably ought to lay off.
Maybe I will put a few of my vintage hot rod decals(of which you may not have any!) on this morgan! Just to spite you!

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

thats me. (well not 1 of those people up there, the other is another bidder you ripped off) you *****. you sent me an email YESTERDAY saying that you have not yet shipped it out..

haha, funny, look at your feedback? whats the excuse of private bidders now...

its ok, i know where ya live at now....at least be a MAN and answer your PHONE.

you think ill go away?

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

and yes. im wasting my time on this message board because i got my items and resold them and i wanna smear your name over 10$...thats the ticket...

whats your address? ill come pick them up...

or are you still hiding.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

BTW those names surely are both robert timkos, father and son. :) edit (and by those names i mean the ebay names not he message board names for the idiots who cant read)

here we are. where are you? shill bidding? nope.


http://s98005534.onlinehome.us/album...5159.sized.jpg

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

YES, I think you will go away, I DID answer the phone, and you hung up, after leaving some wildass nasty messages, and


YES....both names above are YOU. ROB TIMKO. And I banned you from my auctions under yet ANOTHER name several years ago.
Shill bidding is STEALING, rob. STEALING.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

Yup. You are an unemployed would be pin-striper. You have nothing better to do.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

That's your excuse?
Your DAD just HAPPENED across your items and unknowingly bid on them?

But first you said it was some perfect stranger.

Dude...you are SO busted. He bid on dozens of your items.
It's called shill bidding.
It's called stealing.

Hey, the White trash pinstriper father and son board is over on yahoogroups, I think, maybe you should check in there?

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

sorry, but id advise you to LOOK at the auction, haha. then maybe youd not look like such a fool.....

it was a charity action for a friend that was in the hospital who was in an accident, look it up.

shill bidding i think not...

and no...that other person up there is NOT related to me thats another person you just happen to rip off that also emailed me. i have gotten MULTIPLE emails from people who you ripped off...

but even if i shill bid all day...that doesnt change that you robbed multiple people of thier money.

white trash? yep you got it..im the one robbing 10$ off people......

be a MAN answer your phone....its amazing a liar like yourself can sleep at night. no worries, what goes around comes around.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

how come you stopped selling on ebay? how come you changed all your auctions to private bidders?

proof is in the feedback....loook at yours....

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

SURE! It was CHARITY shill bidding! As were all the other items of yours your "dad" bid on!
And no...it's YOU!
You're a theif, and an overcaffeinated whacko!
No, no phone calls from you, sorry.
You left two messages this morning, telling me to "watch my back" and calling me a ****, etcetera...
And then when I picked up the phone, you got SCARED and hung up!

I changed to private auctions some time back because I was getting people siphoning off my bidders...same as a lot of other sellers. It's something of an epidemic, now that lowlifes like you have taken over ebay.
I have left ebay because it's just no fun anymore. Too many nuts nowadays! Case in point...YOU!

But, hey, I only have 10,000 positive feedbacks. What the hell do I know about it?

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

Hey, Maine Antiques Digest just called me and said they got an email from some whacko named Rob Timko trying to get my adress...

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

You know Rob, I'm a pretty nice guy, and a pretty generous guy, but this whole thing you are doing, it's not going to work, it's going to backfire on you. Maybe try another, nicer tack.

RE: Morgan Restoration Thread
 

hahahaha. your great. its amazing compulsive liars like you can sleep at night....

don't worry what goes around comes around.

10,000 feeedbacks? yeah look at the last 100....must have been a rough month for ya huh?

well, you know where i am, maybe someday...you'll stop hiding like a little keyboard commando.