Reliability - its something that we all look for in a car. No one likes being broken down or stuck in the rain at the best of times. We'd all love to have a car that we can guarantee will keep going and going and going until the motor dies a natural death. Instead it's usually the case that the dodgy oil gauge - the one that we meant to get fixed - didn't let us know that a hose has come off at 8000 rpm...
Now how many times have you heard the phrase "...they don't build em like they used to..."? What if you could have the strength and reliability of the old, mixed with modern yet functional features? What if you could have a 1953 Morris ute fitted out with a 1.4 litre fuel injected 4 cylinder and just for good measure chuck a turbocharger on board as well? Good looks, yep; classic lines, yep; power on tap, yep; sturdy body strength, yep; reliability - well, how do six trips across Australia and back and one trip around the whole continent sound? Reliable enough I should think.
Brian Parkes is the man. Perth resident and Morris fanatic. Fanatical enough to drive from Perth to Adelaide in 1987, to Toowoomba in '89, to Wollongong in '91, Ballarat in '93, Canberra in '97, and Dubbo in '99. Doesn't he like planes? No it's not that; he just loves to take his ute to shows - and being Perth, there's not a huge number of shows to take it to, hence the long trips. Each time he takes the 4000km journey across the Nullarbor he does it non-stop. In fact for the Wollongong show in 1991, he only had 6 days holiday spare so he packed up the ute, drove 2 days across the Nully, spent 2 days at the show, then drove home. That's over 2000 kilometres in a day! Almost 24 hours a day at 100 km/h average! He did the Perth to Dubbo trip in 38 hours. Adelaide in 27 hours. Did I mention fanatical?
I first met Brian through the Morris Car Club of WA, and being that my name is also Brian, it was easy to remember him. His ute is painted a colour by Spartan Paints. The colour is Bryon Blue. My name is Brian White. I have a Morris too - it's orange. Go figure!
OK as I was saying, Brian's ute is a 1953 Morris Minor. The standard sub one litre motor has been given the flick in favour of the more popular Datsun/Nissan 'A' engine and gearbox conversions. Rated as a 1400cc it's been given an extra 40 thou bore and fully balanced by D & S Engines. The crank, pistons, and rods are all pretty much factory gear, however the camshaft has received a regrind to enhance the performance of the turbocharger. Keeping it all cool is a 3-core Datsun radiator and electric thermo fan.
The turbocharger itself is a Garret T25 hiflow intercooled unit fitted with an external oil cooler. Brian spent over 200 hours making custom inlet and exhaust manifolds to suit the turbo and make sure everything fitted neatly into the Morris's compact engine bay. A feat not to be downplayed, considering there was also an injection system from an E15 Nissan motor with a Ford Laser throttle body and Isuzu 2 litre ECU imported from Japan still to be plugged in! Brian also added a CA-18 airflow meter plus water injection and a 5th fuel injector for good measure. The custom exhaust manifold continues through a totally stainless steel 2ΒΌ-inch system and Genie Tornado muffler. Purists of the Morris Minor marque may cringe, but never a sweeter note has come from such a cool looking car!
Everything about a Morris is generally tiny. The body is tiny, the wheels are tiny, the engine bay is tiny, and the fuel tank is tiny. It costs around $20 to fill a Morris from dead empty to overflowing, even in these days of fuel prices being regularly over a dollar a litre. And the one thing you don't want to do if you drive your car often across the Nullarbor is run out of petrol. It's a long hot wait between cars out there and the service stations are a couple of hours of driving apart! Not wanting to take any chances, Brian fitted up a whopping 90-litre fuel tank and electronic pump from a Ford, together with larger steel fuel lines. Better to be safe than sorry.
The pushing gear in this 50's English icon has been overhauled with a 5-speed gearbox and an imported hydraulic clutch (with a Datsun 1600 flywheel) running back to a Borg Warner 3.7 ratio diff taken from a Morris Marina 6 cylinder vehicle. Due to the obvious width differences, the axles had to also be shortened to suit. The Marina influence has also been used in the braking department - sensible performance modifications should always be backed by better braking and handling to compensate for the additional power over the standard units. In short, original Morris brakes are crap - get bigger ones! Brian's ute has been fitted front and rear with the Marina's 10inch brake system with a PBR VH40 booster. He also tacked in the pedal assembly from an Austin 1800.
Suspension is a pretty big issue when rebuilding a Morris. I speak from experience here when I say that the standard ride is pretty harsh and the bolts in the rear suspension mounts have a regular habit of rattling themselves loose and randomly dropping out on the road! I used to have the same problems with my old Ford Escort - maybe its just a curse that's following me around or the Poms designed their cars to drive on roads lined with the soft corpses of peasants that were overcome by the black plague! Now the '53 has sturdy gas Pedder shocks fitted on the front and rear and stiffened with Whiteline heavy duty swaybars as well. The whole suspension and steering has been refitted with urethane bushes. Sitting it all off the ground is a set of 14 x 6 inch Superlite mag rims and 195/60/14 Firestone Directional tyres on both the front and the rear.
The interior of Brian's ute has also received an overhaul to make it much more practical and comfortable. He has tossed out the standard seats in favour of front bucket seats from a Toyota Corolla, retrimming them in white and blue to match the paintwork. The doortrims and rooflining have received the same attention to detail. All gauges were wired in and supplied by VDO in the form of a new speedo, tacho, oil, fuel, temperature, clock, and boost gauge for the turbocharger. A common upgrade - pretty standard for all Morries that get modified, in fact - is the swapping of the steering column and wheel for the bolt-in version out of an early model Ford Laser. A genuine Morris has knobs on the dashboard that control the indicators and wipers but this can be confusing and downright dangerous to the uninitiated so most make the swap. It also helps the options when later on down the track you want to remove the huge standard Morris steering wheel and replace it with a smaller diameter, more sporty wheel and boss kit.
It only took Brian a little over twelve months to get his ute from a rolling body shell to the example you see today. He's poured more than $13,000 into the project and a countless number of man-hours as well. And it's now pretty much complete, as Brian has started on a new project, a Morris panelvan running a Toyota 4AGE 1600 Twin Cam motor and turbocharger. Considering he's been tinkering with cars since he was 12 years old and has a lot of years ahead of him yet, expect to see some more fast miracles of the Morrie type coming from Perth...
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