A pair of front shockers.

If your looking for a pair of new old stock front shock absorbers for your J type my friend  has a pair for sale. These are the standard 10 inch closed and 15 inch open with loops top and bottom. Price £35 for the pair plus postage £8.
He also has a quantity of those hard to find windscreen wiper rubber pegs.
Interested call Derek 01225 766800 or e-mail jones@jpamela.orangehome.co.uk

Another J type found?

A Morris Commercial J-Type van was spotted in a corner of an industrial yard in the Western Australia country town of York. Pictures taken Jan this year!




I have been e-mailed with these images of a J van, now I don't know the sender but have posted the pictures he sent. I hope that is OK.
Could somebody in Oz do a few thousand miles and see if they can find this van and it's owner? Or do you guys out there already know about this one?

A second unknown sender e-mail also turned up today, with a picture of a Dutch J type van, who can tell me more about this vehicle?
Within a couple of hours I gained this translation of the history of the van.

Arabic white, Bergen grey and lemon yellow.

The Grandpa of Marc Bischoff Tulleken was a master painter. "In short it meant that he was skilled in painting and hung pictures from homes and public buildings with additional knowledge of the reclameschilderen". (I think it may mean he was also a decorator but one who actually painted pictures/murals on the walls)

 Marc’s grandfather and his brother had a business together, and in 1953 bought the Morris van “ Brothers Gorter” it was a new van with a 600 pound payload.

The van had to be a rolling advertisement for the business, so he sprayed and sign wrote it himself.. The van received the first provincial registration GZ-82069. In 1955 this was changed to NS-27-98.

The van was sold to them by J.J. Moolen Automotive Company N.V. a local forge annex repair shop for automobiles in Amersfoort in the Netherlands. The van could at that time be levied by the Ministry of War if they felt they had reason to do so. The van then had to go for public registration, with a full fuel tank to the church square at Hippolytushoef for assessment.

But the van was not only used for the business It was also the family car.

”For the weekend all the paint brushes were taken out of it and the ladders were lifted from the roof," says Marc. "The van was then ready for outings. Sometimes with the whole family on the road, for example: a few days to Terschelling. There was only a driver and passenger seat, I know my mother still remembers it. In between was the engine under a lid. That could not be otherwise with a flat nosed van. The radiator cap sat in the middle of the dashboard.

For trips my grandfather had created a kind of wooden bench that could be fitted in the back. If more people went along there was a mattress. All in all we covered so many kilometers, with pleasure and in comfort)

"During the clearing of Grandpa's House I found this picture, which I had seen often, but also a design sketch for advertising on the van. Compared with the van in the photo there are differences. It may be that he had the van adapted later on to the fashions of that time. "
"After nine years, Grandpa bought his first Volkswagen Splitbus. Because of the many kilometers he drove, he changed them approximately every two years."

"After the dissolution of the business, grandpa’s brother still drove the van for a long time. My grandfather drove all Volkswagen, still a class better. Much later, the Morris was bought back by the dealer and continued into the 1980s behind the garage area, rusting. It was advertised as in the picture when it was still there. Unfortunately, I have here no more photos of it. "
 Even the wheels and Hubcaps were painted in matching colours.
Thanks to B.F. of the MO and 6/80 club for the above information.

A quick update.

Busy life = not much vehicle restoration.
Good news, Links to the on-line manuals have been reloaded onto this site.
The ONY blog is being rewritten by Alex, so for a short time most of his blog has been removed, out with the old and lots of new pictures soon.

That grill, I've seen it somewhere before.

Picture taken by J.M and C.L. at Silverstone MG get together. 26/6/2011

Yes I have been playing again, well work is so boring so I have been playing with gif's, these moving things you see above. They're like "flick books" but computerized, should I copy Harvey and do J vans driving all over the page? My skill level is not that good yet, so just playing for now.

The latest from this part of the world.

The latest news, the lost blog entries and links to down loadable manuals have been saved and will moved back to this site shortly. I had manage to save them some weeks ago but just  had so little time to do any "blogging".
News of the fleet, my March 1948 "Gents" bike that had the slipping gears has at long last been repaired. With advise and a generous donation of brand new spare parts from a fellow J type owner (thanks again HBF 263) the bike is on the road. It now needs lots of light cleaning to improve it's appearance and the left hand pedal needs a bit of work as slightly bent.
Now the summer is here and the warm rain is due tonight I might well start cycling to work, well as soon as the schools break up for summer and the roads are quieter.
I took OBL432 for an MOT, I set off from home the other day and within sight of my house the throttle cable snapped. I had converted my JB's engine to have an SU carburettor when I first got the van, so it's both cable operated throttle and choke. This gives a much lighter pedal than the old system having the rod linkage pivoting on the engine, I found that if you hit a "pot hole" in the road and the engine would move slightly on its mountings it also tended to rev the engine up slightly. So you would tend to bump into a hollow and the van would lurch out of the hole, giving a very uneven ride. It was only the nipple on the end of the cable that had come off and with the aid of a bit of electrical terminal block from the tool kit we were under way within a few minutes. Well I'm pleased it passed in a way I'm now all legal again but it was far from being full check over of the vehicle.
I like to know the state of my rally wrecks, sorry my fleet of fine museum quality vehicles. A fresh pair of eyes checking over your vehicle and any recent work you have carried out has got to be a good thing.
Having been short of time the only other thing I have been doing is finishing the repair to the drivers door on my Morris Pick up.

The bottom of the door before the bottom and front sections cut out.

The new under door section fitted.

Welded up and the 3rd skim of filler being applied.

Getting there but still low spots.

Getting better all the time.

The repaired door refitted to the pick up. Correct fitment will be carried out once I have the correct door top frame, the one on this door was stainless steel (taken from a car) and should have the commercial type which is plain painted steel.

I have recently started feeding the birds at the bottom of our garden and one cheeky Robin has become quiet tame, within a couple of days he was taking food out of my hand.

He has got so brave now that he has started sitting on our patio table and has "pecked" the glass door to let us know he is waiting.

Dr Dolittle lives?

Also Alex is taking over his blog that I started for him so expect to see some changes shortly on the ONY Frank Grounds mini-bus blog.