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.

Latest vehicle work.

During our brief heatwave, it hit 29 degrees here I have only been able to spent about 2 hours on my fleet since the beginning of the month. I just had to pick the hottest day to try and move this project forward.
I have found suitable rope hooks for the 1954 Morris Minor pick-up's tail gate and have fitted the new petrol tank. At long last as you might remember I ordered a new van/pick-up tank but received a saloon one, this was replaced promptly by a van/pick-up one (it's the filler neck that is different between saloons and commercials). The new tank looked alright but when fully un-packed it was found it had been made incorrectly.
I have now fitted the new replacement tank and new sender unit. Slight faults were found on fitting this tank, the outlet union thread were slightly "mashed up" and it was hard to get the threaded petrol pipe union to "start".
Also one of the threads on the sender mounting ring  was stripped. The final slight problem was the breather pipe from the top of the tank to the filler pipe, this copper pipe was in place but the soldering around the pipe ends was poor and hardly held the pipe in. Also if the tank was very full I'm sure it would start to leak as the petrol sloshed about.
Anyway the tank is now in and wired up. I hope to continue with the door repairs at the weekend.

New rope retainers fitted, not that they will ever be used but it does fill up the holes where the missing hooks were.

My one and only "proper" vehicle rally.

On Sunday 19th I was out and about in the J type. Doing my best to get in the way while I drove to the start at Henley on Thames about 15 miles away. We then did a nice road run of about 50 miles to have a static display at a steam railway. I then had a nice little late afternoon drive home of a further 30 miles.
Here are a few of the 80 other vehicles taking part on the day.

Funny, no cars in front of me but plenty behind.

The 1919 Leyland doing 12 MPH, yes we caught it up.

A down hill slope so with the road ahead clear we sailed past.

The best vehicle in the show, what do you think? It just had to be the this excellent J type.

Further pictures from Gaydon.

All on its own with just a rainbow for company.

Somewhere over the rainbow is a pot of gold! Picture by E.D. owner of Jb (704 HCV).

 What have I been doing on the fleet, no time I'm afraid to wield the spanners but I did order a new fuel tank for the pick-up as now all welding has been finished.
I was unlucky to be sent in error a car fuel tank so had to send that back. The replacement tank arrived and all looked good at first till I noticed the outlet pipe, its in the wrong place, the top and bottom pressings have been welded together but 180 degrees out.
So its got to be sent back again, slight problem they are out of stock of these tanks so till another batch are made I will have to wait.

Another van for sale on e-bay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180677211351&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:GB:1123
Quote
"Up for a very rare auciton is my fathers morris j type van. the van was restored less than 12 months ago its paint work is very nice sprayed in a oven for a better finish the van is a 1954 and had lots of new body panels. please dont email me ring him on.07943073246. ask for peter."

Also on e-bay is a postcard size picture of a Martin Walter mini bus. A nice period picture, shame the registration number cannot be seen. Strange place to mount the indicators, in the grill panel.