A re-paint for an old friend.

The well known static Cafe sign on the South Island of New Zealand has had a small make over, from orange and grubby brown it's now in a fetching shade of one coat white.

More period pictures, thanks M.P. great stuff as always.

 The first picture of a Milk Float J type on this blog.

Ice cream or burger van for sale.

No starting handle holes in the grill?

E-bay advert states,

"Morris j 1955 ex naafi van more photos to follow any inspection welcome 20 miles approx since restorating no posting no overseas deals mot 12mths tax 12 mtgs".

Here is the September 1955 registered van before restoration started.

Doctor Who- Remembrance of the Daleks.

Its was mentioned in the last blog post about a J van appearing in an unknown episode of Dr Who, well within hours the episode has been tracked down by G.S., thanks mate for shedding light on this small mystery. Does this van still exist? Hard to say, so many vans (old vehicles in general) have lost their original registration number its hard to keep track of them.

 So GJH591 where are you?

Dr Who J type vans.

Up and till now it was thought only two J type vans have been seen in Dr Who, one episode with David Tennant and one in the Dr Who Film of the 1960's with Peter Cushing.
It would appear that another has been used in the past, in an earth bound episode with the Doctor played by Sylvester Mccoy.
Here is a TV screen shot of the van, unknown episode, it would be nice to see the full registration number.

Other news, another J van found, this one in Mumbai, India, looks good and I've tried to make contact with the owner. Since the mention of this blog site in Classic Van and Pick-up the number of hits per day has increased to an average of 130, not bad at all. This has also had the benefit of a few period pictures being e-mailed to us, some of which are new to us. I will share them with you shortly.

Another van surfaces in Canada.

T.H. has found another van, to join up with existing project, JONI.

This van was found in south west Saskatchewan, Canada to you and me.

This newly found van seems to date from 1953, is LHD and has the centre mounted accelerator pedal.

I have offered a good rear door to replace the missing one. I would be keen to purchase this van but fear just how much the shipping costs would be.

T.H's other van has been having some work done on it, the original gearbox needed parts but I was unable to help him.

 T.H takes up the story,"As far as Joni goes now, I have installed new rear brakes, new master cyl. Brake cables are fine, tranny is back from the shop No parts found, so I brought synchro and lay shaft to a friend who built up synchro and rebuilt teeth with stainless steel and hand ground each one, ready to be installed with engine once painted. The van has been to Bodyshop and had front fender and door pillar pulled back to original, was off by a good 3 inches".

Thanks for the update and thanks for sharing the pictures.

1954 Morris Minor running for the first time in years.

I had a few minutes spare, so I thought I would attack the wreck of the 1954 Morris Minor pick-up that has been sitting in the garage for the last 8 or 9 years. I pushed it out the other week to be able to tidy up the garage. Well since then no tidying has taken place, just no spare time, busy busy that's me.
Today I thought, why not have a go at the poor thing.
So a gallon of petrol into the tank, a battery connected up with the aid of some jump leads. Not a lot happened, the electric petrol pump points needed cleaning and various pipe joints needed tightening.
Next the NO Spark problem was down to dirty points in the distributor. Well it started up but won't run unless on choke, fuel gauge shows full even though its not, the ignition light does not work and the dynamo and regulator box are both on strike.  Still maybe in the next couple of months I will be allowed to play again for another 15 minutes, who knows what I will be able to fix. These old vehicles can be such good fun.

Classic van and pick-up magazine.

The latest edition of Classic van and pick-up magazine has hit the shelves, seems to have a feature on a Morris JB van at Buckingham Palace.

The Facebook page has had yet another success, a J type tipper trucks owner has made contact, from the details so far supplied its a vehicle that's not been on the road for over 30 years! Restoration has started. We are eagerly waiting for some progress pictures to turn up, should be very interesting.

Period J van picture.

A period J van picture is for sale on e-bay, maybe a little steep in price at £22.00 but an interesting snap.
Sign written as Wollaston Garage, nice.