Trimmings and other bits.

Back side of the Chrome hockey sticks.

Drilled and tapped.

Hockey stick in place.

Repairing the hockey sticks.

Both hockey sticks were not in good condition. One stick had all three studs broken and the other stick two studs broken with the third stud in not to good a condition. I had bought two hockey sticks off Trade Me that were in good condition but didn’t realise that series 2 with the cheese grater grill had different hockey sticks to that of the Morris 1000. So to fix the ones I had, I had to grind the broken studs down to the diecast. Centre punch the middle of the stud. Then I got a 1/8 drill and set the drill press up so the drill would stop before it went right through the hockey stick. Taking it slowly I drilled the stud. Then I got a 5/32 drill and repeated the process. Seeing I was going to try and put a thread into the diecast I thought a corse thread would be better than a fine metric thread. Hence I chose a 3/16 whitworth tap. The first tap was a taper and of course bottomed out after a couple of turns so I ground an other 3/16w tap flat on the bottom and turned it into a plug tap. With this I managed to tap the hole to a depth of about 8mm. With a spring washer behind a short 3/16 whitworth screw, the hockey stick should stay in place no trouble at all.

Stripping the deck to see if it is repairable.

Underside of the deck.

Rather stuffed.

Rust has had a great wee feed.

Stripping the deck.

All pulled apart.

After taking the old decking off, l had a good look at it to see if it was worth repairing. It was pretty rusty in places but not to bad in others. Since the Morrie come out of England as just a cab and chassis and the deck was made in New Zealand 60 years ago there isn’t too many of these decks around now and it would be a shame not to fix it if it is possible. I found that most of it is pop riveted together with only the corners welded. With a drill bit I drilled off the top of the pop rivets and with a very thin grinding disk I cut the welds. This will make it a lot easier to repair.

The company that made the back end.

As I said on the main page the deck was made in the Wilton Motor Body Company Ltd. 49 Tutanekai st. grey Lynn Auckland. This firm was around in the 1950’s but this address is now a residential area.

Badge on the side of the pickup deck.

Rust in front of deck

New metal.

One thing I found out when starting this project. I can’t weld rust.

Just got a lab test on my workmanship

Start of the rebuild

Just bent up a new piece for the front of the well deck. A couple of the panels were just to far gone to repair. Got a panel of 1.2mm zinc panel. Marked it out then used a small cutting wheel to cut it out. I was lucky enough to find a kind gentleman to bend it for me in his bender as we were in lock down with this not very nice Covid-19. I can bend small bits but this panel is just under 1500mm long.