Moggy Minor Pick-up

fitted with a

2000cc Fiat Twin-Cam Engine & 5 Speed Gearbox.

I'll apologise now for the quality of the photos.

They are old photo's and have been scanned to be put up on this site.

Many moons ago in the late 1980's I owned a 1969 Morris Minor. It came to me fitted with a 1300cc Marina engine and the standard 4 speed moggy gearbox. When it was running it smoked so bad it looked like it was running on coal. With it smoking like it did, I was to ashamed to drive it down the road. So time it was to source another engine. At the time it was all the rage to fit the Twin-Cam Fiat engines to Moggy Minors, so this was route I took.

It wasn't long before I found a 50'000 mile, 2000cc Twin-Cam Fiat Engine with a 5 speed box to go into the Moggy Pick-up. You could, if you wanted to, go out and buy a fitting kit for this sort of conversion, but I didn't bother and made all the necessary brackets and mounts myself. I took a week off work and within that week I had it in and running as sweet as a nut. I was surprised at how easy it was to fit and giving that the engine bay ain't that big, there was plenty of room for the Fiat engine, except for the coolent cooling Fan, which run very close to the rad.

One mod I did very soon after fitting the Fiat engine was to fit a Kenlow Fan. You could use the fan off the engine, but this was very tight and it ran very close to the radiator, I was afraid that it might cut accross the rad and damage it. The Kelow fan is a lot slimmer than the Fiat one. At a later date and just for that visual effect, I painted the Kenlow Fan white and thought it looked great seeing it through the front grill.

The only problem with doing this conversion was the brakes. I had plans aloft of converting to disc brakes and useing the Morris Marina set-up. A common and easy conversion but, never did get round to doing it. I later sold the Moggy as it was to a mate, who then sold it on again and then we lost track of it.

Braking wasn't to bad when going at normal road speeds around town and the alike, but when you really got going and and was doing around the 100MPH plus mark, that's when trouble set in. Being the standard drum brkes, they would over heat very quickly at speed and getting brake faid at 100MPH plus was no joke. You really did have to plan ahead at that sort of speed.

I had a lot of fun with this car and spent a whole summer going to Santa Pod Racway with it. It was so low geared in the differential, a 4.11 ratio if I remember correctly, that it would accelerate like mad and would run out of steam at around a 120 MPH in fifth gear. It would do the 'Standing Quarter' in the 15's and reach around 85 to 90 MPH over the line.

When I first purchased this Moggy it had a false exhaust going up the back of the cab. It was removed when a new exhaust was needed and I made a side exit one with a big Cherry Bomb silencer. Also at a later date in owning this Moggy I brought some Wolf-Race Alloys for the rear. These where fitted with a wider 185/70 13 tyres. Although it seemed to get more grip of the line, it didn't make any differance to it's standing quarter times.

I did many miles in this car and all of them was flat out when I could. I used it for work, rest and play and I loved driving it. I used to take it to the Chelsea Cruse and I once drove it all the way up to Sunderland with my wife to visit the parents in-law. I went to a lot of shows with the MK Roadsters. This was a Club come Group of lads that had one thing in common, Going Fast.

Below is a Photo of a creation I did over a weekend.

It's a Mini with a Ford Anglia 105E flip-front Bonnet/Front end.

I sold this car soon after building it, to a friend in our club.

He fell in love with it and made me a silly offer that I couldn't refuse.

So I sold it.