PROJECT MORRIS MINOR PART 5: PETROL LEAKS AND SPONGY BRAKES
Whenever I buy a new old car, I am always wary of filling the petrol tank to the brim. That’s partly because you never know if it is going to last the journey home, but also because you don’t want to put in £40 worth of petrol and then watch it all pour back out of a rusty hole in the fuel tank. I remember my dad buying an Austin 1800 once, only to find that it leaked from a rusty seam if you put more than three gallons in.
The Minor came with a recently fitted new tank, but old habits die hard and so I only topped it up with £15 worth of petrol – enough to get me home with a little to spare. All was well on that journey, and I was soon deep into the front suspension rebuild. With that all put back together again, I went for a test run of a few miles, returned home and checked all the nuts and bolts for tightness. There were no problems there, so on my next trip out I filled up with petrol properly.
Half a mile down the
