©By: John T. Blair (WA4OHZ)
1133 Chatmoss Dr., Va. Beach, Va. 23464; (757) 495-8229

Originally Written: Circa 1997

Last update: June 17, 2009 - Reformatted page & corrected my email address

Thanks to all that have contributed questions and answers to this FAQ. While I have put this together, I have pulled much of the wording from numerious emails.

Greg Solow, Jeff Webster, Chuck Vandergraaf, Stephen Stierman, Nelson Warner, Gary Arcus,

Q1.

Cables run inside the car - Are there meant to be any wires, fuel lines etc. that run front to back INSIDE the car? Mine has the battery negative cable (It's a positive earth car), a bunch of lighting wires on the passenger side, and a fuel line on the drivers side. They all run/are attached to the sill board.

I can't believe this work is original, Surely the wiring and fuel lines ran on the outside of the tub, perhaps under the wings?

Basically that is correct. However, there are some differences based on weither the car is a 4/4 or a +4 and possibly if it is Right Hand Drive or Left Hand drive.

On my 65 4/4 (Left Hand Drive) there are 3 major items that run through the interior of the car: the fuel line, the main battery feed, and the connecting wiring harness - connecting the front harness to the rear harness.

The fuel line comes from the tank, through the thin plywood panel that forms the rear trunk wall. Then the fuel line is routed along the side brace that form the bottom support for the trunk deck. Then down the slanted panel that forms the back of the seating area to the sill plate. Along the sill plate to the fire wall, where it goes through a gromet to the fuel pump.

On the +4s of the 60s the battery is mounted under the bonnet in the middle of the firewall. On the earlier +4s and 4/4s the battery is mounted on a small tray under the trunk deck. On my 65 4/4 the battery is mounted on the passenger side of the car. It is a POSITIVE GROUND system. So the Positive battery cable is connected to the chassis just in front of the rear axle. The Negative cable is routed through the angled panel behind the seat area then along the sill plate to the firewall. It comes out of the firewall and attaches to the starter solenoid on the passenger side outer edge of the firewall.

The interconnecting harness that connects the main harness to the rear lights etc. is connected to the main harness under the dash board on the passengers side of the car. There is a mounting clamp mounted to the wooden body tub just infront of the door. The harness is then routed down the wood to the sill plate, and to the back of the car. It is attached to the braces that forms the support for the trunk deck. In the rear part of the wooden fender inner panel the connecting harness is attached with a metal clamp. The rear harness is also mounted with a clamp here, and the 2 pieces are connected together.

The factory used horsehair padding covered by either leather or vinyl/ Naugahide trim. This accounted for a lot of the rot that occured around sill boards. It is NOT unusual to discovered a miniture ecosystem existing (everything from tiny mites to fungus) along the sill boards and rocker.

There are several layers of this horse hair. One is layed on the sill plate, another is glued to the vertical wall of the chassis. There there is another piece that is used to cover both to form a "rounded" look.

The covering (leather or vinyl) is layed over the horse hair, starting at the middle of the outer edge (under the door way), the covering is tacked down with Escusion pins - small nails. Work from the center to the outer edges pulling the material tight as you go. Once the top is tacked in place, pull the material down towards the floor boards and again tack in place.

Once this is nicely in place, the aluminumn sill plate can be nailed on to cover the material.

With "todays 'mercian technology", there are several things that can be changed. First is to use a air powered staple gun to tack the fabric down instead of the Escusion pins.

Next is the way the bottom is attached to the floor boards. It would be nice to be able to easily lift the fabric up periodically to allow any accumulated moisture to dry off. To this end, here is what several people have done:

Nelson Warner: Rather than using jute or a similar water absorbing type padding I used a "closed cell" mat. The mat is the type that back packers might use under their sleeping bag. I first read of this in "Miscellany" several years ago. The pad is about 3/8" thick and is available in the camping section of many stores. Instead of nailing the bottom of the fabric to the floor boards, Velcro was attached to the floor board and the back of the fabric.

Bob Nogueira: I used auto carpet padding ( Jute) and built up one layer at time to fit over the sill plate, the last layer runs from the door sill to the floor. All of the layers being held together with spray contact cement. Makes a nice one piece unit which is not attached to the sill and is held only by the cover.

For the cover I tacked under the door sill plate and used snaps on the floor with velcro on the ends. This works really well as the velcro allows me to keep the cover tight and the snaps allow for a quick removal of the padding after a drive in the rain.

While I have seen Morgans of various ages with carpeting, my 65 4/4 uses rubber mats. The rubber is used to cover the inside of the firewall, the sides panels from the door forward to the firewall, and the floor for both driver's and passenger's feet.

Sometime after 65, Morgan did decide to "finish" the car a little and did put carpeting in.

The rear fender arches and the trunk deck were all uncovered and painted black.

The inside of the doors were covered with leather or vinyl depending on what the customer ordered, the quarter panel (to the rear of the door vinyl). My car had leather seats, door coverings, sill plate cover, and the transmission cover, but the rear quarter panel was vinyl. When I redid the upholstery, I did these quarter panels in the same leather I did the seats wit There appears to be a difference here in the 4/4s and the +4s. The 4/4s door panel is flat, while many of the +4s I've seen have a "map" pocket in the doors. Under the vinyl covering was a thin layer of cotton padding that is called "glazing". The padding was very thin, so that the covering feels "soft" to the touch but does'nt appear to be padded.

Bob Nogueira offered a nice modification to the rubber floor mats by gluing the rubber floor mat to a sheet of aluminum cut to the same pattern as the mat. It never pulls loose and bunches up under my feet and cleaning is accomplished by lifting it out and taping it on the ground.

What (if anything) does the backrest (seatback) of a roadster attached to? Or is anything supposed to be attached to it? When the seatback is in place, and the seat bases in position with the seat cushions on them, there is a gap of two to three inches between the bottom of the backback and the rear of the seat cushion? Is my seat cushion too small ? (roughly 15W by 16" L) is the base too big? (roughly 13"W by 20"L)

The seats on a '66 4/4 (which has a slightly measure:

a. the seat bases are 19" long by 15" wide, and therefore are a tight fit between the chassis crossmembers, and sill and tunnel. The seat bases are not attached to anything, and lift right out. The (pneumatic) cushions are exactly the same dimensions.

b. The top of the backrest (seatback) fits flush against a wooden crosspiece which bolts to each side of the tub with wingnuts sliding in a slotted angle iron, to provide a bit of fore-and-aft adjustment. The bottom of the backrest sits on the floor, wedged between a crossmember and a bit of wood screwed to the sillplate. The backrest is also NOT attached to anything.

There is about a two-inch gap between the bottom of the backrest and the back of the seat cushion. In this gap you can see the front mounts for the leaf springs, and the seat belt anchors.

Morgans made during the 50s and 60s were made from a solid piece of Philippine Mahogany. (It is possible that some of the 67 and 68 cars had a veneered dash.)

A 69 +8, the dash is probably made from an old Lucas packing crate. It is however; covered with the luxurious black hyde of the English nauga, to give that modern late 60's look; complete with high quality Lucas rocker switches of the period.

For the exposed wooden dashes, they can be finished with several coats of either spar varnish or minwax polyeurothaine

John

To email me with comments or questions.