Blind Man Morris: Classic Skills for Modern Times

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:05]Welcome back to Flying Man Morris, and I've just about finished off adjusting the fan belt tension on our 803 engine. And I'm doing it because we'll just turn this one off for a minute.

[00:00:20]I'm doing it because um we just written another book.

[00:00:24]And when we were reading through the book and proofreading it, I came across the section which um did some dealings with the dynamo, and it talked about um fan belt tension.

[00:00:35]And it reminded me that I I incorrectly tightened this fan belt as you would on a later Morris, which is half an inch of play on the longest run on your fan belt, which is down on this side here.

[00:00:46]But on an 803, it's an inch of play.

[00:00:48]Um because you don't want to wear the bearings in the uh water pump cuz they're quite fragile.

[00:00:53]Uh so it's good job we wrote the book cuz I'd forgotten I'd over tensioned that fan belt. So we're really pleased cuz it won't knack the dynamo or water pump. So we have just finished the book, and I think it's out for release or it's already released now. It is. It is. Oh, is it? All right.

[00:01:09]See, we've been squirreling away, haven't we, for months. Yeah, over winter, basically.

[00:01:13]So we've written this, and it's called Classic Skills for Modern Times by Flying Man Morris, or as we say, me and her.

[00:01:21]Um there's 14 chapters in there covering pretty much all the basic skills you're going to need to run your classic car or Morris, valve clearances, distributor work, um dynamo and charging circuits, simple wiring, static timing, >> static timing, >> brakes, carburetor, >> clutch, using an old-fashioned jack, clutch adjustment, uh talking about clutch linkage, and the importance of noticing drag and slip.

[00:01:48]Uh it's There's a lot There's a lot in there. It's full of pictures of our cars. Loads of cars. Loads of pictures of the inside They're all pictures of our And my grubby old hands are all over them, aren't they?

[00:01:59]>> [laughter] >> grubby old hands.

[00:02:01]Um and the font's quite big cuz uh most of us are working on these old cars that are well, getting old with poor sight or in my case not a lot of sight at all. I can't see it, but uh we did write it. Um Yeah, so it's available on Amazon.

[00:02:18]Um It's a big book.

[00:02:19]>> It's a big book. Look at that. Massive.

[00:02:21]Mahoosive.

[00:02:22]Um Yeah, and we really enjoyed writing it.

[00:02:25]I I have to say I didn't like writing the brake chapter.

[00:02:28]Cuz we we had to rewrite that at least five times if not six times until we got it right. Um yeah, so if you're looking to learn about some basic maintenance and mechanics on your Morris or classic car, give this a go.

[00:02:41]It's not like a workshop manual. It's not like a restoration manual. It doesn't talk in techno speak. It talks in um plain good English with some swearing. And it doesn't have any swearing in it, but it does have a few jokes.

[00:02:55]It has a few jokes in it and it's a very much us because we wrote it, every single word of it, and we took every single photo.

[00:03:02]>> [laughter] >> I don't know why we do it to ourselves.

[00:03:05]And Frey uh designed the cover. Yes. And the photo that that cover is based on is in the book. So, you'll be able to see the photo that we took it from as well.

[00:03:14]So, uh Yeah. Yeah, there you go.

[00:03:18]So, to dispel the myth, we do write every word of the our books and we wrote every word of that book.

[00:03:23]>> Yeah, we did. And um took every picture.

[00:03:28]>> [laughter] >> Never again.

[00:03:31]Till we do it next time.

[00:03:32]>> it next time. Yeah, next winter. Hey, yeah. So, anyway, so there you go.

[00:03:36]Classic skills for modern times, a basic introduction to basic mechanics on your classic or Morris specific. Uh oh, it goes in the greasing. Forgot the greasing. Keep dialing the greasing.

[00:03:46]Even filling your grease gun, packing your grease gun, two methods, talking about all of that.

[00:03:52]Uh it's all in there.

[00:03:54]There we go.