On the subject of grille aperture braces here is the drawing of the extra brace on the driver's side introduced during the last of the Cooper S production in January 1971.

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ex-NSW Police 1970 MK II Cooper S
VMCI #43

Timing could also depend on how many pressed panels might be in stock. I imagine they would press out a bunch of panels and then store them.


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68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)

Here are some photos of the rivets on my brace...

Both of these cars are claimed to have original front panels.

Car 4015 is pop riveted.


Car 4129 is spot welded

I'm so glad we are working this out before I drill those rivets out!
I thought my car (4026) was right but then I had been convinced that it was wrong and now it looks right again.

First impressions are often correct. I would be keeping the pop rivets. They look original comparing them to the others I have seen.

I can see a few people reading this with cars between 1344 and 4026 will now be getting out their pop rivet guns because they have welded theirs up.

Interesting. From my notes 4017 was spot, however so too was 3909 - before 4015 above. F

So the question I have for my car 2513 is are the spot welds original? As you can see there is a hole for a rivet (but only seems to be one) and the spot welded look pretty similar to the other factory ones. The bottom of the brace is similar to the top. I’ve check and as far as I can tell it is the original panel. I have no doubt that it should be riveted and it is entirely possible a previous owner did the spot welding but I cannot find any evidence of a second rivet hole but may have another look in case I missed something.
Cheers
Rod

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1967 New British Racing Green Mk1 Cooper S, 1967 Lake Green 1275 MG Midget, 1969 Jet Red / Crystal White Mk2 Cooper S, 1972 Gambier Turquoise Clubman GT (ex police), 1972 Camino Gold Clubman GT, 2009 JCW Challenge Edition, Megane RS265, Clio RS220.

If you go by the engineering drawing then all cars before Apr 68 with a diagonal brace should be pop riveted. It is my understanding that the release date on that document comes before what is put into practice.
Yours looks like it was riveted then welded up.

Yes that’s what I thought but I cannot find 2 rivet holes top or bottom. Might just have to look a bit harder. If the spot weld completely overlaps the rivet hole would the hole be still visible?

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1967 New British Racing Green Mk1 Cooper S, 1967 Lake Green 1275 MG Midget, 1969 Jet Red / Crystal White Mk2 Cooper S, 1972 Gambier Turquoise Clubman GT (ex police), 1972 Camino Gold Clubman GT, 2009 JCW Challenge Edition, Megane RS265, Clio RS220.

Looks to me that the 2 rivets were drilled out (yellow circles) then perhaps the angle brace was replaced and spot welded in one spot (white circle).

Thanks - I went and had a really good look with a torch and mirror both top and bottom and there are definitely 2 spot welds, the angle brace looks original and has the rivet holes and I found the second hole on the bottom (now I have 3 rivet holes on the bottom?) but it looks like the spot weld on the top covered one of the rivet holes so I think the mystery is solved - it was riveted but was later spot welded. If it’s easy enough I might just put rivets back in or just leave as is as I’m really not that bothered.
Thanks and Cheers
Rod

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1967 New British Racing Green Mk1 Cooper S, 1967 Lake Green 1275 MG Midget, 1969 Jet Red / Crystal White Mk2 Cooper S, 1972 Gambier Turquoise Clubman GT (ex police), 1972 Camino Gold Clubman GT, 2009 JCW Challenge Edition, Megane RS265, Clio RS220.

The only reason why i brought all this up is because i had seen both ways of securing the angle brace and wanted to know if there was a changeover point. Now on to my next Item.

Hope it is as much fun and informative as this one has been. Always keen to learn more about these great cars

To be honest I was always curious about the fact my car had both holes and spot welds

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1967 New British Racing Green Mk1 Cooper S, 1967 Lake Green 1275 MG Midget, 1969 Jet Red / Crystal White Mk2 Cooper S, 1972 Gambier Turquoise Clubman GT (ex police), 1972 Camino Gold Clubman GT, 2009 JCW Challenge Edition, Megane RS265, Clio RS220.

3242 - Cooper S MK1 OCT 1967 - not on the registry yet..

Been hiding in garage since sept... thats sept 1990 and in many boxes..

Cooper S MK1 OCT 1967

Riveted

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1967 Morris Cooper 'S' MK1
1979 Leyland Clubman ( UK Import )
1994 Rover Cooper SPI MKIV ( VTech )