Don't suppose you have a pair Thats all I am missing now . Just have to sort all the bits out and find what is what for it.

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Yes the seat brackets are as in you photo with the sills I mean on later cars the outer sill is a seperate panel & the inner is part of the floorpan on the one I had the outer sill and floorpan where one piece and the inner sill a seperate piece spot welded to the floor and door opening because of this the rear subframe mounting bracket is different ,the 2 bolts mount behind the grease cover for radius arm
My plate is TYPE YMA2S1 CARNO 9/61993 2745 ENGINE NO 8AMU/H/154630
COLOUR 1/ARALUEN BLUE\3

I have not checked the rear subframe mounting on my car yet just the arms.


looking at the numbers then the engine is 40,366 later than mine, but if the number on the plate is a serial number then it is7,596 later. The other number is the aust serial number and this car is 1708 later. I think that the 9 is some sort of code for these UK cars.
You did not happen to get the UK number stamped on the firewall or check if the door hinges were brass and if it had a carboard speedo housing.

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Just ignore the engine numbers as far as sequence goes , at one stage in the list they run backwards for 20,000 numbers where someone opened the wrong containers first The 8AM/U/H numbers were shared with UK mini's at the time too so there are some big jumps in numbers .

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what I have been told of the construction in UK upto 4/60 the morris and the austins were given a block of serial numbers for each month of production. Each make had serial no's starting at 101. The engines started at 101. austin was 8A and morris was 8MB upto engine number 25,000. Then a common number 8AM was used for both makes.
From this time the body serial numbers were fairly consecutive to engine numbers [total production] but when the van production started this threw the sequence out.
The UK engine all had plates on the blocks but Aust ones were stamped so I would presume that the plates were removed here when the were stamped to maintain the engine identity for modifications

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The subfrrame mountings you can only tell when you cut open the sills like I did .Just found the only numbers I cut out the bulkhead still has origonal blue but numbers don't line up with tag(53590)? will clean it up later maybe there is others

Thanks for the photos 850man.
I had thought that the flat switch panel I have painted black wrinkle finish was done by someone after production. I now see that this finish also matches the speedo housing and is original. I remember (from my youth - just) the hex chrome blanking plug on the LH side of the switch panel being fitted to many early 850s as well (something else I need to source).
Need to do some more investigation on my car this WE. Will post what I find plus some photos then.

my car has the same switch panel, and I thought it was painted black later as when the car was painted yellow from grey they painted the original roof lining from grey to black. It had the original red/black rear seats but the fronts had been changed to later all black ones.

850 man and wild willy have a good look inside the mudguard where the "A" panel is and see if it has a inner panel .
also what drains do you have in the gutters , all holes or hole and slot.

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Research is the difference between speculation and investment. Anyone who copys some one else will always be second
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David
My car (# 1086) definitely has the inner panels on the A pillars. Roof drains holes are slots in the front and 2 holes at the rear. By the way the blanked off hole behind the badge on the bonnet that we found on our cars continues to somewhere in 1962 maybe later. The original bonnet on my very early Cooper has the same feature.
Will get back with more.

a couple of other quick things to check
1 the bracket to hold the end of the bonnet stay. either a large horizontal one near the top of inner panel or a smaller vertical one in behind the grill on inner panel
2 the corner brackets attached to the bonnet cross members
3 fuel tank. has it got a drain plug fitted

this is a list that I have compiled from various people on the items that were date coded. Some lucas date code refered to the week of the year but most to the month on early cars.
boot, RH door lock [key] and the door locking latches.[the little locking knob on LH door]
aslo the brake drums and also the front hubs had date stamps. The early cars had 1.5 deg camber hubs and the change was to 3 deg hubs. The castings on 1.5 hubs are lighter and thebottom ball joint sits in further. The only way to positively check is accurate measurement. I have been told that some 1.5 hubs were still in stock and sold as spare parts up until end of 1960.

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for people who have asked about the glass dates. This info has been supplied by various people in UK and has been checked against car where the exact date of manufacture and history is known.
Indestructo [sliding windows]
the name is etched in a curve . the letters for date are underneath the letter "I". the letters under the "O" are not used.
The two letters under the "I" the one on left is the quarter of the year using the code word "BRIT"
B=1st, R=2nd, I=3rd, T=4th
The year is indicated by the second letter under the "I" using the word indestructo
I=7,N=8,D=9, E=0, S=1, T=2, R=3, U=4, C=5, O=6
The second "T"was ignored.
Q 1 Q2 Q3 Q4
1959 ID TD
1960 BE RE IE TE
1961 BS RS IS TS
1962 BT RT IT TT

and so on.

TRI PLEX glass
the date code is dots either under or over the company name . A dot under the word "laminated" "toughened" early cars did not have laminated glass only armour plate IE "toughened"
T O U G H E N E D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 this denotes the year in a decade. IE "1" could be either 1961/1971
Prior to jan 1969 only the quarte was used showing a dot above the letters T R E X from the word tri plex.
T=1st, R=2nd, E=3rd, X= 4th.

Now I am sure that someone will disagree with the following, but I have been in contact with many people in UK and gone thru mountains of info from what records that are available and this is what I have found so far.
serial number for austin 1st oct 1960 was 58698 morris was 58439.
fabricated rear arms changed feb/march 1961
brass hinges changed early 1961
cardboard speedo housing changed early 1961
There are many other changes earlier

Now on the cars there is a serial number stamped onto the firewall. This is a 5 digit number. This is the body serial number for a body change listing. Like the inner front mudguard extending below the sill etc,etc
On the aust plate fitted to the car the number 9\***** denotes a car where the serial number is listed on production records in UK . It does not denote either austin or morris. The people in UK "think" that is number applied to a car that was sent to nuffield exports for shipping out as either a complete or partially complete.[subject to the export country requirements] From what I have checked so far these cars were sent to the East Wing at Longbridge for export . It appears that a similar code was used for cars exported to USA and to Soth. Africa.
When the 9\ was dropped this denoted that the panels were still issued from the UK presses and the panels were a bulk shipment IE CKD. The serial number on the plate is the car id number to show where it originated from.
The second number is the serial number issued here in aust and the engine number was transfer to the plate and the block stamped.

The problem is that many cars were removed from the production line for fault re-work and returned back into the system at a later date. This is evident from the number of mix and match items on many cars in UK.
Example one car made july 1960 had rear window without recess and front with recess. There is no exact date for recess windows but it appers cars made after june 1960 have them.

Another thing is the cars without seat belt fittings IE "B"pillar and floor.

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Research is the difference between speculation and investment. Anyone who copys some one else will always be second
www.minisprintgt.com

I will check other things later, but my car has the steel trumpets, cast rear arms, do the numbers inside the rear drums mean anything?

Within this article and a number of others on AusMini people talk of a "850 register" or "sports 850 register". My searches have failed to find either. Can you help with an address please?

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John Sneddon
0408 431 807
1963 Morris Cooper
1965 Morris 850
1968 Morris Cooper S