Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Perfectly imperfect? A philosophical question

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - still one of my favourites.
Together with The Last Surviving Tommy.

Both about real life warts and all and your attitude and ways of dealing with them in a positive light - Plus 8 ownership personified.

I read that when I was about 17, it didn't help fix the bike.

If I may (at risk of boring people beyond repair) poke once more on this topic, on the theme of "the urge to improve":

If the basic premise of a Morgan is that they are, well, significantly flawed, and it's those very flaws that endear them to us, why is it so attractive to so many to tinker/fettle/engineer/weld/bend/wrench/adjust etc. in the pursuit of mitigating those flaws?

I have my own theory, which is that Morgans, being more mechanically simple and more flawed than, say, a Bugatti Veyron, simply lend themselves more to improvement by the "home mechanic", and that as humans we just enjoy improving things.

Or is it something else? Is it because we experience them as having a kind of "living" quality and they therefore give rise to the natural human instinct to care for living things? I already find myself kind of getting attached to my car as I might, say, a pet (my kids even gave it a name, "Toad" -- 'cause it's green and has big eyes I guess), which I really like but also find kind of weird....

Or is it because I'm the farthest thing from a mechanic so just don't "get" the satisfaction of "fettling"?

Sorry if I've banged on on this quite too much, I will now have a whisky and remind myself to think less and drive more!

Everything gets fettled...
For me it was brain surgery as few years ago
Houses, yep
Gardens for SWMBO, yep
Mogs, yep
Things friends bust, yep
The list when you think about it is...endless

Hmm, I fear that "fettled" is a rather polite term for (in some cases) what used to be called "bodging". Is a Morgan with a long history of "home maintenance by owner" an attractive proposition ? Owners who have a modicum of mechanical ability and who are either too far from a main dealer / specialist, or too concerned about "I'll never recover the cost of that", may be making any cans of worms even bigger/deeper thanks to their well-intentioned efforts.

Hands-up, I work on my Roadster, and have worked on loads of other cars for 50+ years. I know my limitations though -- back in the 1970s I did change the clutch on a Fairthorpe Electron Minor in the Uni car park the day of my Finals, replaced/ground some dead valves.... I have rectified other peoples' bad work... and more recently I have replaced mashed bumper (mouldings) on tin-tops.... but my various attempts at paintwork have been mixed and often sub-optimal (from coach paint applied with a roller, to rattle cans).

Same with DIY around the home - the older I get, the more I'm inclined to "get someone in".

Some of Morgan's flaws are kind of acceptable and others not. For me the variable build quality and eg instances of screws into wiring looms, looms routed in highly exposed areas. sensitive electrical components in exposed locations eg PCB, not only smacks of poor engineering standards and quality control, but may be indicative of lack of regard for the problems it will create the owner in years to come. It's not like its a surprise to Morgan after decades of making the same basic car as to where their cars leak and therefore where not to leave electrical components exposed, spark plug wells fill with water etc.. That's not character, that's IMHO just plain careless and sloppy. Thank goodness manufacturing build quality is being taken very seriously these days. Some of these problems are not unique to Morgan, other car manufacturers have their bad days, just seems Morgan has more than its fair share of such days.

I'm not taking away from the strides Morgan took over the years to improve manufacturing build techniques and materials used to improve longevity of the finished product eg wood frame being treated, wings being sprayed separately, replacement of mild steel being used for inner wings and bulk head, galvanising the chassis and so on, has dramatically reduced the almost inevitable, in times past, of the need to rebuild a Morgan due to corrosion and rot.

I sometimes feel we may be kidding ourselves as to what to expect, making allowances where they shouldn't be made, accepting less than the norm being achieved elsewhere, because of the much celebrated driving experience. Yet how many Morgans do you see with really low mileages for sale, leads one to assume it can't have been that great a driving experience for so many owners, so much so, they left the Morgan in the garage.

I've enjoyed driving my Morgans on those sunny glorious days, but also gritted my teeth and often cursed when rain pours through the gap created at speed between the windscreen frame and the front edge of the sidescreen. Sometimes it becomes a bit of a love hate affair.........tinged with a little bit of self justification for the buying decision...........as invariably often chooses its moment to shine and let you down at the same time.

It's always interesting to watch the path and direction of postings from new to Morgan owners as their journeys invariably go from joy and excitement eventually lead down to various reliability issues, before too long. You got to love them!

The long term ownership of a Morgan, provides the reality of the design which the decision makers at MMC will never know, as they flit from new Morgan to new Morgan.

My favourite example of missing the point, is an engine cover for the Duratec and GDI. This would have been so easy to knock out at the factory from aluminium or stainless, and offered as an option, which would have been at least £300. Easy profit, but they missed it. Even dealers don't bother with them.

I agree to a point, but Morgan not only has a Works servicing department, it has it own used sales locations and has a massive Warranty Department claims history and resultant cost to call upon. So it sees the results over time of its engineering solutions and quality issues. One would only be blind to those issues if one didn't care to look and see what is happening to their new cars when put to use.

Interesting for me is that in the 26,000 miles and four years with my first 4/4 Sport I never had ingress to the spark plugs and with Jeremy's car with 115,000 miles and used as a daily for commuting to Bristol no signs either, yes it does have louvres. Mileage now 116,500 and not a sign of it so perhaps it's a velocity thing Joe doesn't hang around either

Now back with me to overwinter and to be used as my daily, Plus 8 for weekend specials.
I will keep my eye on the well.

No good will come of all this fanciness, computers and electrickery malarkey, you mark my words!! 🙂

They should have found some old gaffers in the midlands with a foundry and kept on making Crossflow motors .... then just built basic mid-70's spec crossflow cars (with some tasteful changes to the plastic switchgear) for ever and ever! .... utter perfection! 😆

K