Restoration Project: FGK Morris—Part 28

By: Lyndsay Whittle, Photography by: Lyndsay Whittle

Date: 04.03.2019

Deals on Wheels writer Lyndsay Whittle on his latest progress with the FGK Morris restoration

I once heard someone say that life’s like a game of golf; sometimes you have to go backwards before you can go forwards. This month, I thought we might go back to the start to see how far we’ve come over the past 28 months.

The FGK as it was right at the beginning

Anybody who has been following this restoration story from the start will remember that I enjoyed the process of restoring a K Bedford that had been sitting around for eons. Once that was completed I thought it was time I found myself another project to keep me occupied over the next year or two.

For reasons far too involved to go into, an FG K Morris was at the top of my list. But at the time of dreaming up this silly notion, I didn’t have a clue as to what size the truck would be.

Anyhow, it seems that once any thought is passed out into the ether, it’s never too long before something suitable presents itself.

I hadn’t been concentrating on the thought for more than a couple of weeks when the ‘something suitable’ appeared as if by magic in the form of not just one, but two FGKs; one was a one-and-a-half-tonne FG K30 four-cylinder Morris. The other was a three-tonne FG K60 Austin.

Cab coming off way back in November 2016

As the Austin and the Morris variants of these weird old trucks are only distinguished by different grilles, I won’t confuse new readers by using the Austin or Morris brand names; from here on out the two trucks are simply FG Ks.

I got the trucks for the princely sum of $700 with the only trouble being that I had to collect them from Albury, about an hour south of Ashburton.

Thanks to the generosity of Colin Dunn at Rainbow Haulage in Auckland (who not only lent me an eight-wheeler transporter for the better part of a week, but also threw in the fuel for good measure), I was able to get the two trucks back up to Auckland.

Just a shell and a mass of wires in early 2017

Having checked them over, I decided that the smaller four-cylinder truck would be easier to restore, although it would be a further two years before I was able to make a start on the project.

Getting started was a bit of a frustration due to the fact that it was going to take many months of going backwards before it looked like we were finally moving in the right direction. Let me explain…

When you sit the two trucks side-by-side they appear similar. But it turns out that the floor panels in the six-cylinder version were completely different from its four-cylinder counterpart.

Body under construction in December 2017

This was a bit of a bugbear because we all know that if you’re restoring two vehicles, inevitably there’ll be good parts on one that can be used to replace bad parts on the other. Such was the case in this instance. Trouble was here, though, the good floor panels on the larger truck didn’t fit because of the different-sized engine cowlings.

The only remedy for this was to make new floor panels. These were duly welded in place, however the welding inspector wasn’t all that impressed with my first effort, which resulted in my having to redo the job to his satisfaction.

Fortunately, the inspector was a decent guy who spent a couple of hours of his own time teaching me a few tricks of the trade that he’d learned over many years in the fabrication business.

When I started out on the restoration, I wasn’t sure what form the finished product would take. Flat deck? Tipper? Whatever else took my fancy? Hmm.

Starting to look like a tow wagon in June/July 2018

The notion of a tow wagon came about as a result of watching the British TV series Heartbeat. In the show, the local garage proprietor drives an FG K tow wagon. From there on my little truck’s fate was sealed.

So that’s where we have come from. Now, nearing the end of the project, all that remains is to finish a final bit of paintwork, manufacturing of frames for the rest of the windows, a front bumper and some steps for the cab.

There is still a bit of mechanical stuff to complete, too, along with signwriting and, no doubt, a few other things I’ve forgotten about as well. I guess I’d better crack on…