I just got the 68 Austin J4 back from British Columbia. A journey and a half helped by my good friend Len whose truck and trailer we used to haul the beast back from BC.
It looks like one of the vehicles that Practical Classics would pick for restoration. But we put it on the trailer and dragged it back to Alberta. Only took us two days, about 1500 Km. It involved a plane trip, a ferry ride and a long long drive.
We got her unloaded at the friends farm about eleven at night. There are bits and pieces missing, the original picture I'd seen had the signal light lenses there but they've gone walk about. The seats had been missing but they turned up, however the vinyl is rock hard so they need to be replaced. I got the rear seat out of a BMW at a wrecker's yesterday and the idea is to make up some seats out of the leather from the Bimmer. Top cover over the engine is gone, just a piece of plywood over there. The sheet metal that would of been over the wiper motor is missing, no idea what shape that is... may be requesting shots of someone's J4 interior so I can get an idea of what's not there.
The van is to be a project vehicle for my car club, the idea being it'll be useful to show people brakes and wiring and things like that. The fellow who's farm we dropped it at restores cars and tractors. Well he took a look at it in the daylight and said there's a lot of work there... really he said you have a lot of work there so I guess I do... and you know what that means I will be asking for information. To show you what I mean by a project I uploaded some photo's taken this week. They're in the Photo's under Alberta J4. To start off, anyone know where to get lenses for those lights, front and rear? Anyone willing to take a picture of the engine cover and the wiper motor cover. And the windshield rubber has perished though the glass is good, anyone know of a good rubber suppler? Found one on a Morris J site but don't know if they'd be the same. Thanks in advance.
Frank
Edmonton Alberta

More updates as of July 2009

Not a lot going on with the J4, we have been successful in finding some parts on eBay and for awhile captured the market in light fixtures. (still need tail lenses) Signed up with the Morris Commercial club and have heard from a few of the members there with J4's.

Setting up a 'course' with my local club and a garage that works on British Vehicles to do a brake session and we're hoping to get the van rolling a little easier. It's quite the job to get it to roll at all. Hope to have five or six members take the course and learn how to do drum brakes. The cylinders are Magnette III's so the local guy is trying to track them down. Other parts were the same as Austin Healey so that's good. I did get some parts from http://www.powertrackbrakes.co.uk/ but the deal here is buy the parts and he'll help do the install so that was a fair enough deal to make me stop with what I had on the internet and go local.

Also hope to get some parts off a fellow in the Morris Commercial club who has a parts van, little things that were missing like engine cover and seat and cover over the wiper motor as well as a steering wheel in good condition. He's got them gathered up just trying to find out how much shipping will be. Not cheap I'm sure...

Next course after the brake course is a check up on the Austin 1600 engine I have. Its been sitting inside the garage a long time but was working when swapped out of the car it had been in. Got a member who's a shop teacher to do that one and we hope to learn about plastiguages and other ins and outs of engine check up. Hopfully it will be a case of open it up, have a look and button it back up again. I doubt it but that's the hope, the original engine was 1622 so we're giving up a bit of capacity but this is 'budget' rebuild. That'll take us through September and then I hope to have a metal shaping course in October and get some rpairs done to the body. That's getting a bit ahead of ourselves so I'll sign off for now. Just thought I'd rattle the bushes a bit and say hi....
Regards all

Frank