54 replies to this topic

[AndyMiniMad.]

Well here we go again..Some of you may have seen this car in my other thread about "Haggis"..But I thought I would start a new thread just for Tatties as he is going to need a bit more work than I first thought...(dont they all)??

The car used to belong to Clubby Gav ..but I pestered him untill he sold it to me...

Here he is arriving at his new home..





He had a 1275 MG Metro engine fitted which I had lent to Clubby Gav untill he had built up his own engine..



As it turns out Gav never finnished his engine and never got this MG one fired up either. So I bought the car and all the spares that Gav had been collecting over the years as a job lot!! And all for £1500..A cracking deal...Thanks Gav..

The first job was to wheek out the MG engine. I like 1380's..and Tatties will eventually get the engine that I was runing in Haggis...Once its been bebuilt to a higher spec..



And to be Honnest thats pretty much all I did to him for the past six or seven months..I spent all my time and money getting Haggis ready for this year..

As you may already know I managed to get a storage facility sorted that allows me to keep all the cars in one place..I call it the "Cave"..
Here is Tatties ariving at the cave...



And parked next to his pal Haggis..



And there he waited while I finished Haggis..I spoke to him regularly to reasure him that he would soon get my full attention..

And so once Haggis was away enjoying himself it was time to start "Peeling" Tatties to see if the shell really is as good as it looks..





One of the first thing I did was to dig all the filler out from the scuttle ends..I dont like the smooth look and prefer to see the join of the wing..as I suspected the scuttle ends wer a bit rusty...a few holes that the filler had hidden..





And a hole in the inner wing...



So once I had found these I decided to strip the car and check everything else..I Hate filler!!!

The roll cage that was in Tatties is a "Show" cage and not FIA approved...It is my intention to hill climb and sprint Tatties once he is finised. so this cage has to go in the skip!! Once I had unbolted it I was not surprised to see a small pile of rust had fallen out of the holes..Tatties has oversills and im pretty sure they are covering some nasty rust...wont know for sure haw bad things are till I get them off. They are evil things and have no place on any of my mini's..



The floors are generally solid and should live to fight another day once the dents have been bashed flat!! why do people insist on jacking up minis at the floor?? Its stupid!!





I also found that the Hi Low's had not been fitted properly and were not seated in the dohnut..



But Im stripping the whole car down now so I can fix little things like this when it gets rebuilt..

The air vent on the drivers side needs some new metal!! Again not a big problem as I was going to weld these up anyway..



Pasengers side is fine with just a 50p sized hole to fix..



Doors off...Im going to strip them down to make them a light as possible..Poly carbonate windows and special door cards..



Everything removed..



And this is how he looked as I left the cave..Not a bad mornings work..



Im removing the subframes this weekend!! they look in good nick.. but I want to check all the runing gear is ok, also need to fit vented disks and four pot callipers..

Edited by AndyMiniMad., 26 April 2012 - 03:25 PM.

[MiniFTW]

Crackin deal, I really want a nice clubman. Best of look on the project, the motor looks tidy.

[AndyMiniMad.]

Thanks...my first car was a clubman so id always wanted to get my hands on another one...The engine is now stripped on my bench...The 1380 thats going in was built over the winter and is waiting to slot in..

[AndyMiniMad.]

I had the grinder in action again tonight...Here is a picture of why Over sills are bloody awfull things..These sills have not been on the car for long, and the floors look great from the inside of the car..but...........



The over sill is in perfect condition, the floor has rotted from the outside..Condensation gets trapped inside the sill and rusts through the floor...no air movement to keep the dampness out...stupid bloody oversills I hate them!!



Its not that bad really..I was going to weld new metal in the rear floor anyway to stengthen the area where the new cage will fit..I cut away the seat squab and removed the companion bin on the drivers side..





The floor was rusted right through here...again not really a problem as it was getting replaced anyway..All in all im pretty pleased with it.. not as bad as I thought it would be..

[Artful Dodger]

damn over sills, looks like quite a problem!!


good luck

[AndyMiniMad.]

Not had much time to work on the cars over the past couple of weeks due to work and weekend shows!! but I took a day off today and removed the subframes from Tatties...He is mounted on the Spit now ready for the grinder and welder..not to bad underneith...the boot floor is rotten in the corners..but thats not a problem as im going to remove it all anyway and weld in a flat floor..The foam filled petrol tank will be the only thing in the boot so dont need a spare wheel well or battery box..







Wont get any more done this weekend coming either as Im off to Ft Augustus, spannering the Rally clubman on the sprint!!

Big thanks to "H" for a loan of the Spit...Cheers mate!!

[AndyMiniMad.]

A quick update!!!


Ive done bugger all!!

The Weekend was awfull...Only managed to set two times...both the same at 2 mins 30... We had problems with the webber under fueling. I had to walk into the stage twice to rescue the car..diving into bushes and trees as the faster cars whooshed by..but a quick adjustment of the float height on the service stop cured the problem..we then set two pretty good times before the diff packed up!! Rally sport can be quite frustrating when the car wont work!!

I did manage to change the height of Tatties on the spit.....He spins round much better now that ive got the centre of gravity sorted..

Edited by AndyMiniMad., 21 May 2012 - 07:37 AM.

[AndyMiniMad.]

Finally got motivated to go to the cave today and fire up the grinder!! And BANG!!! It blew up..cooling fan for the motor disintegrated and took the gear box with it...so off to B&Q for a new one....and now I cant be arsed again!! .... maybe after tea!!

[AndyMiniMad.]

Well I never went back to the cave...but I did go to the mini meeting....And thanks to Tyke..I now have a 3.76 diff to fit..Should help a lot on hill climbs and sprints...cheers Nigel!!, Im defo going to the cave tomorrow night for some grinding..

[AndyMiniMad.]

Well tonight I was well motivated for a bit of grinding..First job was to cut off the A panel...look what was hiding underneith!!



The A panel is normaly bent around the door hinge post...There was no metal here!! The A panel was just floating!! tacked at the top and bottom only...Not good..



And so I had to remove the rusty mess that was the old Flitch panel!!



And then It was time to very carefully remove the wing...I was bricking it..but it was easy enough to remove and no damage to the wing..



I had already removed the rusty and bent passenger floor pan..so now Tatties looks like this..



Im gutted that im having to remove so much metal...err (rust) from this car...I really thought it was a solid shell...But I supose its just as well im finding it all now rather than when im belting round a track!! and things start to fall apart!!

This is what I found under the over sill..



3 old sills and the old door step...So loads more grinding needed to get rid of all the crap..

Edited by AndyMiniMad., 05 June 2012 - 09:05 PM.

[AndyMiniMad.]

A wee delivery from Minispares!!





And when I went for more gas I decided to give this set up a try!! Argon is a funny colour when you weld..more green than blue!! But it does seem a bit easier to use..

[oltonlad]

another nice project.......will be following this one too!!......

[AndyMiniMad.]

Woohoo..going the right way at last...New flitch pnel tacked in place..loads of metal repairs underneith that needed to be done before I could even fit this panel..



But im quite happy with the argon gas..nice clean welds with good penetration..1 Inch at a time..ooo.. err.. missus

[AndyMiniMad.]

Here we go for tonights update!! A picture of my rubbish welding..I cut it out twice before I got it right!!



Then I wheeked the glass and winder thingy out of the drivers door..



The next bit was a bit nerve wracking as the door was perfect..no rust!! but im desperate to save as much weight as possible on this build so the grinder went into action..



I left this bit..I need a solid mounting point for the door handle..



A couple of pictures of the lightweight windows...





And one of the drivers side one slotted in..It will be pop rivited in once ive got the door sorted..I would say it weighs at least 7 0r 8 kilos les now..Ill weigh both doors tomorrow to be sure..



And does all this cutting out of unnesessary metal make a real difference to the weight of the car??

Errr..yeah!! just a bit!!...this is Tatties swinging free on the spit. Once ive welded in the floor section and put the wing back on it wont be at such an angle...but its not far off! I tried it by placeing all the bits in the passenger side and this is still the balance point. I hope once I do the drivers side it sits level!! but Im sure I can fettle away till its right!!A lot of rust and excess metal still to remove yet!

[danny1]

progress looks good :)