670 replies to this topic

[big-jay]

Great exhaust note !

Thanks mate !

[bluemini17]

first class, coming together well Jay.

[big-jay]

first class, coming together well Jay.

Thanks buddy !

[Davey3legs]

Great work mate, read the whole thread earlier today, kudos for doing it all outside too!. Can I be cheeky and ask if you know roughly how much it has cost you so far?.

[big-jay]

Great work mate, read the whole thread earlier today, kudos for doing it all outside too!. Can I be cheeky and ask if you know roughly how much it has cost you so far?.

Thanks buddy,

Working outside has its benefits, especially in the summer, not too enjoyable this time of year though. A garage for my next project is an absolute must !

To be honest, I can't say an exact figure at the moment as I just don't know. I haven't counted all the receipts yet, I'm waiting until I've finished it then I'll add them all up. For a rough estimate I'd probably have to say at least £8k. Likelihood is it's probably a lot more than that but It would have cost considerably more if I hadn't done the welding work myself, plus it probably wouldn't have been done to a standard I would've been happy with anyway.

I've gone for a lot of uprated parts too, so I could probably half that amount if I would've kept it standard but that's really not what I wanted to do with this build. At least now I've got the Mini I've always wanted and I really believe if your counting the pennies when your doing something like this then there's really no point in doing it at all !

Jay.

[Guitardude124]

Great update, won't be too long now I guess, have you given yourself a rough deadline then?

Max

[Hendred]

What a thread and what a resto.  All from buying a bodged car!  Might pop over oneday in my mini, only near Kidderminster!

[big-jay]

Great update, won't be too long now I guess, have you given yourself a rough deadline then?
Max

Thanks mate,

I'm aiming to have it done ready for Himley Hall Mini show, but if I can get it done in time for the Pride of Longbridge event then that will be a bonus !

[big-jay]

What a thread and what a resto.  All from buying a bodged car!  Might pop over oneday in my mini, only near Kidderminster!

Cheers buddy,

Feel free, I'm always about on the weekends !

[Hendred]

May well do if I go for a weekend drive in the mini. If you could PM me your postcode and mobile I will text if I go out for a spin.

[big-jay]

Update,

Spent the weekend refurbishing a few engine ancillaries, I'll start with the purchased items.

I'll apologise in advance for the quality of the pictures, my camera on my phone has stopped working since taking a dunking so I've been having to use the camera on my iPod which isn't the best.

Went to see Mark from Smiffys bits and picked up a few bits -



A few bits from Minispares needed to refurb the distributor amongst other things -



Now onto the progress, started with the starter motor. Before -



Wire brushed down to bare metal -



Zinc Primed -





Painted with a few coats of gloss black -



Applied some fresh grease and then put it back together -



Next up was the dizzy, stripped it down and wire brushed the lot. I taped up the aluminium housing so I could paint the vacuum advance, here it is zinc primed -



A few coats of gloss black applied -



New points, Condenser and an uprated rotor arm installed -



And a new cap to finish it off -



For some reason the paint on my engine has cracked and started flaking off so I've had to do something about that, here's how it looked -



I bagged up all of the bits I didn't want anything getting into and then wire brushed all the lose stuff off using a manual wire brush. Bagged up -



And wire brushed -



I repainted the block and head with some fresh paint -



Annoying as I put a lot of effort into painting it the first time round, but what can you do, these thing happen I suppose. Anyway with that done It was time to start bolting the ancillaries back on along with a few shiny bits from Smiffys.

Starter motor back on and connected up -



Dizzy back on and connected up -



Stainless alternator brackets bolted on -



New alternator fitted -



New coil along with stainless brackets and rubber cover fitted -



Pipercross air filter bolted on -



And also the bulkhead blanking plate -



Finally, this is how the engine bay currently looks. Almost finished in there now -



I have ran the engine with the fresh paint on today and all's looking good so far, no cracking/flaking to be seen !

That's all the progress for this weekend, will hopefully be receiving my door cards and sun visors from optimise tomorrow so I'll have some pictures of those then.

Jay.

[Jared Mk3]

Class Jay 

[big-jay]

Class Jay 

Thanks Jared

[Ben_O]

Wonder what caused the flaking? looked pretty rusty under there   Hopefully it will be ok now!

 

Really coming together now though mate.

 

Ben

[panch1989]

The attention to detail is unreal on this. Puts a lot of minis to shame. Mine included. Great motivation though to get it right first time round. Well done!