691 replies to this topic

[alchall]

Just been reading this from the start over the weekend & I must say what a great resto & great work you are doing there.
It even gave me the urge to start on mine yesterday!
Keep up the good work & keep the pictures coming.

Cheers, glad my efforts have spurred you on, you're family might not be though when you disappear for hours on end 😀

Good luck with it though, it can be very frustrating at times but also very rewarding.

[Sean C]

Fantastic thread, just spent the last few hours watching your progress. Great work!

[Chris M]

The pannels that you have used were they heritage ones or pattern? I.e. The wings, front panel & scuttle being the main ones.
I only ask as I am now about to venture into mine
& am trying to decide which ones to use.

[alchall]

Fantastic thread, just spent the last few hours watching your progress. Great work!

 

Thanks Sean!

 

The pannels that you have used were they heritage ones or pattern? I.e. The wings, front panel & scuttle being the main ones.
I only ask as I am now about to venture into mine
& am trying to decide which ones to use.

 

I've only used Heritage panels, they do cost more but consensus seems to be that pattern panels can be a lot more work, although if I would have gone down the route of repairing rather than completely replacing the floor then I would have gone to M Machine.

 

One thing on the front end that I would caution against is buying the fully built up inner wing, A post and A panels, I really struggled to get them to fit properly and as I've found when coming to fit the doors the compromise I've made has affected the fit of the doors. Conversely the fully built up floor was very good and easy to fit!

[JessH]

Boot lid looking wonderful now, was talking to mini club member last night, who's restored several minis, and he said the original presses are wearing out, hence even pukka parts are not necessarily a good fit anymore. He also said the boot usually needs a twist to get it right, and your clamps have worked a treat!

[alchall]

Boot lid looking wonderful now, was talking to mini club member last night, who's restored several minis, and he said the original presses are wearing out, hence even pukka parts are not necessarily a good fit anymore. He also said the boot usually needs a twist to get it right, and your clamps have worked a treat!

Turned out well, better than I expected really so pretty pleased with the outcome, hopefully the doors will work out just as well!

[alchall]

A short update today, had a couple of weeks not working on it but spent some time today sorting out the drivers side door and A Panel.

 

It's now in much better shape, I removed the A panel, and pulled the hinge panel in slightly, then with the door installed and closed tight I give it a bit of a pull and a twist so it sat nicely in the opening then welded the skin onto the frame in situ.

 

This has resulted in the door closing much more easily and also has resulted in me requiring less spacers on the hinges, in fact I seem to be down to a single 1mm spacer on the bottom which is a result!

 

I found that there was a bit of surface rust on the return on the hinge panel between it and the A panel so I've cleaned that up, another reason not to buy those fully built inner wing and A panel parts and makes this exercise a little more worth while.

 

I've clamped up the A panel and it now fits pretty nicely with a reasonably even gap to the front edge of the door, it all looks so much better now so I'm pleased with this result, I was worried that there was something more seriously wrong but it just took a bit of tweaking.

 

Another days work and this side will be complete then I'll do the same again on the passenger side and that will be about it for me on the shell, I'll let the professionals take over from there once I've found a good local body shop.

 

As I left it today....

 

 

It sits nicely along the rear edge now, needs a bit of filler to tidy up the top corner of the door skin and the edge of the rear wing where I've pulled it out but this looks good now to me....

 

 

And even the rear top corner isn't so bad, I'll probably do a bit of a filler rod job on it though to finish it off nicely...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[alchall]

Did a bit more today, not quite finished the drivers side but it's very near now....

 

I've now finished up the door skin; seam welded the top corners, ground the welds down, gave the whole thing an extra squeeze with the door skin tool so it's all nice and tidy now, just needs seam sealing.

 

I painted up the hinge post where I'd cleaned it up and given it a does of electrox yesterday, I also noticed a very small hole at the top corner which would have let water into the scuttle corner box section so I sealed that up while I was at it.

 

I've tacked on the A panel and closed up the edge, it needs properly plug welding to both the A post and the wing then a final squeeze with the door skinning tool and it'll be done, I only tacked it so I could check the door again, I'm quite happy with this now, still only requires the one 1mm spacer at the bottom to level it up.

 

I'm considering opening the hinge holes up another notch to see if I can simply raise it up and ditch the spacer altogether which should mean it sits square (it's ever so slightly off at the moment as you can see from the pictures) but I've already opened them up once so not sure if thats a good idea, the holes may end up just too large.

 

Anyway, here's how I left it....

 

 

 

[alchall]

Finally got the drivers door aligned, had to open up the holes, then reduced them with weld and re-drilled them to a more sensible size to lift the door a couple of extra mm, a bit of a faff but now it's looking pretty good and no shims required....

 

 

So I've now moved on to the passenger side, the old A panel is off, hinge panel adjusted, same treatment with the holes as the drivers side and all clamped up with the new A panel and this side is also looking pretty good now, I've got 2 x 1mm shims top and bottom on the hinges, think I can reduce that to 1 top and bottom by the time I'm done...

 

 

So very close now, a couple more days on this side, then the seam strips will no doubt need a bit of adjustment and I think that's the shell done!

 

[minimissions]

Awesome work there on your door skins, your nearing that paint stage more and more...

[alchall]

Important and exciting update time!

 

I've not had any time over the past couple of weeks to get the doors fully finished off, and I also realised I had missed the rear seat reinforcing strip so I also now have that to fit as well.

 

However, I've made one very big decision now on the engine so may pause slightly on the body work, reasons are about to become clear!

 

Much earlier on in my thread I posted that I had bought this, as the conversion was of interest to me....

 

 

Well over the past week I have been talking to SC and today I have agreed a deal and put down a deposit so this weekend I'm going to start stripping the engine down so I can get it sent off.

 

I'm supplying my block and crank and they're going to supply the a K1100 16v head, throttle bodies and injectors (refurbished and machined to fit), their complete conversion kit, pistons and con-rods and are going to wedge and blade the crank and polish the journals. They will also do all the machine work on the block including centre main strap and boring to 1293 (well, that is assuming it is stock 1275, I don't know this as the engine is still fully built a the moment!), they're also going to machine the cutouts for the valves in the pistons and fit them to the rods. I'll then get the whole lot back and build the engine myself.

 

Oh and they're going to fabricate an oil filler into the cam cover for me as well, I've seen these on peoples build threads and they look like nice and neat solution to getting access to get oil in to the engine (the bike's oil filler is not on the cam cover so a different solution is required when fitted to the A series engine).

 

I'm also going to order an MED lightened flywheel kit, and guessworks gearbox recon kit and X-Pin diff, if I'm lucky I can get the gear box re-built by the time the engine gets back to me and I can crack on then with the build.

 

Reason for deciding to pause the body work is that having done this I'm going to have to make some adjustments to the bonnet and I don't know how extensive until the engine is built and in place so no point it getting it painted until that's all done, I may also need to make some other adjustments here and there so want to do a dry run on the install before getting it in to a paint shop. I'm hoping to get away with no bonnet bulge as I want the car to look unassuming from the outside but I'm prepared to do so if required but not going to get a bulbous 16v bonnet, they don't float my boat and shouldn't be necessary.

 

Unfortunately this does mean that the replacement wiring loom I had made up is now redundant, it turns out that the SPi is the worst starting point from that point of view and they advised either to switch to an MPI or late carb loom, anyway, the loom I bought I will no doubt be able to sell on as it was custom made as it is N.L.A. and the carb loom I need will be cheaper and result in a tidier engine bay, I can also install the ECU under the dash in the car which appeals to me too.

 

Interestingly having done the number crunching (checked and double checked) in the grand scheme of things this isn't nearly as much more expensive as I anticipated than going down the route I was heading in of; stage 3 head, racier cam and programmable ECU (in fact if I had gone for the full SC 5 port throttle body kit the difference in cost would be pretty marginal and I was leaning towards this), certainly I think the benefit is justified by the cost and will make my project that bit more interesting and unique. There's much of the work I would have done anyway regardless of which route I took with the head and there's things I don't need to purchase as they're included here and I will also get a bit back by selling on the old head etc.

 

Exciting times; I think I need to change the title of my thread!

 

 

Edited by alchall, 03 November 2017 - 04:57 PM.

[alchall]

This weekend I have dismantled the engine and box in readiness to be send block and crank off to SC to work their magic, I have a couple of worries about the gearbox but I was fairly surprised to find the block to be in what appears to be very good condition and some modifications that I had no idea had been done.

 

So firstly the block, the bores look nice, some carbonisation at the top (as there is on the piston tops and chambers) but there's no damage or scoring, head gasket was just starting to go slightly between 2 and 3....

 

 

I couple of interesting finds, duplex timing gear and a kent 274 cam....

 

 

 

I will probably sell those and go with the SC jackshaft that replicas the camshaft, basically a cam shaft with no lobes to simply drive the oil pump, the oil pumped looked like it was very new too!

 

The crank has had some work done, journals have been drilled and there looks to have been some balancing undertaken, but not fully wedged and bladed I think, so I'm going to send some photo's of this off to SC for their advice about serviceability before I courier it off to them.

 

 

 

I had anticipated finding something very wrong in the box as 2nd gear was very difficult to engage, first thing I noticed was it has a central oil pickup so it must have had a rebuild at some point and the diff and FD seem good, need to work out if it's got the original FD but will be selling the diff and replacing with X-pin.

 

 

Inside the box looks like this...

 

 

Some of the gears seem to have some little notches in them, looks to my un trained eye like damage but if so I am not sure if it's a problem or not so will post over in the technical problems and questions section to get some advice.

 

 

 

 

Not a bad weekends effort, looking forward to getting it all back and ready to build the engine!

[Steve220]

Apart from the cam and timing gear, it looks standard.

[alchall]

Apart from the cam and timing gear, it looks standard.

 

Were the journals drilled as standard? for some reason I thought they were not.

[Steve220]

 

Apart from the cam and timing gear, it looks standard.

 

Were the journals drilled as standard? for some reason I thought they were not.

 

 

Mine are, how else are they fed with oil?