109 replies to this topic

[SamG]

The last thing I had to get sorted before the roof could be fitted was to make a few repairs to the gutters, weld up the existing Mk4-on drain slots on the front and rear panels and then cut the age appropriate drain slots in their place. this is the first repair I tackled and the top of the O/S a-pillar...

 

 

Little cardboard template 

 

 

A view of the metal piece from the top

 

 

Here it is all ground down, really happy with how it turned out. You can also see I squared up the edge of the gutter to make it easier to fit the new piece next.

 

 

The process for getting the gutters fixed up was exactly the same for each corner, so I'll just show the clearest pictures of each stage. Here's the O/S front with the little repair piece made from 1mm steel rolled around a screw driver shanks. Agricultural but I think it worked OK.

 

 

And the next piece to complete the curve. I don't have any pictures of the middle of the welding process as I was on a roll and didnt want to stop. As all the steel was fresh it welded really nicely and I managed to find the Goldilocks setting on Ellis' new R-Tech 180 welder, so that helped. After welding in the the patches it was a case of using a cutting disc in and angle grinder to shape it and get the right profile. Easy for the outside but very tricky on the inside of the gutter, one slip and it's a whole world of hurt.

 

 

A view from the top and the front of the completed curve. 

 

 

[SamG]

I agonised over the location of the drain slots for a long time. Luckily there's a pickup and another early shell in the unit so I was able to take some measurements off them which helped somewhat - but unfortunately there was a 4mm discrepancy between the two. Typical BL I suppose. I took a few measurements and went with the average and also just what I thought looked right. Once marked up I tentatively cut the slot with the angle grinder and used a broad punch to knock down the bottom lip to create the curve. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

 

 

Here's one of the rears...

 

[SamG]

Once all four corners of the gutter were repaired the next step was to get the roof on - Exciting! It was probably the simplest panel to fit on the whole car so far as it can only really go in one place. As I said before I did have to trim 2mm off the front and rear flange to get it to squeeze down past the gutter but once that was done it slotted into place nicely. Trial fit complete, I removed the panel and buzzed off the paint top and bottom, then sprayed weld-thru primer on the underside where it'll meet the car.

 

Not many interesting pictures here but here it is all fitted

 

 

I spot welded the entire way round - every inch or so on each side which will be doubled up again when I weld the drip rails on later. At the front and back I spotwelded every inch and then another spot in between each of the last meaning I ended up with welds nearly every 10mm. This took an absolute age as the spot welder is only rated for 2 welds per minute but overall I'm happy that it's really strong now.

 

[SamG]

Inner wing removal and fitting tomorrow evening 

[Avtovaz]

that hydrate does smell! glad to see your getting on with this quite a bit now, and progress is looking really nice!

[SamG]

After the success of the roof and windscreen panel I was keen to crack on with the inner wings. Having never touched them previously I had to do my research on where they are welded to the car and what other panels they interact with, especially around the a-post. I had a vague plan of attack and started to buzz off all the old crusty dirt and paint to reveal the spot welds that would need drilling out. 

 

 

All spot welds located and drilled.

 

 

And this is what was revealed underneath. I was worried that I'd have to make some repairs to the end of the crossmember but luckily it was in good condition bar a little surface rust inside. I cleaned that off, treated it like before and painted inside ready for it to be closed up once again.

 

 

New wing lined up and clamped in place. The fit was really good in 2 areas and not so good in another.  As you can see the good areas are the door hinge holes in the a-post and the shock absorber top mount mounting holes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where it didn't fit so well was where it meets the edge of the toe board and the floor at the bottom. It was like the whole wing was 5-10mm too 'tall'. I could have shunted the whole thing further up but it would've meant the hinge holes and shock mount holes wouldn't have lined up and it would've been too high for the rest of the front end to work. I was a little miffed but decided that I could persuade the bottom to go into place with a little help from a big hammer and some welding heat. 

 

Once I was happy with the fitment I marked out the holes to be drilled for plug welding...(this is the N/S but I neglected to take a picture of the O/S)

 

 

Here it clamped it ready for welding.

 

 

Just before I set about welding the wing on I thought I'd take the opportunity to properly clean off, rust treat and paint the bulkhead as the lack of a wing meant I could get into the corners properly with the wire wheel.  Excuse the finger....

 

 

Here's a 50/50 shot that shows the colour change when using the Hydrate 80 stuff. The right hand side had already had 1 coat and turned from blue to black, and the left hand side is the 2nd coat freshly applied.

 

[SamG]

Next step was to weld on the wing!

 

 

 

You can see where I had to beat the wing round underneath to match the shape of the floor. My process for this was to plug one hole, use the latent heat in the panel to get the next couple of holes to line up flush and then weld them, and so on and so on.

[SamG]

The process was exactly the same for the other side, even down the wing being slightly too 'tall' by the same margin. I forgot to mention above that I also had to change the little inner a-post panels both sides. I got these from M-Machine and they were a great fit both at the top where it gets welded to the top dash rail end and at the bottom where it slots in between the inner sill and the door step. 

 

 

And here's a view from the front showing after a liberal coating of rust treatment.

 

 

N/S wing welded on...

 

[SamG]

I really enjoyed getting those wings on because it went surprisingly well. After the a-pillar drama I'm used to getting stuck or things not going to plan so when these wings went on so well I was a happy man indeed.

Next up was to get the scuttle that I'd cut off to allow me to get the inner wings fitted welded back on. I thought this would be the most straight forward job I'd done but it turned out not to be.
I offered up the scuttle and it appeared to be 5mm too short side to side, so that the profile didn't match around the windscreen corners. After much wrestling and jiggling I got it somewhere close. To get the profiles to line up and get the scuttle to match the top dash-rail profile I had to lower the whole scuttle by 2mm or so so the gap you see below (which was created by a 1mm cutting disc) was eventually doubled. Hope that makes sense. No idea why this happened but hey ho, I'm happy that it close enough to being in the right place.



Some horrible welding...



The O/S ground down after welding. Fairly happy with the end result as it was tricky grinding down to match the profiles but I'll still have to be pretty creative with the filler later on.

Edited by SamG, 24 June 2019 - 08:27 PM.

[SamG]

All painted up and finished off

 

[SamG]

Next up was to clean up and paint the inside of the toeboard and bulkhead..

 

 

And the front of the toeboard, I love seeing it all 1 colour 

 

Edited by SamG, 24 June 2019 - 08:35 PM.

[SamG]

Not sure if I've mentioned it before but if not, here's a big curveball....

 

My Wife, Daughter, Dog, cat and I are moving to Auckland, New Zealand in 2 days time (at the time of writing this). I agonised about taking the Mini with us or selling it as it sits but decided that I'd never ever get my money back on it if I sold it so it's coming with us! Ellis (the guy whose unit I use) and I actually towed it to London last week for it to get shipped off so here's the tale of how I got it ready.

 

I had two choices - keep it on a rolling pallet with all the spares inside or get it rolling on wheels. I went with getting it on wheels as it would be so much easier to transport and move around and I already had most of the parts needed to get it to that stage.

 

Haven't got many pictures of the rear subframe being built up but here it is ready to be fitted to the car. Once the car gets to NZ I'll be stripping the subframes again and getting them professionally blasted and painted. Once that's done I'll detail the assembly process properly as this time was a bit of a bodge in places due to crazy time limits (working on the car past midnight the day before it had to leave etc)

 

[Avtovaz]

you did say about the move to Nz, be good to see that car done no matter where it is! Progress is good mate!

[SamG]

And fitted to the car...

 

 

Front subframe build up with all new shiny bits...

 

[SamG]

I bought some pretty disgusting 12" 'minilights'  to get the shell rolling which will be getting sold at the other end don't worry! They're in good condition and all 4 tyes hold air which is all I was concerned about really.

 

 

Hopefully you can see the door gap here as I'm really pleased with it especially considering the major surgery the car has undergone.

 

Here it is on the trailer at the dock ready to go!

 

 

It'll be the best part of 10 weeks before I see the car again now but will be sure to update this thread with it's progress!