25 replies to this topic

[Tony75]

As I said before, the wife had told me I had to cut the spending out, and I listened...…..for all of about 5 minutes

 

The bike had been stripped down for quite a while and I was learning from my mistakes when it comes to painting.  There were silly mistakes like forgetting to put hardener in the mix, which meant I had to strip everything back as it hadn't set after 2 weeks and things like no rubbing parts down before applying the clear coat.  All a good learning curve before I tackle spraying the Mini.

 

But I finally got everything painted and lacquered so now it's just rebuilding.  All the calipers were given to a friend of mine to be rebuilt, he's had them a couple of months and still hasn't finished but I should get them back for the weekend.

 

The paint

 

 

That appears to be the only 2 pictures I have.  I did get the runs all sorted

 

I decided that although the bike sounded brilliant with the gutted cans, I just didn't think it sounded right and I also fancied some high level ones. So I went and bought the GPR high level setup.  And of course, to make the bike run right I knew I would have to sort the fuelling, so I bought a Power Commander.  I got the closest map downloaded onto it and got this and the exhausts fitted.  I ordered some new stickers and a solo seat conversion. I wanted blue stickers as I felt it would look best against the white but I think they might be a bit light

 

 

I got the bike fired up and it sounds amazing.

 

I got the wheels back today after getting the tyres and bearings fitted so have built them back up ready for refitting.  Will hopefully get her finished off on Saturday and maybe get a wee blast, but the MOT is out on Monday.  One thing after another......

 

Will update again soon...….hopefully

 

Cheers

 

Tony

[Tony75]

Sorry to drag this back up.

 

Well it's been just over a year since last updating this and a lot has happened.

 

I won't bore you with the bike stuff, but I got her back on the road and MOT'd only for her to collapse a rear bearing on me. This happened twice, first time at 70mph, so the wife took me bike shopping (her idea) and I came home with a brand new BMW S1000XR. BEST WIFE EVER!!!!!!  I still have both bikes and got the issue with the rear bearing sorted quite simply.

 

On to the Mini, I didn't spend a huge amount of time on her to start with. I had a new job etc and life just got in the way. Brian did a load of work on her when he had the chance.

 

One big thing that happened last year was that I moved house.  I had spent 20 years renting and having nothing to show for it and I was finally in a position to buy a house.  My youngest was moving out so we were quite happy to downsize so long as there was space for a garage.  We moved in July, got all permission sorted in August and the garage was built in Sept

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It measures 20.6ft x 20.10ft.  I still just have a single driveway leading up to it, but that's something to get sorted over the summer.

 

I got the Mini moved over so I could do more tinkering

 

 

 

I also bought some decoration for the garage, just to make it home

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I say Brian had been busy doing bits for me I mean he had done loads, the subframes were fully built up and fitted to the car

 

 

 

I picked away at lots of little bits, never really making a dent in what was needing done. One day through boredom I masked off the engine bay and painted it

 

 

 

 

There are lots of bits in the paint and a couple of runs, but nothing I won't be able to sort. My mind is actually heading towards redoing it anyway when the rest of the car is getting painted.

 

I'll make another post in a minute to save this being too long

 

Cheers

 

Tony

[Tony75]

Not really much of an update, don't really feel like I've managed to get much done considering the amount of time I a spending in the garage during lockdown.

 

I have mostly been spending time trying to get the bodywork prepped for paint, sometimes an uphill battle

 

 

 

By no means perfect but holy cow, the amount of time you spend filling and sanding is just torture.

 

I also decided to cut out the rear companion bins, when I had my Mini 30 the back of the drivers seat was torn due to me having the seat reclined fully and pushed as far back as possible, kind of needed to get my bulk in with some form of comfort.  Of course, the seatbelt attaches on the bin so I have had to buy a harness bar that goes from arch to arch in the back.  It arrived yesterday so I've not fitted it yet.  I had never intended on having the back seats anyway, but I did discover that my really poor welding I did on the bins was surprisingly strong.....

 

Another slight change I made was to the front suspension.  I had bought myself genuine heritage front shock top mounts, didn't want to cut any corners so had to go with the expensive stuff

 

 

That was all fine on the drivers side, but the NS one didn't have a thread machined into it.  I could have just returned it and got a replacement, but my head doesn't work like that.  This gave me the excuse to buy something fancy

 

 

Simple to fit, as I'm sure you'd expect

 

 

I also fitted the windscreen using offcuts of windscreen rubber, this allowed me to accurately position to weld the top dash rail in

 

 

I then proceeded to make a mess of it.....

 

I'm currently fighting with the doors trying to get them aligned, this is a job I have learnt to hate more than filling and sanding.  Several times I've been close to stripping all the good bits back off the car and then attacking it with a hammer, just to make sure nobody else has to put up with the misery of badly aligned panels.

 

 

So that's the update for now, I have a load of bits and pieces arriving over the next few days so will be able to hide back out in the garage again. I've still not collected my engine from the old garage, no idea how I can get that done while we're on lockdown but I could do with getting the rebuild started.

 

Sorry for the amount of pictures and if it's boring as hell, but thanks for sticking with me

 

Cheers Tony

[Tony75]

Time to drag this back up

 

Sorry for the 2 and a bit year delay in updates. Admittedly, nothing has happened to the Mini for over a year, but there was a lot done through lockdown and for a good bit after.  Now pictures might be a bit out of order and things may jump about or be missed out, but please bear with me

 

As said previously, I got a harness bar as I'd ditched the companion bins

 

 

This was rubbed back and primed

 

 

And then given a coat of Surf Blue

 

 

 

To be honest, I'm not overly impressed with this bar, not sure if I am willing to trust my life with it. So it will probably get ditched in favour of a full cage with proper harness bar.

 

I masked the car up and gave the interior a prime and followed it up with a few good coats of Surf Blue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damn I love that colour

 

I'll end this post here so I don't crash the system with all the photos

 

Cheers

 

Tony

[Tony75]

So, this post will probably just be about the roof. Trust me, with the drama I had, it deserves it's own thread 

 

Not sure if I mentioned earlier, but I wanted my car to be a bit different from all others that I have seen. Surf Blue cars seem to have either, a surf blue roof or a white roof.  Well, muggins here decided that he wanted a black roof. I'm sure you're all aware at how difficult it is to paint gloss black with a good finish, but Mr Gungho decided that with the massive experience of painting 1 motorbike (badly I may add) that he could do it.........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well blow me sideways, it looks brilliant.  There was one run on the front offside front corner, just a wee rub down and it'll be good

 

 

Yup, burnt through. So I prepped the roof again and painted again. Quick rub back on the offside front corner......

 

You guessed it, burnt through again. Repeat previous step and then forget about the roof

 

That'll do for now

 

Cheers

[Tony75]

Next up I was tackling the main body along with the tailgate. I had bought the conversion panel for the Mk1 boot lid, it was a complete faff but I got there in the end

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, my welding hasn't improved but with a bit of filler and some paint I was quite happy with the end result

 

 

 

Just don't look at the inside......

 

Onto the main shell.  As I had previously said, lots and lots of filling and sanding etc etc. Then to apply some colour. I decided to ditch the cheap gun I had bought and done the bike with and bought myself a Devilbiss pair of guns. The difference is massive, unfortunately it can't fix stupid......

 

 

 

I got a big run along the nearside quarter and after watching Trev's Blog on YouTube, decided to try his way to fix it

 

 

He makes it look much easier than it is but I was happy with the result

 

 

 

So the whole shell has been painted now......ahem, 2 years ago

 

 

 

 

It is by no means perfect, but I am happy with it as the car will never be a show piece

 

Cheers

 

Tony

 

[Tony75]

Last post for today.

 

Some of you may have seen that I was asking questions about the CompBrake pedal box and how to fit it. The general consensus was to send it back for a refund, unfortunately I am way too slow to do things like that, so battled on regardless.

 

As a wee teaser, this is the kit.....

 

 

 

Now I don't have any pics of it fitted but I plan some time in the garage over the next few days, so will take some then

 

That's all for now folks

 

Tony

[Tony75]

Ok, so I'm not very good at keeping my word to update within a couple of days.....sorry

 

So this might be a little out of order, bear with me

 

I had been given a wiring loom by my eldest daughters boss, it came with a Mini he bought as a toy and he had no idea of the condition. I gave it to one of the guys at work to check over, 6 months later he had done nothing with other than find out it needed work. So I took it back and there was only one thing to do with it........give it to bpirie1000

 

 

He dug into it and found some top quality workmanship

 

 

6 hours later and he had fixed the lot. The man's a legend

 

I decided it was finally time to fit the fiberglass dash. I cut the flaps for the windscreen vents as the car will have no heater blower and I'm going to be fitting a heated screen. As it's all out of sight, I just attacked it with a cutting disc on the grinder and then coated the bare surfaces with the touch up paint I have

 

 

This is also the only photo I have of the pedal box installed, the accelerator is high as it's not connected to anything (to me it should be flat on the floor then) and the other pedals need some fine tuning with the MC's to get them in the right position. You can also see that the rear brake pipe is going to be run internally, it's not secured yet or had the routing finalised.

 

For gauges and switches I'm looking at going with a Stack dash, or something similar, and modern rocker type switches. The headlight switch I want to move to the right hand side of the steering wheel and get maybe a Vauxhall or VW type dial switch. I will also be fitting a Pioneer double din headunit, it was my dads and I was given it when he died suddenly almost 10 years ago. It's out of date really, the maps are a decade old and I don't even think you can stream bluetooth but it's more about the sentiment.

 

On one of my visits to Brian's Aladdin's cave I collected various items, including a Fletcher stainless back box, window regulators, 4 point harnesses, lock barrels etc etc

 

I decided to do the lock barrels first, a quick check on YouTube and I was confident about the door handles, but I searched and searched to find any info on how to do the boot lock to no avail. I spoke with Brian about it and he said "It's a horrible job", ok that's maybe not the words he used but I'm not allowed to use the correct ones and I'm sure you get the picture. I had a quick look in the Moss Europe catalogue that I had out in the garage and it gives an exploded view of the lock, that's all I needed. Job done and right enough, it's a horrible job.......or words to that effect

 

 

 

The Fletcher back box was used and had been covered in underseal so I attacked it with thinners and degreaser followed by a good dose of metal polish on the rotary

 

 

Part 1 of 2 for today

 

Cheers

 

Tony

[GraemeC]

That crimp in the wiring loom is factory standard.  They look like a bodge but I've never known one fail or go high resistance.

[Tony75]

If you've read from the beginning, you will know that this car came to me as just a bare shell and nothing else, so I spend a lot of time watching Ebay and Gumtree for parts

 

Whilst scrolling through recently I spotted a fuel tank going cheap and it was only 5 miles away, contacted the guy and arranged to collect it. He was clearing out his workshop of |Mini bits so he could get more room to work on his MGB project and only had a few bits left. When I went to collect the tank he just gave me the other bits......nice guy

 

 

So I now have a fuel tank. I'll paint it black before it gets fitted, but that'll probably be a while off.

 

I also got round to painting the finisher strips and the bonnet

 

 

Of course, I had to push the old girl outside while I did this

 

 

I am so in love with this car......

 

And then with the bonnet popped in place

 

 

Other than that, all I've done is fit the front indicators

 

 

 

So, that's us fully up to date, will just be picking away at bits a pieces. Hopefully Brian will get some time off to pop round and help me fit the loom, finalise brake pipe routing etc.

 

Cheers for now

 

Tony

[Tony75]

Not much of an update other than to say I have painted the doors and the boot hinges. I got one of the door hinges done too, but had run out of hooks for painting the other 3

 

 

Yes, my garage is a bombsite

 

 

I will have to spend a bit of time rubbing the doors back and polishing them up, but I actually enjoy that.

 

I ran out of thinners when I painted the bonnet, as I only had the doors and hinges to do I just bought a 1 litre. Mixed it in with the paint without issue, but when I went to wash the gun out the thinners did nothing, so I am expecting something to go wrong once the paint has hardened.

 

Cheers

 

Tony