4 replies to this topic

[JK95]

Hi guys. Just thought I’d start my own thread as I’m about to start «restoring» my Mini 1000 1971. My gf and I bought it for about 3k £, which is a fair price in Norway for a car in need of some TLC. Engine seems good, as far as I understand it is a stock 998 with new paint. I dont trust it to be a rebuilt one. It has 86k km’s on it.

Rest of the car is all right, needs a new underseat crossmember and battery box as far as rust goes. At least so far. New seats from an Alfa 147 are on their way, they barely fit and dont have a quick release for rear seat use, but they’ll have to do for now.

Plans for now are to fix the rust, change the complete wiring loom with a new one due to some shabby repairs back in earlier ownerships. Install a load of sound deadning and insulation, followed by new carpets and the 147 seats. Then on to technical stuff, going to swap over to 7,5 inch discs up front and probably superfins in the rear. Maniflow exhaust, better cooling system and if I make the money in time, a supercharger kit.

If that is not crazy enough, I have to make the car ready for Rally Retro 2019, a friend-based rally through Europe in old, unreliable cars. Swedish, german and japanese brands are of the table, and the cost for a teams car can not pass 3k £ for the car, not including fixing and mods. https://www.facebook...Rallyretro2019/
We are starting in mid July, so I dont have too much time. This shall be interesting. Following is a few pics of the car before snow came, the seats and a pic of our kind of dash, just LHD.

[wadeenie]

Looking good so far then and can't believe there's that little rust, you could store it in a vacuum and have more! Best of luck!

[minisilverbullet]

Welcome! Will be great to follow the project 

[JK95]

Could well be that there is more, its just all the bad rust I’ve seen so far. Of course some spots with surface rust, but not too much.

[JK95]

Sooooo yeah, a weekend in the workshop ended in grim news? Guess who found rust?

Dont have too many good pocs of the rust, but apart from hacking out the battery case and under seat crossmember, I had to fix rust in the left side rear damper tower, and discovered severe rust inside the sills???
Here is a terriple pic of the floor after some light patching, will be grinded a bit nicer later but covered the welds in zink paint for the moment.
Inner and outer sills are ordered, not looking forward to this job? How timeconsuming is this? I know my way around a grinder and welder but I’m no bodywork-guy.
Here is me welding in the battery case:

Also figured oit I have the small fuel tank. This will not be sufficient on my trip across Europe, so a larger one is addet to my order.
More to come when parts arrive and I find myself having a weekend to spend. Until then, a few questions.
Is it possible to change the sills on one side in a weekend?
I’m gonna convert from drums to 7,5 inch discs up front and Minifins in the back. I need to make the brake system as close as possible to the Cooper S kind to make it legal in Norway, so I kinda need to know if the Cooper S (mk1-3) had servos on their brakes?
Which type of the 998 do I have? Low or high comp? Nice to know before a possible order from Vmaxscart.