391 replies to this topic

[KTS]

..so, refitted the wiper assembly, reconnected it all, and found it wouldn't stop - slow and fast speed controls working, but as soon as the ignition was on off it went.

 

so, out it came again !!!  i'd forgotten what fun a mini could be   

 

prime suspect had to be the wiper park switch, so on the basis that it was knackered anyway and i was curious what was going on, and didn't really know much about how it functioned, i thought i'd open it up and have a look.

 

carefully prise apart the ends of the casing where it's glued to reveal it's inner workings and found the 'run-on' contact had welded itself to the live feed

 

 

gave the housing and the internals a good clean and put it back together again

 

 

refitted to the wiper assembly, retested it and all working again. so i'm back to where i was last week, but on the plus side, now have a better understanding of  how the wiper park switch works.

 

 

by way of a change from wiper related activities, i retrieved the lower dash rail from it's home in the roof trusses to give it a clean up and found that it's actually dark blue and not black as i had thought.  wish i'd known that before i went to Bingley as i would have kept an eye out for a black one.  

 

Still, it's better than nothing and should be a pretty easy swap out down the line

 

Edited by KTS, 11 March 2020 - 08:54 PM.

[KTS]

had some time off today so decided to tackle the radius arms with a view to fitting these

 

 

so dropped the subframe, removed the radius arms, pulled the pivot pins and cleaned all the grease off to find that instead of bush at the outer end they have bearings set into what looks to be a pressed insert

 

 

the grease tubes that are fitted appear to be in good order, so rather than make work for myself i'll save swapping them over for another day.

 

the radius arms were replaced in 2003 (at a cost of £25 each!!), but have done very few miles so I wasn't planning on needing to replace them.  fortunately despite being sat unused since 2009 the pivots pins are in pretty good shape - some surface marking where they been sat, but serviceable.  I'll mark them and refit them  rotated 180degrees when they go back. 

 

 

something i did notice when pulling the subframe out was that I could only just get a socket on the heads of off side heel board bolts, but there was plenty of room on the nearside ones.  closer inspection with the radius arms and brackets off the subframe showed the trunnion wasn't pulled in tight enough to the subframe on that side

 

 

 

..because the reinforcing plate round where the trunnion locates in the subframe is slightly off-centred so will need relieving 

 

 

whilst i was doing that lot i had the brass brake line unions in the acid bath for a soak

 

before

 

after

 

followed by a scrub with a toohtbrush

 

and finally, an old suede brush 

[tankertanker]

That's more pleasing to the eye than toilet rolls :)

[KTS]

continuing on with the theme of trying to get things to fit :  the fuel tank

 

the problem this time was with the tank correctly located in it's fixings, the neck wouldn't line up with the aperture in the side panel

 

 

 

so i strapped the tank down to the engine hoist so i could tension the neck in the direction it needed to move and pounded the bottom of the neck with a brass drift to get the adjustment i needed - quite a bit was needed in the end

 

   

 

and now it fits 

 

 

 

Fuel line got some attention too;  there'll be an electric pump on the rear subframe so the needed to marry up the hardline to where the fuel pump fittings will be.  I've ordered a pipe bender but it seems to be lost in the post somewhere so ended up doing it all by hand

 

[IronmanG]

Can you post a picture of the pump in place on the subframe. I need to do a similar thing just want some ideas

[KTS]

next up was making up brackets for some fittings - i had lined up a local fabricators to do the work, but sadly they're unable to do it under the current circumstances so i thought i'd better do it myself, so ordered some 2mm stainless plate and cracked on

 

air horn pump bracket to fit to a set of existing holes in the inner wing

 

 

 

..and some simpler ones for reverse and fog light mounts

 

 

 

Also cleaned up the air ducting, which fortunately is still in pretty good shape, decided it needed some kind of funnel at the intake end to help with airflow when on the move so ordered an intake duct.  Pleasantly surprised to discover that the grommet that normally fits around the neck of he fuel tank makes a perfect adaptor to connect the fresh air ducting to the inlet duct.   

 

 

i'm assuming the inlet duct will need some modifying to fit around the starter motor, but it should go

[KTS]

Can you post a picture of the pump in place on the subframe. I need to do a similar thing just want some ideas

 

here you go - shocking picture, but you get the idea 

 

[g111mds]

Really nice progress on this.

[wingnut]

Looking good, things are moving along nicely with this.I spy a Norfolk registration on this

[KTS]

Looking good, things are moving along nicely with this.I spy a Norfolk registration on this

 

thanks.  moving slowly in the right direction...

 

i bought it from a chap in Swanton Morley, so quite possibly had never been out of the county before 

[IronmanG]

Thanks for that. Why are you going electric fuel pump? Is it sited just below the tank and gravity fed? Are you putting baffles in the tank or swirl pot etc?

[KTS]

i decided on ditching the mechanical pump as i'm conscious of issues others have reported with mechanical pumps failing and leaking fuel into the sump and/or the arm that drives off the cam shaft failing and dropping into the gearbox.

 

also means the fuel lines can be kept a sensible distance from the exhaust manifold and if i do need to replace a fuel pump i can do it in relative ease and comfort lying flat on my back under the car.  makes draining the tank alot easier too 

 

the pump is lower than the tank, so, yes gravity fed

 

as for baffles and swirl pots; are they more appropriate for fuel injection setups ?  this'll be feeding an HIF44 at 3-4.5psi so not sure i need anything like that.  given the output pressure i'm not even sure i need to bother with a pressure regulator 

[timmy850]

All the early minis had an electric pump down in the rear subframe. As KTS mentioned, no extra baffles/swirl pots needed. 

[IronmanG]

Ok timmy. Mine is going injection so will be high pressure. Is that still ok?

[timmy850]

If you had a sedan I’d suggest an SPI tank, but haven’t seen any pickups with injection. Might be worth asking in the tech section