I have been on The Mini Forum for 7 years now and think its about time I started a thread.
I have always wanted a mini, I remember a work colleague of my dads owning a sporty silver one when I was growing up. A good few years later my dad purchased a 2001 classic mini cooper sport in tahiti blue with platinum roof and decals.
Another few years later my dad donated the mini to me and about a week later it failed its MOT with a list of what seemed like 200 fails.
The mini had definitely reached the point were it was MOT'less and therefore undrivable. I was therefore left with three choices, sell, bodge or restore.
Sell wasn't an option but without an MOT it couldn't be taken anywhere to get quotes for a restoration so the answer was therefore bodge. When I say bodge it wasn't really bodge it was more like give to a local friend to do everything as cheap as possible to make sure it could be driven for a year. £500 later and the MOT was passed and the journey around many many restoration candidates was well on its way.
Given the choice I would have loved to complete the restoration myself and learnt to weld etc but with no garage or time I decided it would be best to let an expert do it but do as much as I can in the background.
Anyway so a photo of where the mini was up to at this point.
After some time at Guessworks having the gearbox rebuilt and an engine refresh I decided it was a time to start a big strip down.
However knowing the restoration would probably take a while one last road trip. I spent a good few days planning a two day blast around North Wales best roads.
To be continued...
Edited by Carvell, 25 September 2016 - 08:47 PM.