454 replies to this topic

[emalee]

This is my first proper project, but not the first mini (or rebuild)

so a bit about me, i got my first mini was i was 16, it was a free MOT fail, it sat in our back drive for about 12-18months, before we took it to the farm where our garage is, after a strip down it looked like this:



my dad then spent about 6 months rebuilding him, with a new front end, doorskins, rear valance sills, and most of the floor, etc etc etc:




then he was primed:


and painted:


he was put on the road in november 2004 (when i was 18), and from then till now its had a 1330MG engine with a guessworks box on, roll cage, loads of different wheels ,interior, brightwork etc. He is now my daily drive clocking up the miles on my 250 mile weekly commute, and currently looks like this:




then last jan i was given a shell by a neighbour, and made it into a matching trailer (learning how to weld etc in the process)











not to bad for a girl!!! LOL

we've also got this mayfair freshly sparyed:









OK now the Sky, me and my dad brought this in 2006, for £200, just out of MOT, dad drove it 45 miles home and the only thing keeping us to 60mph is the bonnet trying to fly up, (its been fitted with a internal release bonnet catch, which failed after it was hit in the front end, and flew up with a previous owner)

The engine is spot on (for a 998) and the gearbox is nice and tight, the body work is mostly solid, all of the floors and bootfloor are spot on, the frontend needs to go, as do the sills, rear valance and doorskins, but the rest of the body only suffers from minor surface rust (i hope)

its mainly original, only losing the grille and bonnet badge, the rest of the Limited edition Trim is still there

the plan

a bare shell rebuild with all necessary panels replaced, rebuilt surframes and brakes with new parts where necessary (or high wear parts), Repainted engine 998 in original Yellow, with new ingition parts, original interior, and exterior trim (using new where possible)

basically like this:



with as few mods as possible!!!!!

i'm calling this my first project, because its the first mini i'll be rebuliding myself, with as little help as possible from my dad (apart from the painting)

unfortunty my dads taken over (his own) garage with the morris he is rebuilding, and the red mayfair, so i'm having to start the sky outside, and hopefully the weather won't stall it too much

oh and my dead line is Riv Run, 6 months away!!!!!!!!!

[emalee]

this is the Sky as it stands now:








and the worse of the rust:













and a lovely clean boot floor!!

[mighty mini jack]

Phorrr! stunning little min min there emalee!

Good look with the rest!

[mk1leg]

You've got your work cut out (excuse pun) repairing this tin worm eaten mini....................good luck...............

[dmdangermouse]

Very rare car.
Good luck with the build mate.
I used to have a Sky. Awesome little car.
Sold it about 2 months ago.
I had trouble tracking down the decals for the sides and the boot.
In the end I had them made at a printing company but never got round to putting them on.
Do you want them?
£20 if you want. I think i payed £25. Never been used.

[emalee]

Very rare car.
Good luck with the build mate.
I used to have a Sky. Awesome little car.
Sold it about 2 months ago.
I had trouble tracking down the decals for the sides and the boot.
In the end I had them made at a printing company but never got round to putting them on.
Do you want them?
£20 if you want. I think i payed £25. Never been used.

lovely shiney Sky,

thanks for the offer but i have all of the decals, pinstripes and badges ready to go, thanks tho

[duncancallum]

my first mini was a sky it was mint

unfortunaltey i hit a tree in it one january moring after hittling a load of mud/ice on a country road

still uspests me 7 years on

hate that *melons*in tree drive pas it all the time and its still got a section of my alloy embeded in it

[enneaitch]

just got me a mini rose... its in pretty good nick so far but that looks like a serious project. will be watching this closely... lovin it.

I got new rose decals from ebay...

im trying to find grey bumpers and standard grille cause mine have been upgraded to chrome. :S so back to standard. apart from minilites.

Edited by Phoenixestate, 21 October 2008 - 10:48 AM.

[emalee]

just got me a mini rose... its in pretty good nick so far but that looks like a serious project. will be watching this closely... lovin it.

I got new rose decals from ebay...

im trying to find grey bumpers and standard grille cause mine have been upgraded to chrome. :S so back to standard. apart from minilites.

the grey bumpers are still avaible from Mini spares etc, for about £20 each,

but i decided to go for black ones, and spary them satin 2 pack yukon grey

becuase all of the grey exterior trim, like the wheel arches, grille, sill strips and handles will all be painted the same and all match, as the grey trim is quite expensive or hard to get hold off in good condition

[enneaitch]

yeah i have most of it but im thinking buy black adn spray grey too lol... whats next to be done then?

[emalee]

yeah i have most of it but im thinking buy black adn spray grey too lol... whats next to be done then?

i need to get a tarp first, (which i hopefully should get tomorrow) then i can start stripping him down,

all the interior and dash dails will be removed, then glass, doors, boot, rear lights, wheel arches petrol tank

then attack the surface rust on the main body and repair as necessary

then jack the rear end up, take off the rear subframe, replace the rear valance and fix any rust underneith

then when is too wet to work outside, i'll take the subframe or doors inside and fix them up

once the rear ends solid i'll replace the sills, by which time hopefully i can get him indoors and replace the front end, drop the front subframe and refurb it

i'm hoping to get all the body work done by feb,

[emalee]

just a quick update

All of the interior is stripped out, i found a few horrors in the inner sill and by the air vent, but all in all quite solid and they are only little holes!!!



I am just so shocked at the originality of the car, its NEVER been welded, most of the trim has never been removed, the paper washers were still inplace for the seatbelt mountings, and there was still a plastic cap on the steering wheel bolt!!!




rear pocket happy days!!




i also took all the wheel arches off, only one wasn't broken!! doh:




the front screen and bonnet came off too, showing a dodgy scuttle




poor little mini

i also took the rear side windows out and oddly the passenger side had about 5mm thick sealent most of the way around the seam keeping the rubber seal in place, the part of the seal that fits on the lip is much thicker that the drivers side. i peeled most of it off, but you can still see it in the pics above, its pink!! seeing as this car is SOOO standard i reckon this could be a factory bodge?????

so thats the work done for this weekend, as i'm off to malvern to buy millions of parts tomorrow, so he's all wrapped up in a tarp:

[emalee]

i managed to spent about £350 at Malvern, but i did get:

Grey bottom dash rail
passenger doorskin
Passenger wing
headlights
drums, shoes and springs
shocks
wheel bearings
handbrake gaitor for the backplate
radius arm kits
ball joint kits
track rod ends
bonnet seat
orange side indicators
headlamp rims

this weekend i removed both doors, the rear screen, rear subframe, and wire brushed (on a drill) the main surface rust on the main body, then red oxided it all





these are the main areas of rust, i was shocked to find some filler on just infront of the rear wheel!!



Scuttle:


driver inner finch


driver door step



driver airvent hole:


door bottoms:



rear side window

[emalee]

the subframe removal when very well, all the bolts come off fine, must of been all the WD40 i've been putting on all weekend!!!

but the subframe is knacked, it does look like the original tho!!! lucky i have a couple of spare ones stashed away,

the heel board is fine on the drivers side, but got a couple of holes in the passenger,








the plan for now is winter warmer next week, then MOT on my mini the day after, then the next weekend remove the rear valance, remove all the underseal, patch any holes in the boot floor and heel board,

or if its raining refurb the doors or subframe!!!

happy days

[emalee]

last weekend i took off the rear valance and closing panels, and cleaned up the boot foor, under the arches and heel bored

the holes on the passenger side heelboard, got a bit bigger:



then after looking through the hole, the inner sill was really rusy inside the rear pocket, so i made the hole a bit bigger and my dad chizeled the rusty inner sill off,




the passenger wheel are has loads of holes at the top, so that will need to be replaced, and the boot floor has a few areas of rust coming through from under the strengening panels underneath in the each back corner of the boot, so, the strengthening panels and boot floor on both corners will be cut out next weekend, and replaced with new metal. the rust isn't that bad, but i really don'r want to be rebuilding it a couple of years down the line, so if its gonna be done now, its gone be done right!!

passenger side



the rest of the boot floor, heel board and drivers arch is fine, just a bit of surface rust, which a sanding disc will cure!!

the other main progress of the weekend was the rear bumper lip, which looked rather dodgy, so the bad bit were cut out and replaced:









so next weekend is cut the bootfloor and strengthening panels out and replace, fix the inner sill, replace the passenger arch and subframe closing panel, and patch up the heelboard, or maybe over the next few weekends!!! LOL