454 replies to this topic

[mini1.3]

my grille is a bit of a random project, i usually have a stainless mesh then 4 cooper slats on, then a heater matrix attached to the inside for extra cooling, so for the winter the extra cooling has been disconnected and it takes up quite a bit of space so i brought a cheap old grille at castle combe and have been painting it different colours since!!!! its great fun!!!! far too much time!!!

i've got no pics today, as a was busy buying my spotwelder!!!!,

i;ve made the piping for the seats
and a set of rear seat covers for someone
then went to get spary paint, stonechip, wire brushes for the drill etc etc etc
then drove 30 odd miles to the nearest machine mart to get the spotwelder, hitting a few snow showers on the way down, and a bit of carb freeze when i came off the dual carriageway, then got lost.... then found the shop, then took me 10 mins to get to it because if stupid one way systems!!!!
then finished stripping down and cleaning up the other radius arm and back plate, and cleaned up the trumpets, handbrake arms for the backplates and the brackets to hold the handbrake cables on the radius arms
finished painting the subframe and red oxided some more stuff (must get some more hammerite!!!)
then came home and had to respary most of what i painted yesterday, because i missed loads

its all good, and its a bit warmer so i'll crack on with some welding tomorrow, mainly the bulkhead repairs and probably line the passenger door up

hiya sorted door cards out and did you get my pm yesterday or am i just thinking i sent it p.s door cards should be in post 2mozz and pm what your wanting to pay

[emalee]

since the weathers got a bit warmer, i've spent a bit of time on the body work

first off was to refit the passenger door, i bolted it on with the original shims, closes it and was left with this panel gap



nearly perfect, i can't believe how well this door fits compared to the other side, but it was a bit high



so i took one of the original shims out and put in a new one



so that was that like 10 mins to fit and line up the door, well happy!!!!



then i wire brushed the rest of the scuttle to find the spotwelds, and found some holes



its a good job a got a new one!!! LOL

took the scuttle and a panel off


lovely non holey inner finch



then it started to rain so i had to move inside and do some painting



lovely subframe!!!

[emalee]

then today i've attacked the bulkhead, cut out the rot in the middle



and replaced





repaired the centre of the roof gutter





can you see??? LOL

then cleaned up the bulkhead



and inner finch



then started to attack this rust



cut out the first skin



cleaned up and cut out the second skin



i've replaced the inner skin, and red oxided all the bulkhead and roof gutter.

tomorrow i'm hoping to get some sand to snadbast the corners of the roof gutter and corners in the bulkhead, take the new scuttle up and see how far it goes up the a pillars

then finish repairing the bulkhead, take the front wheels off and clean behind them and repair under the passenger front shock mount

i reckon there is 4 more repaird to do on the front end, then 2 roof gutter repairs, then its just the front end then!!! whoop whoop

[edi57]

Nice work as always Emalee. You're continue to make good progress almost every day!

Ed

[Saxo-Fiesta-Mini]

koolio good work my radio stopped working again removed it and guess what was covered in water so im gonna do some explorative surgery tomorow me thinks i may end up resealing the dash

[emalee]

yesterday was far too cold and snow to do any work outside, so i spent most of the day trying to figure out how to make the old covers fit the new seats!!!!

then i went to get some sand for the sandblaster, and had little play with one of my old weller wheels, and gave a few parts a quick coat of paint, before it got really cold and the slushly snow started to freeeeeze!!!

today, was the scuttle day, so the plan for today was to get the scuttle on, i went up to find this tho!!



so after getting the tarp off, which was made quite hard with all the snow on the roof, sometimes i wonder if i'm a bit mad spending the day out in the cold like this!!

but hey, as the body had quite a bit of condensation on, i took off the passenger shock mount and attacked it with a hammer and chizel underneath, to find a hole, just like the other side!!!!

then preped the body and new scuttle to be fitted



then out came the lovely new spotwelder, which dad had spent all morning wiring in (its a random fitting, not just a normal plug!!!)

and....



it took a bit of working out, but we still have the front end to the trailer, which we went up and measured where the scuttle is meant to be!! and hey presso



one scuttle spor welded into place, we've learn't that a spotwelder meant for 1mm + 1mm, will easily weld the 3 layers for the scuttle of 0.8mm metal, well happy, but we also learnt after some errors, that you need to have all the metal 100% paint free and the tips of the spotwelder nice and clean and also the timer is used instead of amps on a mig to control the strength of the weld!!!

it was soo easy with the spot welder tho, and no mess to clean up and grind back!!!, we also put in the scuttle closing panels, new bonnet hinges, and then i got the mig out to finsh the job off and painted it all buff oxide, because the red oxide ran out....



then i played with the sandblaster some more a blasted then buff oxided all of these



i love the sandblaster, its so easy and quick to clean up parts, the 250litre compressor was running nearly non stop tho.....

[BMC Paul]

You do really, really well Emma in such cold conditions aswell..... all credit to you

[Minid]

you doing a great job and putting my project to shame!

Im too out of work but have lost a little bit of my enthusiasm.

With the spot welder if your going over its stated thickness do a destruct test, by this i mean get some scrap metal of the same your welding and do a few spots just over your chiesel width thickness then chiesel like crazy between panels/spots.

The circle of weld/metal should stay put and the metal should ripp off around the spot==good weld.

If it pings off-spot of weld its too weak.

I would love to have a spot welder just brill.

You mentioned about keeping tips clean-also the tip should be regularly filed/dressed to a flat 5mm flat circle or what ever your machine recomends.

You might/probably already know this so please inore this old gesser.

Keep up the good work loving the progress..

[emalee]

you doing a great job and putting my project to shame!

Im too out of work but have lost a little bit of my enthusiasm.

With the spot welder if your going over its stated thickness do a destruct test, by this i mean get some scrap metal of the same your welding and do a few spots just over your chiesel width thickness then chiesel like crazy between panels/spots.

The circle of weld/metal should stay put and the metal should ripp off around the spot==good weld.

If it pings off-spot of weld its too weak.

I would love to have a spot welder just brill.

You mentioned about keeping tips clean-also the tip should be regularly filed/dressed to a flat 5mm flat circle or what ever your machine recomends.

You might/probably already know this so please inore this old gesser.

Keep up the good work loving the progress..

its really helpful we are completely new to spotwelding!!!,

we haven't tested the welds, but we try it out with 3 layers and it seemed to manage it fine, then moved to the scuttle, where some welds closer to the top of the edge we could see the weld burning/melting through the metal and it set fire to the paint between the dash rail and bulkhead, so i'm assuming is on alright, its certainly not moving anywhere!!!

we'll have to try a file, we were just useing 80 grit sandpaper on the tips, and they look really clean still!!! i'm sure when we do the front end they will get a bit dirtier tho!!!

i'm finding the sky a god send when i haven't got a job, probably because i got a deadline for it, so i really want it done by then, there just so much to do, so being out of work is kinda job for me at the mo to get cracking on it, won't be when a run out of cash tho.... i hope you get your drive back for your project,

[emalee]

You do really, really well Emma in such cold conditions aswell..... all credit to you

cheers, it was a bit slipply with the snow tho, but it is with the mud so i'm used to it!!! LOL

today i went on local club mini run tho, so no work today. and everyone was saying how low my exhaust was, i was like 'no its fine it does ground', the track to the farm is REALLY bumpy!!!, so when i went up there sure enough then exhuast was grounding!!,

so i took it up the garage and the mount at the front of the rear subframe was snapped in half and the exhuast was about 3" lower than what it should of been, in our spares we had my original pea shotter 998 exhuast, with mounts on, so we robbed that and put it on, and fixed!! no grounding exhaust, teach me not to listen to people!!! LOL

the only thing i've done with the sky is pin together the seat covers, and pull the engine from the back of the garage to the front so i can clean it up!!!

[BMC Paul]

You do really, really well Emma in such cold conditions aswell..... all credit to you

cheers, it was a bit slipply with the snow tho, but it is with the mud so i'm used to it!!! LOL

today i went on local club mini run tho, so no work today. and everyone was saying how low my exhaust was, i was like 'no its fine it does ground', the track to the farm is REALLY bumpy!!!, so when i went up there sure enough then exhuast was grounding!!,

so i took it up the garage and the mount at the front of the rear subframe was snapped in half and the exhuast was about 3" lower than what it should of been, in our spares we had my original pea shotter 998 exhuast, with mounts on, so we robbed that and put it on, and fixed!! no grounding exhaust, teach me not to listen to people!!! LOL

the only thing i've done with the sky is pin together the seat covers, and pull the engine from the back of the garage to the front so i can clean it up!!!

I hope thats a temp repair to your exhaust! cant have a pea shooter on there Emma!

Edited by BMC Paul, 09 February 2009 - 07:27 PM.

[emalee]

You do really, really well Emma in such cold conditions aswell..... all credit to you

cheers, it was a bit slipply with the snow tho, but it is with the mud so i'm used to it!!! LOL

today i went on local club mini run tho, so no work today. and everyone was saying how low my exhaust was, i was like 'no its fine it does ground', the track to the farm is REALLY bumpy!!!, so when i went up there sure enough then exhuast was grounding!!,

so i took it up the garage and the mount at the front of the rear subframe was snapped in half and the exhuast was about 3" lower than what it should of been, in our spares we had my original pea shotter 998 exhuast, with mounts on, so we robbed that and put it on, and fixed!! no grounding exhaust, teach me not to listen to people!!! LOL

the only thing i've done with the sky is pin together the seat covers, and pull the engine from the back of the garage to the front so i can clean it up!!!

I hope thats a temp repair to your exhaust! cant have a pea shooter on there Emma!

it was just the bracket we put on, my 1330 won't be able to breathe with a pea shooter on!!! LOL

[emalee]

because it was raining all day i haven;t got any welding done today, hopefully it will be nice tomorrow so i can get on and do some work!!,

today i stripped the engine down, i haven't got any pics, because i only went up to paint a few bits, and got a bit sidetracked and sent all day there LoL

so i stripped all the anicaillopiiiejs (can't spell) off the engine and put all the bolts in labels bags so i don't lose them!!LoL

then sandblasted all the bits to be repainted, including the heater take off, which then showed loads of holes in it, so another thing for the list to buy!!! LOL

then i came home and primed everything ready for painting

[emalee]

i just looked up the reg on ebay (random i know), as i had no idea of when it was first registered and it came up with

Fuel: Petrol
Doors: 2
Colour: Other
Transmission: Manual
Engine Size (cc): 998
Number of Previous Owners: 7
Model: Other
Model Year (YYYY): 1989
Type: Standard Car
Manufacturer: Austin
Date of 1st Registration (DD/MM/YYYY): 1989/04/14

i was a bit surpised as quite a few of the bits are dated much eariler, like doors are dated feb, and the seats dated march...

[Saxo-Fiesta-Mini]

you thought they make the parts then fit them to the car then 3 months later register the car make them more money

lol sorry if sound obvious looks like your gettin it done quite quick thou all the credit to your effort i suppose