About My Mini
P91 AVK was bought new by myself from Harvest Motor Co in Darlington in June of '97. I took the train up from deepest darkest Essex and drove back in my first ever new car, an Amaranth Mini Cooper Sportspack. It was used every day for a few years until at about 30K miles or so I had to rebuild the engine. Mpi tuning was still somewhat lacking at the time so I restricted the rebuild to a Swiftune 1293 with modded head, K&N, LCB & Exhaust plus an adjustable fuel pressure regulator. Brakes were changed for Metro turbo calipers with vented discs. Suspension was Hi-Lo's all round with Spax shocks. Both subframes were replaced, (the front due to a small knock I had which knocked the geometory right out) and fitted with solid mounts on the front and uprated rubbers to the rear. I briefly fitted a Spax coilover kit but could not get on with it so it was sold on along with a set of 13" Superlites to my mate Joe, (Mini13 off here!) The car remained in daily use until it hit 48K miles, at which point the steering rack let go. I removed the rack but never got round to replacing it, and after a house move a few months later most of the bits went missing so it has sat round the back of my house ever since.
I currently use a Volvo 850 T5 as a daily driver and have been finding its ability to drink petrol somewhat tiresome, therefore I decided to get the Mini back on the road, thinking that it wont need much more than a little bit of TLC to get it back up to speed again. A quick search on e-bay soon sourced a Sportspack rack so come the weekend I dragged the Mini out of its resting place, dragged literally as the rear brakes were seized solid! I decided to strip out the interior as it was in need of a decent clean, what I found i was NOT prepared for. I knew it was a bit raggedy in places but was not prepared for how far it had gone
Once the carpets were out the full extent could be seen.After removing from undergrowth and a quick wash.
Hole through inner and outer sill and floorpan. Is worse than looks in this photo.
After eventually getting into the boot I found a lake where the spare wheel sat, a bit of prodding & a few more holes showed up.
Rot around the rear subframe mounts.
Below the screen
All this means that it's not going to be the quick-fix-and-MOT that I hoped for. It deserves better than to be plated over just to get it through so the decision has been made to do it properly. I'm going to strip it to a shell and replace all the panels it requires. I've always fancied a Mini with a different engine and so having had an MG ZR160 I reckon it would be perfect.
So, it looks like I'm going to be around this forum for quite some time...
