Well where do I begin, I've always been a fan of the mini, in fact when I was a kid a mate of mine who lived on a farm had an old mini van that we all used to drive around the fields in, probably the first ever car I drove. I've always wanted to do a resto job on a car and when we bought a house with a double garage I talked the Missus into letting me get a car and carry out my dream. Spent loads of time on the internet and looking through car mags for the perfect restoration job to do, eventually finding a Mk1 mini Copper shell on E-bay for £250, the blurb said it was a project that had been started and was in need of someone to complete, the car had been stripped and media blasted so all its problem areas could be seen, never been one to run away from a challenge so took the bull by the horns and arranged to drive to Birmingham with trailer to collect the PROJECT car. In the meantime I had to build a carosel for the car, so went to a local steel stockist and bought some 40mm sqare tube and some flat plate, got a 13ft length of scaffold pole from a mate and did my first ever bit of welding, wonderful the information you can get of the internet (google how to weld)
Well the car was a bit worse than I anticipated but it was definately going to be a challenge, this is by no means a completed restoration and I am putting no time scale to it as I have to source basically all the components for the rebuild except the glass and the front sub frame, oh and an engine, a genuine 998 copper with box, so here we go I've got quite a few pictures some good some not so good, here's what I started with
The day the mini arrived home
Edited by Mini Basher, 24 October 2009 - 07:21 AM.