84 replies to this topic

[Tom Sanderson]

The car looks brilliant, you've done an excellent job!

I see you've changed your wipers, did you find the chromes ones as useless as mine lol

[mk1john]

sorry about the double post, only posted it once,

[Stevee]

looks very very nice :]

my grandad had mini like your one

hope to see it at some shows (y)

[mk1john]

As you might have guessed from the pictures it has just been washed, mainly to get the cutting compound off that my brother said you could leave on as long as you like. we cut it back because the paint was rough and dull, well after an hour and a half of scrubbing it was mostly off, but where there was a build up of the compound the paint underneath was darker and you could see where the buffer had passed over it, really fed up now.
Next step soapy water and wet n dry, buff it again then polish. Not brilliant paint, (looks better in the pictures) but it is better, will respray at a later date.
M.O.T time.
Well good news other than borrowing a spanner at the garage to tighten up a brake pipe, yes another leak, but only a slight one, it passed, and in the other M.O.T. bay was my daughters mini, which also passed, great eh!
Comments for my first drive, lack of power (mini 998, Volvo 2.4), crap brakes (drums all round), noisey but loved every minute.
Dropped car off at home and went for free tax.
Then took son for a spin when he came in, smiles allround, great day.

[mk1john]

looks very very nice :]

my grandad had mini like your one

hope to see it at some shows (y)

Thanks mate! glad you like it,hope to get to some shows, fingers crossed,

[mk1john]

Only problem with car, battery keeps going flat, found what we thought was the problem, just a bad connection job done. next day, long run out to Minispares, following my son in his car, battery light came on, no problem as it glowed when i reved it so thought it was just over charging, so added a new regulator to my list, just to be safe. made it rest of way no problems, was great to see both cars on the road together. Got all my bits and set off home, only got half way when battery went dead, as luck has it i had my spare battery inthe car so swapped that and changed the regulator at the side of the road got home.So whats the problem, well battery is brand new but went flat overnight, so must be a drian or short, well this had me and my son scratching our heads, but after all day at it, it pointed to the dynamo having a dead short. After stripping it down, 1 brush was fine but the other was in bits, my local stockist of brushes and recon units was out of stock, but there is a scrap yard in doncaster that mainly does classic cars got a dyno from them for £20, fitted it, checked it, took it back, got another, tried to fit it but pully way too big, didn't want to mess with it in case it was no good, so took it back again, thrid time lucky? Yep finally got one that worked, great.
Next job, fitting new float chamber top and gasket, went on great, but when i pulled the petrol pipe to check it was tight the inlet pipe on the new top came out, thought I'd still try it so shoved it back in so that i couldn't pull it back out, guess what it leaked, air blue again.
Fitted old one back on cured problem.
Remember that dyno problem well, when we turned on the ignition we noticed alot of smoke coming from the dyno, panic, disconnect battery, give in and fit an alternator, kindly donated by my daughters boy friend along with an old article on how to do it Thanks ewen. Didn't want to do this but if it gets me to L2B thats fine.
This is now the thursday before L2B looking good, I am totally drianed both mentally and physically, but now happy.
Plans for Friday,
Wash, clean car, check everything, go for a drive, Sounds great eh!
Car wouldn't start, didn't want to fire. Got no spark, so after an hour getting no where pushed car outside as battery dead again, changed points, rotor arm, condenser, dizzy cap, ht leads, checked engine earth, got a spark, butson finds pool of petrol under car.
With the ignition on to find the fault the petrol pump was running on and off, it had beaten the carb again, filled the inlet manifold, and the carb and was overflowing, air blue, blue, bluer.
Good news was we had a spark and engine fired and ran but cuts out after a while and now had to sort out the carb, its now 6.30 friday night, and help has just walked in, in the from of ewen, couln,t sort out my carb so ran down to ewens garage to find a spare and my sons girlfriend brought some to try. Five carbs later and abit of wiring sorted the car, its now 11o'clock and time for bed.
L2B day, car starts and runs well, just time to fit my grill badges and go show my car to my mam and dad. still a few things to get ready but we set off for Blythe services to meet Ewen and Vicky in there cars, car ok but keeps cutting out at idle, no problems jusy tweek the idle screw, great. Set out onto A1 got a few miles then clutch started to slip, crap, popped bonnet, there was oil leaking from the bellhousing and the timing inspection cover, checked oil and it was over full, must have been the petrol from the carb fault the day before, it must have filled the inlet manifold and seeped passed the pistons? was going to check the oil but as i had just checked it the day before that didn't do it. stupid eh? Well looks like the pressure was too much for the chrankshaft oil seal and it failed,adjusted clutch, left timing inspection cover open to let out some oil and tried to carry on, got a few laybys then pulled in again, clutch still slipping from the oil, adjusted clutch again, engine bay covered in oil passed a few more laybys then pulled into services for wheel wobble on my sons car and left them a pool of oil on their forecourt, sorry, my car getting worse so was going to phone the AA, but was talked into carrying on, passed another couple of laybys, pulled in again, not me through, was going to quit and call AA but once again talked round not happy as told them it would ruin engine, so set off ahead of the rest, clutch slipping more and more and they soon caught me up, passed the 98 miles mark to london, clutch slipping, engine reving its nuts off and the cabin filling with burnt clutch smoke, Thankfully they pulled in for fuel, my car is down and out, put my foot down and spat dummy out, Called AA and went home with my car, said it all along, didn't want to do the run without my car. Arrived home just as they all made it into London, put car in garage, shut the door and got a few beers.
Great eh! a years planning 15 weeks of hard work, and failed.
Guess it wasn't enough time.
Sorry theres not any pictures got fedup and didn't take any. But heres a few before i removed the engine


So all i need now is a new clutch, a crankshaft oil seal and i might as well do the timing chain while its out.

Edited by mk1john, 02 June 2010 - 03:17 PM.

[mk1john]

Right then time for engine out.
First take out the rad, fan, starter,alternator and diconnect exhaust and wiring.

Then wait for ewen and his engine lift to remove it, this happened so fast that i didn't get a photo, and dump the engine on the floor. Then set the static timing at the fly wheel and dizzy, my engine has the timing marks on the flywheel and none on the timing cover, although it does have one on the crankshaft pully,( maybe the pully has been changed in the past) and take off the clutch cover

Then the timing cover

The crankshaft pully is a bit of a pig so may be i should of cracked it off while the engine was in the car. I think you still have to lock the fly wheel off throuh the starter motor hole but it will hold the engine still for you .
When the clutch cover was off I noticed that the fly wheel was worn


This picture shows a pencil through the mounting hole for the clutch slave cylinder, could it have been caused by too long a bolt being used to fasten the slave on, or was it just wear.

Ewen (by the way he has his own garage business) said he would take it off and flip it so that it would have new teeth for the starter, that didn't work as it did not have a champher on the other side of the ring gear, so he tried to remove one off some fly wheels he had, after two bent ring gears and one broke he gave up so i refitted the old one.
Heres the old chain off the engine,

and the new chain, with the gears the same distance apart

Thats what was causing the rattle on the engine in the clip.
Made sure that the timing marks are correct when i fitted this

Now onto the clutch, First i removed the pressure plate, didn't need to do this yet but i didn't realise this, then onto the fly wheel, you need a puller for this


old clutch revealed,

clutch and friction plate

Old clutch and new clutch

Theres the crankshaft oil seal that needs to come out

Right new seal in ,clutch back on. then its ready to go back in

Edited by mk1john, 02 June 2010 - 05:36 PM.

[olds_kool_lews]

bit of a mission by the look of it! but all the fun of owning a mini! beautiful looking car though, dont think i could get my mk1 done in that short space of time either! needs alot of work!!!! keep up the good work!

[Tom Sanderson]

Good work, you could always upgrade to the A+ timing gear, then you will have a tensioner and that should help keep it quiet and cut down the rattle even more

[mk1john]

Thanks for the advice, might just do that later.
Anyhow now while the engine is out, remember the brake pipe leaks, well decided to clean off the loose paint

and

and repaint them, next time i renew brakes pipes I'am going to tighten them up striaght away and mark them some way.
After I had put the bell housing and timing cover back on, I touched up the engine pait and lifted the engine back in.

I had fitted the old rocker cover to protect the rockers while I was doing the work as I did'nt want to spoil the downton ons.
and spent the rest of the day refitting the starter, alternator and rad, ready for start up.
When the time came though, somthing was wrong, it made a really loud knocking noise when stared and was breathing heavy from tne crankcase breather, not good. Ended up rechecking the static timing and removed the rad and timing chain cover, to check the chain timing was right. Couldn't find anything obvious, the vales seemed to be working fine and the engine turned freely, so looks like the engine has to come out again sothat i can check the crank and cam, ( more than likely the crank due to running it on the A1 looseing oil, it was nearly empty when I got home). I started it today so that my son could film it so hopefully he will post it for me later. Going to get a rough price on the engine machineing in the morning so watch this space.

[mk1john]

Well son told me how so here goes
E3vBlV7gu4E

Edited by mk1john, 07 June 2010 - 09:15 PM.

[adam_93rio]

just fixed the video!

Edited by adam_93rio, 07 June 2010 - 09:15 PM.

[pompey-lee]

nice colour mini

[mk1john]

Thanks, glad you like it.
Anyhow as i was rained off today and sick of seeing my mini sitting in the garage i deciced to take the engine out,( AGAIN)
.
Not along job as I had taken most bits off before, so I got stuck in by draining the oil first, And got quite an unpleasent surprise,


No its not a metal crystal tree but my magnetic sump plug, think its done a good job of collecting the metal debris from my engine, just a shame its in there in the first.
Then when my son arrived with the engine hoist within 10 mins we ended up like this

Bit like dangling a carrot!
Then lowered off

Then

Now thats where we're at, start to strip it tommorrow.
Let you know how that goes.

[mk1john]

Well strip down time, this time with help from my father in law Dennis, starting with the clutch and flywheel.

then the timing cover and chain

Then we spilt the engine from the gearbox


Then check the big ends for wear by tring to rock them from side to side, number 2 piston was the worst so we started there first

and the shells were quite bad



Then number three

Cylinders 1 and 4 were ok so were the 3 main bearings

The bores look ok from this end and the compression is still very good, so it looks like just the crank needs a regrind and new shells, the old ones were marked up as 0.10 thou under, which confirms the documentation i have that the engine was reconditioned before. I will be taking the crank to my son in law in the morning to see if he can get it reground for me.
I have checked and cleaned the oil pump, thats ok and Dennis has taken my gearbox to work to get it cleaned (he works for a local HGV garage) so that will come back spotless and ready to repaint. So far it looks ok, just got to wait till i get it back.

So thats where I am today, engine in bits and parts laid out in order ready to refit, hopefully soon.