96 replies to this topic

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

hi all

after quite a few months i have finally decide to start a project thread for Reggie, my 1978 mini from holland

when i bought him last year on my mums birthday (i still havent lived that one down) i travelled up to larne to view a bright green, LHD mini. on the basis it looked in very good condition for its age and i payed £800 and trailered it home. the body looked in very good condition and all i was planning was to get a new interior and fix the clutch so it would drive.
as you can probably guess that didnt go to plan and i began to find filler and then the little rust spots that soon turned into big holes and at that point i decided it needed a full restoration.

as far as i can tell so far Reggie is completely original and has only had bodged repairs put on. anyone who knows me will know that i cant stand anything being bodged or not done to a really good standard

the plan is to basically cut out all the rust and bad repairs and start anew with properly made patches and new non-genuine panels. the welding finally started tonight and i decided to start the thread

enough of me talking and hopefully these pictures work

the car when it was first bought:



then suddenly the strip down had started and it was in the garage:






a few pics of the rust and the filler i had found:









the rear valance and closing panels was held together with filler and the stuff you put round windows to stop them leaking


so off with it all


once again though after i had done this i poked around with my screwdriver and found more rust holes which i havent got pictures off yet

Edited by Mini Mad Drakeley, 03 August 2011 - 09:05 AM.

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

Reggie as he looked a few weeks ago:



i decided to take the bulkhead down to bare metal and put some temporary primer on it


as he looked a couple of days ago:



and then the whole front end was took off and the scuttle repair and the wing was mocked up:


i decide i wanted a fred flintstone style mini


and then i realised it might not work so i mocked up the new floor pan


the welding has now started:
first cut out the rot where the wiper arm had been and welded in a patch and put some poundland primer on it, looks pretty good


did the other wiper hole so it looks normal and did the same and it now looks very good


and finally put the scuttle repair panel on before we ran outa gas as we were welding on the underside scuttle but the scuttle looks good so far


still had plenty of time so we cut off the other side scuttle and mocked up the repair panel and the underside closing panel and the magnum repair panel is alot better fit than the other one


thats all for now, will have more pictures of anything else soon like my not so shiny black anymore front subframe lmao and i hope these pictures work

[olds_kool_lews]

some nice work going into this, nice tidy repairs!

[minimuk]

Doing well, mini from Holland, brings me back,..... just one comment if I may, would it not be better to repair the the holes underneath the end scuttle panels before you weld on the scuttle panels, easyer to get to that way, I think.

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

Doing well, mini from Holland, brings me back,..... just one comment if I may, would it not be better to repair the the holes underneath the end scuttle panels before you weld on the scuttle panels, easyer to get to that way, I think.

if you mean the drilled holes in the scuttle, they are for the plug welds so the under scuttle will be no problem and any other holes that wer close to it we welded up before the scuttle went any where near it apart from the big hole near the hinge mounts but we had ran out of gas before we could get that far unfortunately and thanks for the comment old skool lews, i plan on having as neat repairs as possible so im having to us as little filler as possible and for the repairs where the wipers were will only need a bit of dolphin glaze

[Carlos W]

Are you converting it to RHD ?

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

Are you converting it to RHD ?

yep im converting everything to RHD, i was wanting to keep it LHD cus im deaf in my left ear and i wanted to be able to hear anyone in the car with me better but my dad vetoed me on that one oh well its not to hard to convert back if i ever decide to but if i had kept it LHD i would be spending alot more in hard to source parts like a wiring loom, wiper motor and alot of other things

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

an update of tonights progress with the welding we got the inner wings solid, both scuttle repairs and underside scuttle panels welded in, a few patches on the flitch panel and the front rh floor welded in il let the pictures speak now
i unsiezed and refurbed the front right drum brake, what a ******* of a job lol


the welding photos:










a few of the welds really arent pretty because some metal was thinner in places than others and kept blowing holes especially you can see on the inner wing, just need to grind them all down and they will look alot better
and do the floors need to be fully seam welded on the inside, we just did intermitant welding because its on the inside lol

all comments welcome, Adam

[handon]

WOW, I love your mini great work your doing hope its all going well, how long do you recon its going to take to finnish

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

got a small update of tonights progress

got the left side floor cut out and the new one welded in and a couple of patches to the flitch panel





just need to grind back the welds and re-drill the hinge mount holes and that will be the front end solid (minus wings, a-panels and front panel obviously) next week is getting the areas on the back and boot area solid and then it can be turned on its side so everything can be seam welded and the patch made for the outer sill and patches to the boot

thanks for the comment Tom, i plan to have the shell almost complete by easter and then tee who is teaching me and helping me will be away for 2 weeks setting up a show so that will be the time to sort out the engine and get it done, all my parts that i think i need have been ordered and ive actually got a job now so i can save up for a respray now so all in all im hoping for the start of august possibly earlier

all comments welcome, Adam

Edited by Mini Mad Drakeley, 24 March 2011 - 11:01 PM.

[MiniLandy]

Good looking project, nice work.

I'd spend my money on gucci engine bits and then do the painting with a roller, but that's just personal preference

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

Good looking project, nice work.

I'd spend my money on gucci engine bits and then do the painting with a roller, but that's just personal preference

i did consider that but then decided to get the mini looking good and just replacing the clutch and re-lap the valves and polish the cylinder head abit and possibly lighten my flywheel abit just to get it working well and then do upgrades when i get abit more money

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

a small update, not got as much done as i would have liked due to tech assignments but ive got the rear quarter repair panel welded in and the rh side flitch panel to back to bare metal, etched and then red oxided

the magnum panel fitted quite well but im finding they use crap primer compared to hadrian panels

painted:


i also got the headlining taken off which wasnt as hard a job as i first though and the roof is very solid only bits of surface rust in each corner, i thought it was going to be rot because the whole car has been completely covered in filler in places and not smoothed down very well and it wasnt hiding rust

adam

[Mini Mad Drakeley]

hi, not really an update just took a picture of the remnants of the front left sill when we found the dodgy repair and did a job i had been meaning to do since i first got the car, i took the seat covers off to see how bad the seats really where, il let the pics speak for themselves on that one






after long last i had the inspiration to clean the garage for thursday

its alot cleaner than it looks in that picture but its clean enough to be able to do what we want on thursday

Adam

[RichardBrown]

i knw a goo place in ards that reapolstered my mayfair interior
court aplostery next ard tech in the industrial estate