61 replies to this topic

[jonny d]

Hi all I had some berk reverse into the front of my restored mini anyway his insurance is paying for the repairs so the bodyshop that is doing the repairs are struggling to get the heritage panels to lign up ie. Wing to skuttle and bonnet shape to the front panel because its a mk1 look they have used a mk3 bonnet and ground off the mk2 onwards lip as recommended many times on this forum , but the curve does not appear to be the same shape the ends of the bonnet hit the F/panel and there is a gap in the middle of at least 10mm has anyone else had this problem and if so how did you get over it Also the finish on the drivers side wing joint next to the headlight is very poor.I have done a few front ends on minis in the past and always used Hadrian Panels and had very good results ,,but asked the bodyshop to use Heritage panels as I thought That they would have less messing about but I was very wrong on that one. I can't post a picky at the moment as I'm on holiday and typing this on an iPod touch ,anyone with any comments please

[Shifty]

Are you 100% that they are using heritage panels? Pattern bonnets are utter junk.

Also how sure are you about their work, even heritage stuff will need fettling to get to fit and isn't easy to fit.

[Midas Mk1]

Can a mk3 bonnet fit a mk1? Could have swore they had different bonnet hinge positions?

Ive seen non gen bonnets with both hinge mountings on though?

Edited by Midas Mk1, 02 July 2011 - 09:48 PM.

[jonny d]

They are definitely using heritage panels as I went to see them and there is heritage stickers on them my car is a mk3 with a mk1 front that's why I told them to use a mk2 onwards bonnet and grind off the lip but it appears that the front is all wrong to the heritage front panel

[Midas Mk1]

Ahh right, makes sense now, thought from your dp you had a gen mk1

Could have used a later van bonnet

[jonny d]

Do heritage do van bonnets?

[jonny d]

All the panels came from minispares so were genuine parts although they sent a clubman inner wing lol

[sonikk4]

I bought a bonnet off SCParts and that had both sets of hinge points so you could delete whichever ones you did not use. I have converted it to a early style bonnet by removing the front lip.

If you can get any panel no matter what or who makes it to fit first time then you will have done well. I have a mixture of Heritage/Magnum/Hadrian panels on Project Erm and every single one has had to have some adjustment to get the fit right.

Also as i have learned the wings especially pattern ones do need quite a lot of messing around and force to get the gaps right, i ended up adding metal to the new bonnet to get our gaps right but both Panelbeaterpeter and shifty advocate the use of self tapping screws and some extra trimming/ fettling etc to get them to sit right.

It really is down to time and patience and if you are paying a garage to fit the panels then that will become very expensive.

I believe jagman2003 has extensively used heritage panels on his restoration so he would be the man to ask about how well they fit as he has replaced just about every single part of the shell.

[Dan]

Are they trying to align the curve of the bonnet to the curve of the slam panel? That won't work because they are not the same shape. The curve of the bonnet matches the curve of the trim, not the slam panel. The bonnet front edge has always been matched to either the grille surround or bonnet trim depending on age, not the slam panel because you should never see the bare panels together. They need to fit the grille and surround before the bonnet can be adjusted.

[jonny d]

Thankyou for All your replies everyone. Just to add abit to Dans post I built thprevious front end and the bonnet that I used followed the slam panel perfectly and the Moutauche fitted after lining that up with the bonnet as that didn't fit very good to the slam panel either as minispares say in there advert

[jonny d]

Sonikk4 did the bonnet fit the slam panel with the lip removedwas the shape the same?

[sonikk4]

Sonikk4 did the bonnet fit the slam panel with the lip removedwas the shape the same?

No not at all, i had to do a lot of work to get things looking good. have a look at the Project Erm thread and you can see what i did.

The biggest thing there was two different manufactures plus to be perfectly honest i would not buy another bonnet from SC Parts as the construction of it left a lot to be desired.

Edited by sonikk4, 03 July 2011 - 04:14 PM.

[jonny d]

I will have to go on your thread and see thanks for replying. I am finding it abit hard to do on my iPod touch at the
Mo

[jonny d]

Just went on your project erm rebuild and my eyes are hurting bad 48 pages but a very good read all the same you had your work cut out there buddy but worth it. My bonnet fits ok on the wings but is more out of shape than yours at the slam panel poor as they are both heritage

[sonikk4]

Just went on your project erm rebuild and my eyes are hurting bad 48 pages but a very good read all the same you had your work cut out there buddy but worth it. My bonnet fits ok on the wings but is more out of shape than yours at the slam panel poor as they are both heritage

Well you can do what I have done by inserting a strip but it's hard work getting it right. I had to stand back quite a few times and look at it from different angles before we were both happy.

To be honest if this was to be an every day use car there is no way I would have gone to this effort but I have learnt quite a few useful lessons from all of this and also from some of the tips from other members on here.