132 replies to this topic

[72gt]

Sorry,not got the colour you need to do a swap,am interested in your cover if you want to sell it on ?

[Chopper69]

Nice GT, how's it coming along?
You may notice your GT is the same color as my old metro (!).
If your interested I can give you a bit of the history of how yor Mini got its color.

[Daviewonder]

Thanks. It's still the same I'm afraid, no progress yet. 

 

 

Yeah Boopspeed green, tell me more

[1275GT Fan]

I want to know more about this project... I remember the Boopspeed cars.

How are you getting on with the SC fit?

[Daviewonder]

Wow, it's been a while! Is this an update? Well I guess it is.

Well I've not touched the Mini in almost 4 years. I got it onto the driveway and there it stayed. The garage slowly filled up with stuff again and that plus the fact that we were saving for a deposit on a house and had recently had a young daughter meant I had no time or spare money either.
 
I fell out of love with the Min
 
Fast forward 4 years and we've bought a house, my daughter is now five and I started to get a familiar itch again. An itch in the shape of a certain bogey green 1275GT.
 
So after 2 weeks of cobwebs, dust and tip runs and shipping stuff from one garage to the other, this is the result-
 

 

 
 
It's finally made it into the place where I can begin work on it. I can't describe the relief that I'm feeling to have it in the dry at last. I checked it over last week and the tinworm has been pretty ruthless. I'll post some photos of the rot once I begin work on it, which should be fairly soon  
 
 
Oh one last thing, I've treated it to a set of these as they're from the right era and were at the right price-
 

 
 

Edited by Daviewonder, 12 September 2016 - 12:07 AM.

[skoughi]

Get stuck into it! It's the only way to get rid of that itch!

[Chris1992]

Woooo!!! I had forgotten about this project. Glad to see you're getting back into the swing of things!

 

I hope you're still sticking with the original plans! (i.e. banded steels and supercharger) 

[GT Jimmy]

Good luck with your GT mate. I had my GT for 4 years before I did anything with it, also when my daughter turned 5, must be the magic number for a mini resto

[Daviewonder]

Woooo!!! I had forgotten about this project. Glad to see you're getting back into the swing of things!
 
I hope you're still sticking with the original plans! (i.e. banded steels and supercharger) 

Yeah hope to make some proper progress this time around mate. The banded steels are all safe and will definitely be a large part of the finished car. I'm not sure about the supercharger kit though, I'm toying with the idea of selling it to help fund the project.
 
 

Good luck with your GT mate. I had my GT for 4 years before I did anything with it, also when my daughter turned 5, must be the magic number for a mini resto

Thanks Jimmy. That's a fair bit in common so far  

Edited by Daviewonder, 30 May 2016 - 10:13 PM.

[Chris1992]

 

Woooo!!! I had forgotten about this project. Glad to see you're getting back into the swing of things!
 
I hope you're still sticking with the original plans! (i.e. banded steels and supercharger) 

Yeah hope to make some proper progress this time around mate. The banded steels are all safe and will definitely be a large part of the finished car. I'm not sure about the supercharger kit though, I'm toying with the idea of selling it to help fund the project.
 

 

Sounds good to me! Will be following 

[Daviewonder]

Another small update. What's this, 2 in a week you say?  
 
 
Well I've started stripping out the rear end as that seems to be where the worst of the rot is located. The rear window came out really easy as the rubber had turned to a black hard substance that just snapped into bits as soon as you touched it. Everything unbolted as it should with no snapped studs or bolts so far.
 
The boot lid is really only suitable for the tip as you can see from the bottom of it here-
 

 
 
The boot floor is in a terrible state along with the left hand side of the rear panel and the rear valence-
 





So it's definitely looking like a complete boot floor, along with a new valence and some repairs to the rear panel so far.

I only had about an hour today so I didn't have time to start on the subframe yet but I'm sure I'll get to sample the joys of that next time. Anyway here's how it stands as of tonight-




I'd better start looking at new panels now then  

[Daviewonder]

I got another hour or so in the garage again tonight. I carried on with the stripping down of the rear end.

The exhaust came off nice and easy, with only one of the clamps snapping.



Does anyone know what exhaust this is please? I'm going to have to try and work out what's what with the help of you chaps as I have no idea.

The handbrake cables came out nice and easy, as did the live cable, fuel pipe and brake pipes. All seems to be going to smoothly so far!

Next I decided to have a go at undoing the subframe bolts. The ones on the heelboard were the first to get my attention. The top two came undone straight away, nice. The bottom two were a bit more reluctant but with lashings of WD-40 I worked them in and out a little at a time until they were out. Ta-da!





I didn't hold out much hope for the rear bolts as that is where the corrosion is at it's worst. But even they came undone without too much trouble-



Hmm it's still going too smoothly.

Just the shock absorbers to go now.



I knew it was going too smoothly. I don't actually have any UNF spanners so I've ground to a halt for tonight  
 
Ah well can't complain as I'm happy with how well it's come apart so far. I'll just have to grab some spanners tomorrow 

[Rocket.]

You got off easy with those subframe bolts !

 

All the ones i seem to remove snap

 

Maybe that's just my luck

[GT Jimmy]

My rear subframe bolts loosened very easily. Can't see why people struggle Removing the frame is my next big job before I flip it over. Looks like we are at the same stage in the resto... the race is on

[Daviewonder]

You got off easy with those subframe bolts !

 

All the ones i seem to remove snap

 

Maybe that's just my luck

 

I was expecting them to be trouble if I'm honest. The car's been off the road since 1996! I just worked them backwards and forwards very slightly until they started moving. It took about 10 minutes a side but worked in the end.

 

 

My rear subframe bolts loosened very easily. Can't see why people struggle Removing the frame is my next big job before I flip it over. Looks like we are at the same stage in the resto... the race is on

 

Challenge accepted Jimmy