4 replies to this topic

[woodley miniman]

Just thought I would share the news that I have just finished replacing the rear subframe and it all started with a worn radius arm rod. It was picked up on the last mot and seems it was nearly that time again thought I would have a crack at it and replace it myself, I read the manual, seems a easy job.....NA!!!!!! reading on here (after the event) it seems the norm, that one thing leads to another. It started off with fitting a radius arm repair kit which lead to replacing all the rear brake pipes including the front to rear one, the rear shocks, rear subframe including all the bushes which a replaced with poly ones, all the nuts and bolts on the subframe and radius arm fittings, shocks etc, etc, etc I brought a replacement which was surpose to be power coated but it wasn't so I stripped it down and got some hammerite, and gave it 3 coats. I then rebuilt the subframe on the car andput it all back together giving it a several coats on A protection wax spray (which I got from Toolstation a get product and a great price) so after the rebuild and bled the brakes and 2 new tyres later, its all done Ta Da!!!!!!

[Twisty]

nice one, i need to look at my rear sub frame do you have any handy pointers and how long did it take you to do?

Is it also essential that this is done of level ground as i dont have this luxury as i will need to do it on a sloping drive.

[woodley miniman]

Yes.... be patient.....very very patient and be prepared for things to go wrong, also replace all the nuts and bolts including washers. It's also noting that the split pins will be swines to remove from the handbrake clevis's, so I replaced the clevis pins and split pins. Replace has much as you can when refitting and clean every down and coat with a pretection paint and a pretection wax is always worth it. Be prepared for bolts to shear off, this happen to me on 5 bolts and 2 welded nuts came lose too. This work took me 3 weeks, but I only worked on the car a few hours a week. I reacon in total it took me about 30 hours, but tthis includes preping the replacment subframe and waiting for parts to arrive too. I completed all this work on my drive and by jacking up the rear of my mini and using axle stands and pieces of wood on the rear of the sills ( make sure you use axle stands, it's safer) To stop the car from rolling forward I fixed a fence post (3"x3"x6') to the ground on the drive by drilling and screwing it to the drive, this way the car goes no where.
Hope this helps and good luck.

[Guennie]

Haha, I know the feeling with one thing after another! All i was going to do with mine was change the rear camber brackets for some adjustible ones. After shearing a bolt the whole subframe needed removing! Whilst is was off we decided to clean it up and give it a nice few coats of paint in "go faster" bright yellow!!! It looks awesome now, but the front frame was still black, so off that came and i'm currently cleaning it up for painting!!! All of this for one sheared bolt, but it does look mint!!!

Sooooooo, what colour did you paint yours? and what colour is the car?!!

Si

[woodley miniman]

I painted it gun metal grey......looks really good, even if I do say so myself. My mini is a dark red. I'm going to replace both door skins in the next few weeks, I'm hoping that goes better than the subframe. I'm going to the mini show/ dispaly at Lee-on the solent on Saturday so I've just clean my mini inside and out and then polished it all up......looking good