387 replies to this topic

[paulrockliffe]

Superb, but any chance you could put that front number plate on straight please!!

[steveobennet]

oops! must have knocked it when i was fitting the anti-leak gear linkage kit. i shall pop outside and straighten it for you now sir.

[JAMMERZtm]

Flippin' 'eck.
I do like your mini.
Is it alright if i use some of those pics for wallpapers on my pc and phone?
Very nice pics loving everything!
Cheers James.

[steveobennet]

help yourself mate.

few things happened. last night she started to missfire, so i was tootling home when the rollpin in the gear linkage poped out! so the i was sat in a road doing 20mph in fourth unable to change gear, with 3 sets of traffic lights ahead! luck must have been on my side as i made it home without stoping! got to work early this morning, used a bolt to secure the gear linkage, and tracked the missfire to a faulty sparkplug.

took it out for a dam good run today, and everything was fine and dandy! maythis be a lesson to you all, don't use old rollpins!!!!

[RobDupre]

hey man the mini looks awsome i have just started a tahiti blue rebuild myself!!! can i ask what size wheels you got and what arches???

cheers man

[nurseholliday]

What an awesome project! Hope to see you and that beautiful Mini around the Wirral sometime.

[tomzo22]

Wow, great project-beautiful car!

Any chance of some pics of the finished interior and a couple of the bit behind the front seats? Looks great!

[steveobennet]

wheels are 13x7 superlites, and the arches are sportspack, with the rear being non-genuine rubber, and the front ones fiberglass.

should be an interior picture or two a few pages back, but i'll take some more next weekend for you.

[steveobennet]

bad news, head gasket has gone. good news i get to play around with the engine again! i think (yet tbc) that it started when i took it on the motorway earlier this night. gave it some stick and heard piniking from the enigne, so got off at the next exit. everything seemed fine. gave it some more right pedal and a boost pipe blows off. pull over, put it back on, just pulled out to check if its still boosting, and belows of white smoke appear!

new gasket is already ordered, hopefully i can sort it out! will get pictures up this weekend when i get round to fixing it......

Edited by steveobennet, 10 October 2007 - 10:31 PM.

[sk8ter646]

i must say i love this car and its so unfortunate that you spent all this time on it for the gasket to blow wile your enjoying it

[steveobennet]

big-ish story so go and get yourself a cuppa....................


right, it turns out that my engine steady bush that bolts to the engine melted! don't know if was down to inferior materials, or whether the engine just got too hot. that has been replaced with a new polyurethane bush. i wasn't running a thermostat for about 3 days when it first initally got on the road. what happened with the cooling system was when stationary the engine reached a certian temp, but as soon as you started driving it went straight to the blue on the gauge. so it was overcooling the engine effectively. so i put the 82degree thermostat from the 998, and drilled 2 4mm holes in it, as my bypass for the water pump has been blocked off. so this has made warming up the car alot faster, and keeps it at a stable temperature.

turns out my headgasket went on cylinder 2 into one of the coolant passages. the damage may have been caused by pinking (pre-igntion or detonation) and was finally blown threw due to the boost. it turns out that my actuator (doobrie that controls the boost) had split the hose which causes the boost to push against the diaphram to open the wastegate. this means i was running way more boost than i should (don't know exactly how much, i don't tend to stare at the boost gauge). this is the most probable cause of the pinking and the reason why my headgasket went. a new re-inforced pipe has been used to supply the air to the actuator. a new headgasket, and manifold gasket has been used also. she fired up first time, bit of a misfire but that soon went when it was warm. took her out earlier to get her to temperature, and make sure everything was fine.

my speedo problem of under-reading has hopefully been fixed. i have swapped the pinion from a 17 one to a 15, and accoring to guessworks website (very helpful!) this should give me the correct speedo reading. i check this with a gps soon. i just have to re-torque the cylinder head down tomorrow when its cool, and check the valve clerances and give it a good wash! no pictures unfortunately, was too busy concerntrating on the job in hand.

[Boab]

Glad it's on the road again, tis a cracking mini

[tomzo22]

Looks great

Carbon number plates

Maybe a set of those to finish it off ???


Lovely car.....Tahiti blue is the best

[Tangoâ„¢]

omg carbon! sweeet sweet carbon

how much.. does anybody know?

[steveobennet]

lol tomzo22, been watchin you make them on turbominis. i would be interested if you could put reflective vinal over then with the letters cut out so it was still sort of legit!

Edited by steveobennet, 15 October 2007 - 05:36 PM.