297 replies to this topic

[scotty_1987]

looks well my man i always did like your mini :)

Nathan

[The Otter]

looks well my man i always did like your mini :)

Nathan

Cheers buddy, nice to know I'm not making a complete mess of my car when other people tell me they like it! Always gonna be a rolling project, I like the thought that it's always one step away from another improvement

[The Otter]

Retrospective look at old photos time! Kind of excited that I finally found on my hard drive where I'd hidden the photos of my car from it's previous guises, so thought I'd post them up here to give you all an idea how it's changed since I bought the thing just over two years ago. I can hardly believe I bought it with the way it looked at the time, but back then I knew absolutely nothing about Minis and I just fell in love with it first time I went to view it!

First of all are a few photos from the original advert. You can see the chrome bits, blended in arches and 13x7s, and the clear lenses on the rear end. It was still pretty much standard apart from that!

Can hardly believe this was what my car looked like only 2 years, 2 months, and 18 days ago... I remember the day I picked her up very well, 1st August 2010, an awesome day in my life







Then there are a few pics after doing certain mods. I went to MITP two weeks after I bought the car, and one of the very first things I did was to convert it to 10's and get some repro Mambas on it (the rims that now live on rob963's car!). I also bought myself a Mk1 grille, the Italian Job leather straps, and some Mk2 rear lights. The blended in arches were a real mess as you can see in the pictures, all four of them looked different to each other and they were beginning to crack all round the edges.







Then the addition of some new stainless steel bumpers, with Mk1 style over riders and corner bars.



Here's a picture next to a mates Clubby (which sadly ended up being written off about 6 months after this photo was taken when my mate crashed in to a field, but is now being built up in to a lightweight track day screamer!)



Then a nice snowy winter shot, after a big change where I had cut off most of those blended in arches and fitted some group 2 wides. You can also see in this photo a chin spoiler that I made to go on the car, because I thought it would look awesome. It kind of did from some angles, but most of the time it just looked like crap. It ended up being taken on and off all the time to cut it down more and more, and eventually being stickerbombed to match the A-panels (which I hadn't done yet in this photo), which you'll see later.



I then got my stage 1 kit sorted! I distinctly remember fitting this when there was 1 foot of snow outside, man that was a fun test drive when I was done!







Then I got my Italian Job spot lights for Christmas!







Then it was time for my first proper Mini event, the London to Brighton 2011! I've got almost 200 photos from there, but I'll just put up a few of the car to show you what it looked like back then.

Convoying down with my mate in his Piccadilly, which he then sold to someone up north who's on here I believe? You can see the stickerbombed chin spoiler here... a bit marmite I'm sure, but I'm still proud of making it. Yes, I was yawning.





That's my best mate giving us half a mooning here. Awesome.



I loved the rear stance when it was weighed down with all the camping gear!







At Brighton.





Then a few months later I did my first bit of welding ever! Mk1 rear light conversion plates! The second hand Mk2 bootlid was still unpainted then as well. Kind of a unique look ey?



That's about all the history I've got in photo form, but it covers pretty much all the major stuff. I hope you found this interesting! I love being able to look back and see how it's all changed, makes me proud to know that I've done all those changes and done pretty much all of the work myself

To sum up... from this:



to this:





Cheers and thanks for reading!

The Otter

[Steely]

I actually really like how it looks here! I know I hate wide arches and all but this actually looks good lol. I've always wondered how it looked when you first had it too. It looks loads better now ofcourse!

[scotty_1987]

looks well my man i always did like your mini :)

Nathan

Cheers buddy, nice to know I'm not making a complete mess of my car when other people tell me they like it! Always gonna be a rolling project, I like the thought that it's always one step away from another improvement

no it was always a cool little mini man !! it was also nice to see the progress of the car over time !!

Nathan

[The Otter]

Not much of an update, just to say that I now have some lovely Lucas P700 replica headlights. I fitted them to the car just over a week ago and they've been good so far. I can't really remember what my old headlights (Autopal halogens) were like as a comparison, as I obviously only tend to use dipped beam when I'm in street lit areas and when I'm not I've got the three spotlights for full beam so the headlights are irrelevant

This is the only pic I've got, taken by Steely once again.



I personally think they fit in well with the old school flavour of the car and that they look fantastic

That is all

Cheers

[Steely]

I agree with you lol and can get a better pic when your next back with the propper camera? :)

[The Otter]

Got a bit of a wheels'n'tyres update this time (excuse the even crappier pics than usual, I always forget to bring my camera with me when I go home for the weekend so end up using my phone!).

As you've seen from my car's earlier history with me, I originally had 6x10 repro Mambas on it before switching to the Wellers. I recently did a deal with a mate of mine (rob963 on here) meaning that he now has my old repro Mambas on his car, and I am now in possession of these original Mambas, complete with two nearly new tyres and two brand new tyres (A032s nonetheless!).



They need a refurb which I might get round to doing next summer if I fancy another little project sometime, as I'm only going to keep them as a spare set for odd occasions like track days, and not use them all the time seeing as the tyres are expensive and will wear out quicker than the A008s on the Wellers.

The Mambas came home with me with two nearly new tyres and two old tyres with slow punctures fitted, and two brand new tyres ready for fitment. Last week I also ordered myself some new Falken tyres for the old 10" steelies that I'm gonna be using as winter wheels, so these also needed fitting to the best four of the ten wheels I picked up. I chose the four I wanted to use based on straightness and rustiness, so let's hope they don't fall apart on me over the winter!

I also needed two new tyres putting on the Wellers as I was still running two of the old Falkens that were on the wheels when I bought them from richw911, and he'd taken them off his project car when he bought it, so God knows how old those tyres were but they had a few too many cracks and nowhere near enough grip for my likings! I bought a set of 4 A008s a few months ago from the last TMF Minispares group tyre buy, so two of these were taken out of storage to replace the old Falkens.

Here's a photo of one of the brand new A032s (for the Mambas) next to one of the brand new Falken SN-807s (for the steelies).



So, in short, I had lots of new rubber that needed shoe-horning on to a lot of wheels, which resulted in this amusing photo opportunity







As I needed to change the tyres on the front pair of Wellers, I put on the two Mambas with good tyres so I could drive myself to the garage.



The Mambas fill out the arches a bit more sensibly than the Wellers!





No photos from the garage, but safe to say I made them work hard for the cheap price I haggled them down to! The A008s went on fine on the Wellers, but they could not get the A032s seated on to the Mambas at all because they were so wide! The steelies also wouldn't fit on to their machine, so they had to do those the old fashioned way with tyre levers and lots of elbow grease Took almost an hour and a half to get the whole lot done and balanced, and there were three guys on them most of the time!

So, when I got home I had to give the Mambas a spin to see what the ultra grippy tyres were like, and damn do they have some sticking power! Don't look too bad either (note the P700 headlights and the grille cover here too!)



and like I said earlier, they do sit under the arches a bit more sensibly than the Wellers



After I'd had a quick hoon around with the Mambas, I fitted the steelies on to see what a Mini should handle like in its most classically original wheel/tyre combo. They feel amazing! There is noticeably less grip, as you might expect with less rubber on the road (A008/A032s are 165s and these are 145s), but the way the car yaws around and slides is so predictable and controllable, it truly does feel lovely to drive on these narrow wheels. The lift-off oversteer is more pronounced too

I took a quick photo with them on too, but when I fit them for the winter I will be taking off the arches seeing as they're not really needed!



This wheel was a tad out of balance! The Polish tyre fitter was making a few funny noises/words with this one



After I'd given the steels another day of (slidey, fun) testing I put the Wellers back on, as I still need to refurb the steels, which I am hoping to do over the next week or so. I'm still not 100% sure on the final colour I'm going to go for, but I won't reveal anything now in case I change my mind!

Thanks for reading folks

The Otter

Edited by The Otter, 14 November 2012 - 12:11 AM.

[Steely]

That needs a good clean!

[scotty_1987]

haha all the wheels in the mini made me giggle !! lookin well dude wish i had that many sets of wheels lol


Nathan

[Spud_133]

There is something quite dirty about the steelies. I like it. Also if you ever want to sell your mambas let me know!

[Spud_133]

There is something quite dirty about the steelies. I like it. Also if you ever want to sell your mambas let me know!

[leaky]

I have some of those headlights and wheels for mini. Looks good!

[The Otter]

Little update here - my steelies are finally ready! It took me a hell of a lot longer than I'd expected to get them done, with a lot of wire brushing, sanding, elbow grease, and patience.

I haven't got any close up 'before' photos of the worst wheels, only this one of what was by far the best condition of the four I chose. The others were much rustier



So, I decided on a colour scheme and set to work during odd evenings over the past few weeks, and this is the outcome...





I know some people will probably hate on the white lettering, but that'll probably just wash off during a couple of harsh winter months anyway, but I'm pretty pleased with the way they look, can't wait to get them on now! Which should be happening this weekend I'll put up a couple of pics of them on the car when that's done.

Comments/criticisms welcomed

[conlad]

Love them, colours are class!

I personally love the white lettering on depending on type of wheel etc and these are spot on! Awesome!