297 replies to this topic

[Tamworthbay]

I have sent you a PM, don't worry we will get it sorted!

[Steely]

Thats all looking good mate! :) What were your old shocks then?

[leaky]

If you want to drive safer in the rain don't fit the aero blades. They are bad lol. I have them on my car and they look cool but don't work as well as they do on modern more aero dynamic cars.

EDIT: Forgot to say the new straps look sweet though!

Edited by leaky, 12 January 2013 - 12:30 PM.

[The Otter]

Does anyone know were i can get some 10" wellers ? i love them sooooooo much

eBay, TMF, other car websites. Just keep an eye out, some will pop up eventually. I paid £102 for mine off eBay.

I have sent you a PM, don't worry we will get it sorted!

Cheers mate, much appreciated!

Thats all looking good mate! :) What were your old shocks then?

They're definitely all standard shocks, from the looks of it two of them are black/rusty originals (21 years old now) and two of them are blue/rusty replacements from sometime in the past 21 years.

If you want to drive safer in the rain don't fit the aero blades. They are bad lol. I have them on my car and they look cool but don't work as well as they do on modern more aero dynamic cars.

EDIT: Forgot to say the new straps look sweet though!

Oh fiddlesticks, I couldn't find much first hand information on whether aero blades were good or not, so decided to take a chance and buy a set anyway. I'll let you know whether mine are as bad you say! I've got the hard to find wiper arms now though, at least I can just buy replacement blades off the shelf.

Cheers leaky, looking forward to getting the straps on! They feel much nicer in the hands than my old ones, let's hope they last a bit better. Nuts arrived this morning somehow, I only ordered them yesterday morning No bolts yet though...

[Jordie]

BOSCH SP11 wiper blades with them arms, its the best setup ive had.

Aero blades are rubbish on a mini.

[Minilover1.3]

Can I ask what alarm set up you have including the central locking even if its a pm. I have a standard rover alarm but def goin to add central locking but an uprated alarm b better

Philip

[The Otter]

Well, I can confirm that aero blades are indeed rubbish! A shame and money wasted, but only £7.50 lost... they wiped the screen perfectly in terms of clearing the water, but the design of them is inherently wrong, as on every 'transition' from downwards stroke to upwards stroke and vice versa, the metal base plate in the centre would thwack on the windscreen because it was too big and the rubber was too small, making quite an annoying noise and probably causing damage to the screen if used for long enough. Oh well, a set of Bosch blades shall be finding their way on to the car soon instead, cheers for the suggestion Jordie.

The situation with the shocks should be sorted, as I'll be getting a brand new front pair from Protech to replace these seemingly troublesome leaky ones - their customer service is bloody good! I got the rear shocks on a couple of days ago, and they seem to be holding up just fine, and even with just the rears on it feels more planted and stable through the corners.

When I was putting them on I decided to have a look and see what the difference is between the standard shocks and these lowered Protechs. The fully open position on the rears has a pretty obvious difference! (This was with me holding the old shock bottom mount level with the Protech bottom mount)



The fully open position on the fronts was about 20mm less (by eye), however I was a bit confused as to why the Protechs don't compress as much as the standard shocks... I thought lowered shocks should compress more? I don't exactly run my car in the weeds though so it makes no difference to me, just something that got me thinking...



Anyway, rear shocks in:





Then I decided to make myself a couple of little pods for the tweeters and ultra sonic sensors that used to be held on to the top dash rail with double sided sticky foam. They kept unsticking themselves and rolling around, so decided I needed something to tidy them up a bit. I drew a little sketch and did some measurements and got cracking.

Started off with a block of wood.



Then from that I cut a smaller block of wood and began to mark out dimensions.



Cut a hole in it, slightly bigger in diameter than the tweeter diameter.



Then cut it in half.



Then drilled another hole in each half for the tweeter and did some re-shaping.



I then covered them with some dark red vinyl to match the dash and centre console, and stuck them in place on the dash rail.





Not exactly the neatest bit of vinyl trimming but it'll definitely keep the tweeters and sensors held in a bit better.

Then earlier today I gave the car a wash, re-fitted the chrome finishing strips to the seams and fitted my new bonnet straps (made for me by Mr Bridger none the less!).











Let's hope for some more snow round here soon so I can go and have a bit of a play and get it dirty again!

Cheers

The Otter

[Steely]

I honestly don't think you should put your arches back on! It looks so much nicer without them. All you need now is a nice set of reverse rims

[Joe-C]

Those tweeter holders are cool

[Spud_133]

Come to Norfolk if you want some bloody snow! The whole county has come to a standstill due to the bloody stuff!

[rob963]

Nice work on the tweeter/sensor holders! they fit right in!

Shame about the shocks! I'm sure they'll get sorted though, then they'll be great!

[The Otter]

Well I had a bit of fun in the snow last weekend! I'm sure glad I did those minor modifications just in case of snow - made a world of difference.













I won a couple of big things on eBay the other day, which I shall be collecting at the weekend. However, to get one of those things home I need a roof rack or some roof bars - but racks seem to be fairly expensive and I've just spent all of my money on the things I'm going to go and pick up. So, the cheapest option was to use roof bars, and a quick search on eBay found a pair of Paddy Hopkirk Loadmaster bars only 25 miles away at a starting bid of £5. I put a bid in, and nobody else showed any interest, so I won them for a fiver last night and picked them up this morning. The new equivalents on Minispares are about £40 so well worth buying second hand!









They won't be staying on all the time obviously, only going to use them when I need to transport something big! Some day I might make an enclosure/box or something to attach to the bars to turn it in to more of a roof rack so I can put smaller things on there as well.

Will update again after the weekend, with information about the big purchases and maybe anything I pick up at Bingley (such as the new front pair of Protechs! ).

Thanks for reading

The Otter

[steven]

looking good in the snow

[jaydee]

Well done!

[Noah]

Awesome....What you getting?!!