297 replies to this topic

[Noah]

Just it because it isn't pretty doesn't mean it dont work.








Pun intended.

[rob963]

I am proud Rob, I am! My welding has definitely improved drastically in the last half of this sill replacement work, there's one bit of a seam weld that I didn't even dress with the grinder because it looked so pretty Remind me and I'll point it out to you sometime

Excellent!

Don't worry I won't forget to get you to show me! although I'm sure that I won't notice without the pointing out!

[The Otter]

Failed on the passenger side top arm bearing, not too much work then It is pretty bad to be fair, must be ruined inside, about the only thing I didn't check beforehand Getting better every year though, first MOT was 13 fails, second was 4 fails, now just 1 fail! The tester did let me off with the emissions though, either that or the CO2 limit has gone up to over 7% The number plate light also wasn't working, so I told him to give it a whack and it came on, so I did have a couple of close calls.

[rob963]

Wow! that's very good!

I think mine will be failing a hell of a lot worse than that!
Glad it's not too much work for you to get done before venturing back to the west country!

[The Otter]

So, driving in the evening a few hours after my MOT, the hazards and left hand indicators stopped working. To cut a long story short (read my topic asking about the problem if you want the long one ), it took me 2 very frustrating days to find that the front left indicator live supply wire had rubbed against the body at some point and worn through to the wire, shorting it out on the front panel and causing all sorts of issues! The hazard switch was a bit dodgy as well, but I finally got the electrics to behave themselves last night!

Here's the chafed indicator wire as I found it:



I took a few pictures whilst I was refurbing the top arm for the MOT as well. Here's the old bearing races which I ground through with a fake dremel and knocked out with a long screwdriver and a hammer:



Here's a few needle rollers which I had to get out first!



New bearing going in:



All the way home:



So I repeated for the other side of the arm and put it all back together and now there's no play at all, just as it should be.

I had another little job to spruce up my centre console too, involving the heater blower and allowing the air to move more freely. The design of it rather neglected the fact that the air coming out of the heater unit has to go somewhere and shouldn't be blocked off, so I decided to make my own vents for it. Here's a photo of how the side panels were blocking the heater vents, which originially meant that the hot air coming out melted the glue holding the vinyl on to the wood



For the vent material I bought some brass mesh from eBay for £6, so I cut the holes required in the side panels and fitted the mesh in to there, which I forgot to take pictures of... But I also had this hole in the front panel to fill, which originally housed a cheap Chinese thermometer before it broke after a few months, so I ripped it out.



However I then realised that this hole was a useful vent for the air that gets blown out of the front of the heater unit, so I also fitted some mesh in to there. I'm sure you can get an idea of the mesh on the side panels from this:



Now, just an oil change and a cut and polish on the front end and it'll be ready for winter

Thanks for reading!

[Shukran]

Done and dusted with the front end/arches for now, just need to try and sort the incredibly dull finish on the paint sometime.

That looks ready to do the Paris Dakar! Good work there, you have inspired me as a fellow amateur to tackle complex body panel replacements. Good luck

Shukran

[The Otter]

I thought I'd have a little go at getting some shine from the paint today, but it didn't go as well as I'd hoped...

The good news from this is that I am now certain that you can get a perfectly acceptable shine (better than the rest of the car in fact) from a rattle can spray job. It's not exactly professional quality, but for the tenth of the price I wasn't expecting much, and I'm very happy with the possibilities here.





The rather bad news is that I was a cheap and impatient moron with my painting and I've now realised that there's nowhere near enough paint on there



It's very patchy and when I flat it back it doesn't take much to get back to the primer, in rather obvious streaky patterns... So I'm gonna buy some more paint tomorrow and give it a few more coats. Shouldn't be too hard to rectify the issue, but obviously the situation isn't ideal.

Edited by The Otter, 16 September 2012 - 05:39 PM.

[Down&Out]

Saw you at Combe earlier!

[The Otter]

Saw you at Combe earlier!

Yeah had a nice day there, hopefully going to go on the track next year if I can eventually get my suspension sorted how I want it! Someone got a photo of my car on Facebook too, I didn't think I'd get spotted in the general parking area

[Down&Out]

General parking is where i was, so i walked straight past you on my way to find someone after i'd got there!

[The Otter]

Only a little update, I went home at the weekend and spent a couple of days doing odd jobs on the car.

First thing to sort was the leaky windscreen, which had been leaking ever since I fitted it (brand new, bought in Brighton earlier in the year) after I did the front end. Chances are that my scuttle replacement wasn't 100% spot on, as the screen never leaked before. Anyway, I bought some proper Arbormast windscreen sealant off eBay and I'd planned to just pop the screen out, squirt in a bit of sealant, and pop the screen back in again. That kinda didn't go to plan...



An expensive mistake to make, I was just being impatient and not thinking properly and tried levering the screen out from the corner. Anyway, I was lucky enough to have done this with just enough time to go and get a replacement from Minits, so now another £45 lighter I have my second new windscreen in the last 2 months. The new one is a green tint screen as well, as it's all they had in stock, but you can't really tell the tint is there.

Also on the subject of the windscreen, I bought some Rain X rain repellent and some Rain X anti fog, for the outside and inside of the glass respectively, and I must say it works bloody well. Rain now just beads up and falls off the screen, and however hard you try you can't fog up the interior windows, it's an odd experience breathing on a window and it not fogging up!

I've also now got plans to run some narrow 10" steelies in the winter, just in case we get any decent snow/ice this year, as I remember my 6x10s being utterly crap in the horrendous winter we had two years ago. So I bought a lot of 10 wheels off eBay, 6 with knackered tyres and 4 with no tyres, for only £22. I'm going to buy some new Falkens for them, a bit expensive just for some cheap winter wheels but I want these to last me a good few winters, and I've noticed that part worns go for silly money on eBay and I'd rather pay a bit extra for the peace of mind and reliability of having new tyres. I'm planning on painting the steels the same metallic grey that I painted the Wellers, and I've already sourced some hubcaps for them (£2 each from Combe!) that are pretty rusty and very dented, but they should clean up just fine for what I want them for.



I had to see what they'd be like on the car...



Also, planning ahead for winter, I bought this grille cover off eBay for £20, I really didn't want to pay the £90 odd quid or whatever it is for a Mini specific one from Minisport, and this one fits almost perfectly!



It's a new old stock 70's item, sold under the gimmick of saving you petrol apparently!

These are only phone pics, but you can sort of see what it's gonna look like when it's on. I only tied it on loosely here for a test fit.





Last thing to show you is the paint on the front end, which is still pretty bad close up but at least has a nice shine now that I flatted it back and polished it up. As I haven't mentioned it before, the obvious colour difference with the front end is due to the car having been resprayed in a non standard red sometime in the past (and not very well either, just masking over the lights/windscreen, etc and there are runs everywhere), so I've just been using the Flame Red that the car originally was (code taken from chassis plate). The following pics were kindly taken by Joe Steel ('Steely' on here), cheers buddy!





You can see in the last photo that I put my fog lights back on for winter, and you can see that I painted the covers for them black and added matching Weller stripes, just to spruce them up a bit. This weekend I also had a sneak peak at my Christmas present from my Dad, just to make sure everything is there, and I must say I'm excited to be soon having a proper security system on the car...

Thanks for reading guys!

[myredmini]

I love this thread. A non perfect mini! I like to have a minter and a not to minter.

Dont suppose you have any spare hub caps for 10" steelies I could buy?

Dan

[The Otter]

I love this thread. A non perfect mini! I like to have a minter and a not to minter.

Dont suppose you have any spare hub caps for 10" steelies I could buy?

Dan

Thanks for the kind words, glad to know I'm entertaining more than myself with this thread

Afraid not no, sorry, the bloke I bought these off at Castle Combe had more, but I only wanted 5 (4 plus a spare in case one falls off or didn't fit or something). I guess I should have stock piled them for £2 each!

[Steely]

There's a few good looking sets on ebay at the moment with low starting prices like 5 quid!

[myredmini]

There's a few good looking sets on ebay at the moment with low starting prices like 5 quid!

No worried Sven.

Steel. Will have a gander now. Thanks :)