39 replies to this topic

[lsto]

Hi all, bought myself a little cooper in September of last year and have been slowly knocking bits off it so I thought its about time I started a thread...

Anyway just a little background info, as it says I'm working on a budget, I am saving for a mortgage deposit so I dont have a lot of spare cash so before I get slated for doing things my way or the cheap way round I don't have thousands to spend but I do the best with what I can afford.

Anyway the mini...

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She is a 1991 Rover Cooper, a bit rusty round the edges but reasonably sound. She was last used 4 years ago until the clutch packed up and she sat in a lock up garage for 4 years. The owner only had to sell her because the council decided to knock down the garages and he had nowhere to put her.

So £750 lighter and I was a very happy boy...

Edited by lsto, 31 March 2013 - 01:44 PM.

[lsto]

So dragged her down my yard and began to strip...

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One of the first things I decided to tackle was a poor pepair under the windscreen on the scuttle, the paint had all cracked and it looked saw, so out came the window and I attacked the paint...
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I welded in new metal and gave it a lick of paint, I was going to replace the whole panel but as it was only a couple of small holes I decided to repair rather than replace.
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A little tidier...

[lsto]

Next I decided to prepair and check the underside of the motor. I bought it because when I looked the floorpan was sound as were the sills.

I put her on axle stands and got busy with a wire brush removing years of grime, I didnt take any photos of this but as you can imagine it was a long and boring process. Once all the grime was cleaned I was happy to find the underneath was pretty much as solid as I thought, I found a few patches that had been repaired in the floor, but the welding was good and tidy and strong so I decided to leave these be.

The only parts I found that required attention were the front panel, years of stone chips and speed bumps had taken its toll on her chin lol.

The rear valance was rotten behind the foglight so that had to go and a few patches on the boot floor, but all these would be tackled in time...

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Nasty rear valance.

So now I had the underside clean (I'm gonna say something that will upset hardcore mini fans) I decided as this is going to be my everyday car I was going to underseal the underneath.
So out came the wayoyl and I got busy, again sorry no pics but it was long, boring and messy...

[lsto]

So as you can see, I was a few weeks in, all was going well, I was just prepairing to remove the engine, I had removed the nasty sound deadening from the bulkhead and I was in the process of removinf the ancillerys from the engine.
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Carb, manifold and exhaust out...

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Master cylinder and servo gone...

So we were flying along until...
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My gearbox shat itself...

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As you can see from the snail trail it left on the a13...

So the mini was put on hold.

[lsto]

So while the mini sat on hold the ST was towed to the workshop and stripped...
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It turned out the pin holding the planet gears didn't appreciate the extra power the car has and decided to leave the gearbox at the nearest fire escape...
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Not a mini but just as little free space in the engine lol
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Anyway a new gearbox and clutch and gearbox was sourced and fitted...

So much for money for the mini...

[lsto]

So once the ST was back burining up the tarmac I focused once again on the Cooper...

It was October before I found time to crack on with it again.

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Rest of the ancillaries removed...

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And engine out...

It turned out this engine is a 1275, whilst the mini is registered with a 998...

Lucky for me I was planning to build a 998 Turbo lump. So while I repaired the faulty clutch and kept the 1275 as a spare a 998 was already sourced from fleabay...

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Complete 998 for a bargain £80, or so I thought...

[lsto]

Anyway so far all this build had cost me was £750 for the cooper, about £50 say for the paint, sandpaper, wire brushes and wheels and the underseal (most of which I already had floating about) and £80 for another engine.

I decided now to strip the 998 as I had the engine out. This is where I ran into an unforseen problem...
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nice grimy engine...

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As you can see the block is scored to s***. One of the circlips holding the gudgeon pin decided it didnt want to be friends with the piston anymore and done a runner, this left the pin able to slide back and forth and damage the block. It don't look much on the pics but one side the damage is about 3mm deep...

So there was nothing for it, a new block and piston had to be sourced...

So while this was put on hold I decided to crack back on with tidying up the engine bay.
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As you can see looks grim so with a bit of elbow greece I gave it a through clean.

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A lot of it came up ok but it showed up a lot of minor surface rust on the O/S, poxy sound deadening, makes a lovely water trap...
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Not good...

[lsto]

So I got busy with the sandpaper... I attacked all the rust along the bulkhead, luckily it was only surface rust and it didnt take alot to get to the nice clean solid metal underneath. Once I had it all nice and shiny it was treated with rust preventer, primed and painted. Again nothing very expensive, just £35 for paint and materials, most of all its been time.

It was the last day of October when I took this.
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As you can see it looked a milion times better, I was quite happy as it was nice and cheap lol. While this was going on a friend of mine sold me a block from a 998 with only 30,000 miles for £40. Result.

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So a quick coat of paint to brighten it up...

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And let the re-build begin... This is where things got expensive...

A quick hone later and a list of nice expensive parts...

Pistons came with the new block (nice to have generous friends...)
New Rings £50,
New main bearings £32.50
Cam bearings £21
Thrust bearings £7.98
Big end shells £21
Gasket kit £12
Cam followers £12.99
Oil pump £22
Hotter cam from minispeed £64 (was £114 but surcharge was refunded with my old cam)
Stem seals £2.95

Ouch...

So in total at this point it's cost me around £1201.42, but thats for everything so far, including the price of the car and second engine, so not terrible...ish

[lsto]

Anyway, to cheer us up from that kick in the balls lets see some nice engine being built pics...

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Now all was going well at this point until I examined the 998's gearbox. Upon proper examination I found 1st gear sincro was shot, someone had stripped most of the teeth, and to add insult to injury the main shaft bearing had started to collapse. Wonderful...

Luckily I had just purchased a joblot of engine and gearbox parts of an old boy a few weeks earlier for £65, in this I have a spare block which needs a re-bore, several different SU carbs (including 2 HIF44 hehe), a gearbox with a cracked casing and 4 gearbox internals including new bearings as well as a lot of other bits and bobs, so I got busy re-building my gearbox...

Once I had done this I carried on with the engine...
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No thats not my arse in the background before you ask...
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So as of now this is how my engine has sat since the end of last year...

[lsto]

Before I forget the head is modified, its been polished and i have ground the chambers to increase the volume and reduce the CR...

[lsto]

So next on the list was to attack the bodywork... Again not expensive, just long...

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Nasty rear valance, chop chop grind...
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And now for the infill panels...
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Again new patten panels were bought for cheapness.
Rear valance £11
Infill panels £18 (£9 each)

So the next job was to weld this, but I tought myself a lesson not to jump in head first...

[lsto]

Welded the new rear valance on then realised I forgot to weld the floor in the boot, so made a bit of a nightmare for myself, but got there in the end.

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So that was the arse done, now just the front to do...

[lsto]

So after a lot of inspection, cutting a fettling, this is where I am to date, enjoy...

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In a nutshell this is what I been up to the last 6 months, still a long way off but I will add as I continue.

[lsto]

Well yesterday I finished the rear inner wheel arches off. Not very exciting, just cleaned all the dirt and nastiness, checked for rust and repaired a section. Then I undersealed and stone chipped it. They are boxed up now so its all good...

Just a question, I put a thread up on chat about matte black or gloss black, as I will soon be painting this I would like peoples opinions, Cheers.

[myredmini]

Looking good! And gloss black for me