So I'm new to Mini's. Iv helped my dad out on his ventures but he's into big and american. 5.7 litre V8 big as a house pick ups mostly, so i have a bit of knowledge when it comes to what to do.
So i started out looking for a project, and found plenty of Mini's about in the usual places. So within a week i had gone to pick this up.
Mini Piccadilly 1986 in Indian Gold as my friends have labeled it. Unwashed.
Washed.
Off the road since 2011 but started after a 5 second crank and would move under its own power so it can't be that bad.
Welding has mostly been done (drivers inner wing and floor pan, both rear pockets and all the common stuff it seems. But undoubtedly there will be more. Paint is not the best job iv seen but it needs re painting. huge scratches in the roof where something heavy has been dragged across it and rust bubbles coming through in a few places.
So the guy before me was going to "chav" it up. Living in the adjoining town to Chatham it was to be expected. Hence the sport pack arches on the rear, but luckily he didn't get to far. Gave up on the front as to much cutting was involve i think. he ripped the original interior out and soiled the original seats pretty badly as well as he was going to replace them with black ones. I don't see why because nothing say character like brown, cream and red seats. they look pretty dodgy but its what the car had, same goes with the 8cr gold paint job.
So im a little into the car now and in my hurry to get started i didn't really take any pictures. so ill put up what i have.
So i started by getting all 4 four alloy wheels on the car. so i set about cutting the front arch back to fit the 12x165 tyres under them. I also made the choice of using standard arches with stainless steel covers and i like the look of tyres slightly outboard of the arch.
So the tyres do hang out the arches but i have spoken to my man in the know (MOT tester) and he said its a grey area. There is nothing that says they can't stick out unless they cause a danger to pedestrians or other road users. So if a pedestrian falls and could get caught in the open wheel then its a MOT fail, and if you create so much road spray that tis dangerous to other drives its a fail. This is just what iv been told so you take it in to your own hands if you choose to do the same. There is so little room inside a Mini arch it would be difficult for either of these things to happen. there is more chance of it happening on a big 4x4 or pick up truck.
so at the moment i am running a Lambo style wide rear end, with my standard fronts and sports pack rears.
Forgot to put my bumper back on for these photos.
The rears will be coming off when i am read to paint and fill. no point taking them off to expose more holes in the body.
things i have done that i have not photographed:
re fitted dash in original style open dash (could only get black, needs brown), modern dash taken out.
got the engine firing on all 4 cylinders instead of three.
fault fount the twin clocks and fitted them replaced missing bulbs.
new carpet fitted (could only get black again) and seat belts re-installed
fixed hazard light problems.
So now all i need is an MOT so i can get it mobile, then its down to the point of getting the detail right.
Also as i can't use the wanted pages yet, if anyone has or knows someone who has a good condition set of Piccadilly seats available please let me know.
Cheers for looking Joe and Morris (the wife insisted it be called Morris, i wanted to call it Dad But got over ruled)
