48 replies to this topic

[danm]

I think it's about time I made a repair/progress thread for my she-devil of a car - 'The Toad'.

I will update this as I go, and hopefully it will give me some inspiration to fix/repair and not give up and sell (not that I could after what it's been through). Will also post what I have bought along the way and maybe any pointers people can give.

 

I'll update in chapters, as I've realised so many old stories that happen and I forget. This might be a good way to simply remember them for longer, record them as they happen and read back on a bad day with a smile.

:)

 

 

'The Toad'

 

 

 

What is it: 1989 Mini Mayfair Automatic (Storm Grey)

Bought: Sep 2012

 

Price: £1100 with 6 months TAX and 11 months MOT

 

 

 

 

THE ADVENTURES AND PROBLEMS SO FAR:

 

 

September 2012
First viewing - Howard from Halifax

 

- Bought in East Hamstead, London from one of the dodgiest guys I have ever met. If the area wasn't enough rogue in itself, the bloke was running a bit late, and told us to head near the streetside of some garage alleyway over the phone. At 10pm at night. In pitch black.

With the second phone call, he suddenly sounded a lot more Jamaican than I first remembered from the call before, and the twang of Danny Dyer in the accent eased confidence by about 2%. However, carrying £1250 cash; wearing a pair of headtorches and armed with only a magnet, we rapidly feared we were to be potentially ambushed and mugged. Very nearly did a runner and bailed, but moments before we came close, we heard and smelt the most ridiculous burning oily raspberry noise a few streets away. Out of nowhere captain dodgy came, and there it was. The Toad.

Captain Dodgy actually looked like Howard from Halifax, with sideburns and a goatee. Turns out he was well alright, left the keys in, car running and went to sit on a wall on the road opposite and told us to take as much time as we like looking it over.

Forget the £1250 in my pocket, we could have easily stolen the car from him now. But his stories of picking up fat birds and having 11 mates crammed in at once were too funny.

 

A bit of checking and negociating, he agreed on £1100 and I drove it to his house where I filled in the forms and.... it was mine.

 

 

 

Edited by danm, 27 January 2014 - 06:08 PM.

[danm]

Sep 2013

KFC and Old Spice

 

Having never, ever driven either an automatic OR a mini before, this was pretty special. I was out of breath from laughing so hard at how much noise and vibration this little $hitheap was making. Not to mention the fact that the 90 mph I THOUGHT I was doing down the M25 was ACTUALLY more like 39 mph. Don't even get me started on the lack of headrests; the smell of old spice and fried chicken; or the neck strain I was enduring because my head was touching the roof lining and the steering wheel banging my knees.

It was this excitable and memorable first drive that reminded me of 'Mr Toad's Wild Ride' at Disney, And that was how he was named.

[danm]

Late September 2012

Knees bent, arms stretched RA RA RA!

Found out about a week later that the seats did actually move. I'd been driving for a week with knees in my face and getting cramp after 20 minutes.

[danm]

October 2012

A Portugese man named Milton

 

Bought a 998cc manual engine from a guy stripping a car near Heathrow. A portugese man, again looking alarmingly like Howard from Halifax, called 'Milton'. It took me weeks to get over this, as he looked just like a person called Milton should. He was a bit of a billy bull$hitter, the sort of kid you knew at school who seems to have everything slightly better. You had 998cc, he had 999cc. You can get up to super mario level 35. He can do level 135. But he was nice, just had a funny childlike competitive streak still at the age of 40.

 

Milton never removed the engine for me prior to collection, I ended up having to rope in poor old Julian (minijules on here) to assist Lord Milton Esq and 6 hours of mayhem. 

 

And being the sort of guy who he was, I though you'd appreciate the process he decided upon for the best way to remove the engine:

 

 

Milton's Much Better-Than-Yours Engine Removal Guide:

1) Start off with the front half of a car, and remove all the seriously important lightweight parts like the steering wheel boss and gear knob. Keep all the heavy bits still attached, for maximum weight and pain when moving around.

2) Take great care by not stocking the correct socket to remove the front subframe mounts.

3) Defy the laws of physics by using adjustables to remove seized mounts.

 

4) Allow your two rat dog chihuahuas to escape the garden every 10 minutes and cause more distraction.

 

5) Ensure all knuckles on boths hands are bleeding before continuing to step 6.

 

6) Rip apart cv joint housing with flathead screwdriver for no real reason. £uck it, do it to both. Give it a good jousting, and make sure it's ruined!

 

7) Let the chihuahuas escape again.

 

8) Kick driveshafts with steel toe-capped boots for 10 minutes

9) Get an angle grinder on those tie rods and get back to kicking those driveshafts until they magically come out.

10) By now you are probably tired and getting impatient. Make a cup of tea, and let the chihuahuas escape once more. Make it twice, why not!?

11) You hero, the driveshafts are out. Now, lets make it snappy, start undoing every single cable and hose in sight. One of them is bound to be the brake fluid. Don't stop until the floor is totally covered!

 

12) When about half the fluid is over your jeans, fetch that angle grinder, and hack away at anything braided. Remember, if its metal, it can be cut. That's the official rule.

13) When the engine is out, realise it won't fit in the boot of a Peugeot 107 as the opening is too small (LOL). Cling film engine up, leave outside, and collect in van next day.

 

 

 

Here are some pics of the autocross project Milton sold the engine from:

 

 

Edited by danm, 27 January 2014 - 06:10 PM.

[cookie4343]

Lol crazy, will look forward to more updates.

[megamini_jb]

Loving this thread already

[danm]

October 2012

1996cc super mini engine

 

After getting a good friend to help take the spare engine in his van, we got all the way home and only then realised we couldn't lift it off ourselves. The roll pin was stuck, and with no punch, we had to try and juggle it about with the complete gear linkage erratically pointing about like Louis Spence's toes on viagra.

 

An hour later, we had moved the engine a grand total of 12 feet down the road, ruined 6 electrical screwdrivers trying to remove the gear linkage roll pin and were absolutely kaput.

Two hours after that, somewhere along the line it was decided the best thing to do was to just remove the spare seat, and put the engine in the passenger space of the mini.

 

Maybe a bit of Milton had rubbed off on me, because I now had the fastest mini in the world. At 998cc x 2, you do the maths. I had 1996cc of pure and epic VROOOOOOOM!

And that was that. I was better than everyone. End of.

[danm]

End January 2013

Mr Muscles

 

Decided after a few months the spare engine needed to come out of the passenger side.

OK, that was a big lie. We had horrendous snow, and I wanted to take the Toad out drifting.

The floor pans were buckling a bit (LOL) and I had developed a really strong right arm muscle from having to effectively support the weight of the spare 998 from crushing me whenever I turned left. I now knew all the shortcuts around town that could be reached by simply doing a larger proportion of right turns, and briefly considered a career in stockcar racing. Truth is, I can't grow sideburns, so I wouldn't have made it in the USA on that basis.
 

Made a dodgy DIY engine trolley thing from 2x4 and some castor wheels that looked more like a skateboard, but it worked. Called special services Julian (aka minijules) to help, and we got the engine up into my garden, both losing about 10 years of our lives from exhaustion, 

The gear linkage, the root of all evils, was and still is attached.

[danm]

February 2013

It's Snowwwwwwtime!

 

Mini's in the snow are just awesome. Spent a good 4 hours from 11pm just circling the industrial park, with a blessing from the security team at Currys to keep going. How's that for luck? Most fun I had in ages.

 

Edited by danm, 27 January 2014 - 06:40 PM.

[danm]

Early Feb 2013

 

Bought a pair of trailers with Julian!

 

[minijules]

Early Feb 2013

 

Bought a pair of trailers with Julian!

 

Mines the red one without the built in LED chavtastic lights

[danm]

Yeah, and his is the one with the pink polka dot plastic wheel caps 

[sonikk4]

Cracking story so far. Milton sounds like a top geezer!!!!

[RossKnight]

everyone knows a milton!

[danm]

May 2013

Steamboat Willy and the London to Brighton Mini Run
 

My first run, and it was a brilliant day!

Though it was a bit of an adventure that almost ended early.

 

6am start and helping move my girlfriend and her belongings from Surrey to Hertfordshire and back several times on Saturday, I then decided at 11:30pm that night that I spontaneously thought it would be good to do the L2B mini run. With no ticket, my friend and I set off at 1am, yes 1am, via a facebook advert to fetch a seriously last minute second hand ticket from a girl in the middle of a farm somewhere in Essex. She was up all night helping her horse give birth, as you do.

I must point out that given the short notice of my plans, the Toad still only had one seat in the front. So my friend had the luxury of sitting in the back seat, with all the legroom he could want up front. So, like a King and his Chauffer, we were set.

 

On the way, the gears were grinding horribly, the engine bay was scorching and everything started vibrating more and more with each mile. About 7 miles in, I pulled into an all-nighter garage and bought a bottle of oil. Not knowing much about mini's (foolishly) the only oil I could get was far too thin. But an oil top up was better than no oil at all so this simply had to suffice for a bit. This was make or break, do we turn around and go home; or gamble it.

 

We gambled it. With no mini knowledge, we just took a chance.

 

Things looked good, but 18 miles into Essex, with the nearest services a good 20 miles in each direction of the M25, 'the Toad' decided he wanted to become a steam train.

Forgetting his motor vehicle roots entirely, the clear night sky was filled by a long plume of thick white smoke coming from under the bonnet. Neither of us knew what the heck to do, and to make it worse, none of us had a mobile signal. We were totally fubaared to say the least.

 

But, not one to give up, I popped the bonnet up and gave myself a quick steamy 6000-degree facial. Not content with crucifying my face, for some ungodly reason I thought releasing the radiator valve would be the best idea. As you've guessed, the bazillion degees that came out of that made the facial seem like childs play. The 200mph propulsion that the actual cap came of at was even more impressive, and last but not least, the almightly DING it made is a noise that will stay with me forever.

To say I $hat a brick that moment would be a severe understatement.

Nonetheless, a mystical 20 minutes later the steam disappeared, and the Toad decided it would be ok to touch him in all of his special places without going mental at me. Took a look at the oil again, and the cap decided to melt from the underside, all over what I soon came to know weeks later as 'rockers'. Whatever they were...   

Oil levels were fine, a bit dribbly and leaky as it was definitely too thin. But low and behold, and to no surprise, the radiator was empty. For reasons that I again cannot explain, I'd packed up a bag of 7 litres of water to drink during the L2B trip. As if I somehow knew, that water was a bloody godsend. I filled the Toad up, and he sizzled and let out a sound I can safely say was probably an orgasm.

 

Two minutes later, he was alive, and wanted to play. The big question now was... well there wasn't a question. It was simply 'wing it'. And we did.

Arrived at Crystal Palace at 7am, exhausted, ticket and info pack in hand. Beautiful, we'd got this far. JUST!

Parked up about 4 feet behind a beautiful Austin Seven Mini in the L2B starter queue and argued with officials that we couldn't/didn't want to get closer as 'the Toad' had developed a lovely lurching habit when setting off since the special radiator touching moment. The thought of smashing into on that Old English White paintjob in front soon became tempting after forcibly watching the old man and lady polish it over and over again for a good 2 hours as we sat waiting to set off.

Minijules once again came to our rescue with a bottle of freebie polish. Not wanting to stand out or anything, he played his part, and help buff up some of the roof. Can you spot his hard work?

 

 

(Above - Julians excellent polishing really highlighted the 'potential' the Toad had. You can also see the lack of front seat to the right bahaha!)

 

 

So, after a pretty awesome day, I can safely say the Toad and I survived the L2B with much fuss, and no knowledge

And on the way home, I worked out I had driven non stop pretty much, 22 hours out of 36 from Saturday 7am to Sunday 7pm with no sleep and only the 2 hour wait in Crystal Palace.

Can't wait for next year!

Edited by danm, 27 January 2014 - 06:38 PM.