Hi all I have been a member on here for years but have come and gone a few times, i have loved mini's for as long as i can remember bought my first aged 16 while learning mechanics at college turned out to be a complete rot box and at the time i didnt have the skill to sort it so after a couple of years that one went, I then got another when i was about 19 which was one of about 9 cars in a year and i ended up swapping it for a capri fast forward to 2013 now married with a little boy i bought a lovely white mini which was my pride and joy, it had its problems but i was planning on gradualy fixing bits and pieces while enjoying driving it, then in september 2013 we had some family problems and i had to stop work and this meant the mini had to go (very nearly shed a tear when it went) ever since i have been hoping to get another one then a couple of months ago i was in a possition to start looking, after realising prices have risen again i was a bit disheartened that i couldnt get something tidy for my budget i went to see a couple and could not justify the price then one popped up on ebay about 40 miles from me with a pile of spares included.
we agreed on a price and i went down to look/get it it was rougher looking than i had hoped but the tin worm wast too bad and its has a decent amount of mot, now the spares included ended up nearly filling my lwb vivaro van!!! i have a 1275 engine a 998 engine about 6 cylinder heads a gearbox just loads of stuff, (will all be sold to fund the project except maybe the 1275 engine)
i handed the money over got the keys and got in to drive home feeling a bit of a mix of being happy i had got a mini again and a little disappointed that i hadn't been able to get one that looked nice right off the bat but the second i sat in the drivers seat and started the engine to drive home i could not care less how it looks on the outside I OWN A MINI AGAIN!!!!!
did the drive home mostly motorways got overtaken by more than one lorry haha had to go over telegraph hill which was uhhh interesting
so i drove it around for a few weeks while taking note of the different bits and pieces that need doing, awfull smell of oilygasses, extreme rattle from the cam chain gutless as hell aswell as a few other little nigly bits.
the crank case breather had been taken off the carb and fitted with one of those little filters on the end so i ordered a new pipe and reattached it to the carb
decided to do the cam chain tensioner and at the same time do the chain and sprockets so i know its all good, did that no problems.
drove around for a bit then realised there was water coming out of the over flow pipe so i checked the cap and it was the wrong one,fitted the right one and the brasing on the top hose oulet was split and leaking so changed the rad and figured i might aswell do the thermostat at the same time now when the over flow was leaking water i had a sneaky suspision that the head gasket might have been on its was out but thought i would try the cheap stuff first, well with the new parts on the coolant system fitted it had obviously been masking the hedgasket issue and the increased presure made it give up soooo headgasket needed doing!
head off ended up stripping re grinding the valves and fitted new stem oil seals and today I did the final oil change after putting new oil and an engine flush in to flush the crap out she's ALIVE again! popping a little bit which I think might be over fueling so I will take a look at that when it warms up a little. I should add all of this work has been done in a parking space in the close I live in :) gives the neighbors something to moan about.
so in about a month and a half of mini ownership i have done :carb needle, breather pipe, accelerator cable, timing chain, cam/crankshaft sprockets, cam chain tensioner, radiator, thermostat, radiator cap, headgasket, valve stem oil seals, lapped in valves, heater valve, spark plugs, oil filter, oil, coolant, fuel pipe, hose clips
Oh yeah and the name is because I said to the wife before I got it that its fairly solid but as rough as a badgers ass so the name badger kinda stuck. I will try and get some pictures up soon. oh and I booked up to go on the riviera run in may anyone else going?
I have bought some pipe so i can plumb the heater in, i want to get the colour tune out to see that my mixture is set up ok, after test driving the mini after all the work i did it still seems surprisingly gutless, i'm hoping that sorting the mixture and having a look at the timing might wake it up a little. 
