45 replies to this topic

[Lt-SilverDragon]

Looks like my luck with the weather has changed since it's wet out so just going to work on my dash today, I know it doesn't look like much right now but hopefully I'll not screw up and it will look good when finished.



I'm not putting a glovebox in and I'm thinking of making rings then sand them down at an angle so the gauges face the driver. I've ditched the gauges that came with the car as I thought they were totally useless, water temp, oil temp and an ammetter but I've ordered a small rev counter and oil pressure gauge that I'm going to install with my air/fuel gauge.

[lawrence]

I'm liking the design of the wing mirrors. How did you get the glass out in one piece tho?

[Lt-SilverDragon]

I just put a screwdriver in the little slot in the bottom and levered the outer frame out so I could slide the glass out. I'm not sure if the two plastic pieces are glued together but I'm assuming so, so might put my decent mirrors in the oven to loosen the glue so I don't damage the plastic.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

Roof works, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing since now I really want to drive it and it's still in bits. Hopefully it will give me the motivation needed to get me to work extra hard.

My carbon headlight surrounds and moustache are here but need to pay duty so should get then tuesday so that's something to look forward to.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

Well with the weather the way it's been and lack of motivation not much has been done to the mini, wee update.

Been working on dash when I've been bothered. Still got stuff to do to it but it's looking ok so far.




And these beauties



Progress will be slow from now on as I've got other things that need sorting.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

I've managed to fit one arch, but I'm ok with that because I'm happy with the fitment.





Hoping the weather holds up next week, I want to finish off fitting the rear arches. Sort the rust where the rear bumper mounts to, refit tank and other boot things.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

Welp I replaced the wheel cylinders today and then fitted minifin rear drums which was nice and straight forward apart from the brake line twisting itself into a knot while undoing the union so I've ordered stainless steel unions and will replace the line once they arrive.

Decided to try and sort the rust around the holes the bumper mounts to so started wire brushing it and that just revealed that the rear valance was full of rust so need to sort that now as well.




I'm on holiday for the next 10 days so depending on weather I'm hopefully gonna make some decent progress on it.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

Quick update: Ordered a new non gen rear valance, didn't think there was any point spending 40 extra quid for something no one will ever really see so hopefully the fit isn't too bad. Also bought a steering rack for an mpi to limit the amount the wheels can turn, had bought the kad bushes you can fit to achieve this but my rack was leaking oil so figured I'd kill 2 birds and also got gas for my welder and some additional clamps.

I banged into my arch yesterday and 3 of the 4 brackets I'd glued down with tiger seal popped off so I've reglued them and will fiberglass over the top of them once its dry to hopefully not have the arches falling off again. What's weird is that I originally glued one bracket down so I could mount that to the body then do the other brackets and that's the one that is stuck to the arch solid.

I now can't do much as the rear is up in the air and I have to wait for the parts from minispares to show up to finish that and I can't do much to the front end because I can't lift that up so all I can do is work on the middle bit so I've been working on my mirrors and dash.

[Daz1968]

Coming along nicely, as for rear valence I have fitted both, a magnum one on my mk1 and heritage on my mk2, the heritage one is a better fit and shape, but the magnum one is pretty decent and only needs a few tweaks for a good fit.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

Thanks mate luckily I'm not looking for perfection in this build, it already takes me at least two attempts at whatever I'm doing because I always screw up the first time and even then I'm usually not completely satisfied so really my main thing is to have a reliable mini that runs well so I can actually enjoy driving it.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

I'm just waiting on an adaptor hose so I can hopefully hook my gas bottle up to my welder and I'm ready to have a go at welding the rear valance on so hopefully it's dry tomorrow.

What I want to do is wire brush all the surface rust off the panel and spray "weld through primer" on it before tacking the rear valance in. I've not had much luck with trying to do spot welds or plug welds when I've tried to weld before so I was just gonna run a few welds along the lip and weld up the outside of the closing panel. Or should I drill a few holes and try plug welding it?



To be fair I'm fairly happy with the fit, lines up quite nicely with the closing pannels and the 3 mounting holes for the bumpers are about right.

Not done much to it over the last few dsys, replaced the rear brake lines and used stainless steel brake unions. Replaced the shoes and springs just because they're cheap to replace and a few electrical things like riveting some earth points in the engine bay.

[Daz1968]

Plug welding is better maybe if you are having problems try a larger hole, I usually use approx 7mm also use more power than you would for normal welding, another thing worth doing is ensure panels are held close together, use a pair of mole grips each side of where you are welding, you can buy mole grips specifically for plug welding if you plan on doing a lot

[slidehammer]

You do really need some plug welds especially on the join with the closing panels at each end. On my welder (and they are all different) I turn the power up 1 more notch than for normal welding and up the wire feed by 1 (so from 5.5 to 6.5 on my mig)Make sure all surfaces are clean. Have a look on the DIY Mig welding guide (really informative website)link below if you haven't already used the site.
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/

[Lt-SilverDragon]

Thanks guys a bigger hole does help a lot and I got those special plug welding mole grips and they helped also so I've got the panel on and its quite secure but I'm not finished yet. Still got some holes to plug weld and finish it off etc but it's mostly there, it's not the best job ever but it's much better than the old rusty panel I replaced it with.

[Lt-SilverDragon]

My daily decided to break down last week and without knowing how long it will take for me to fix it I figured that I'd bolt everything back onto the mini and use that the now so this project will take a wee pause and I'll do the rest at some point in the future. Done a decent bit of work to it, over the last few days rear brakes have been rebuilt and bled but the fronts will need doing, both window channels have been replaced with a stainless unit so both windows now go up and down but the electric windows will need to wait. Fitted my dash, cut the wing for the wheels and bent a new lip for it and put all the bits back on it etc. Didn't really have time to take pictures of the progress and I'm not entirely happy with the way some things have turned out but I do like the way it looks even with the sportspack front arches still fitted instead of the miglias.