Warning: contains imagery which some viewers may find distressing.
Here’s a picture from the aforementioned Cow & Calf trip and ultimately the deciding factor for wanting to replace the chromes. Just a little too bling-bling for my liking!
Starting off on a high-note here’s where the journey begins, my favourite place to spend most of my time (and more often than not my money too!); Huddersfield Mini Spares.
For the Vtec fans out there.
And here’s a special little something. £3000 and would you believe there’s only 13,000 miles on the clock! An absolute gem, damn near fresh out the factory condition. Worth it for the engine alone!
Now the fun begins. Here’s the wheels I decided on. 13x7 gloss black minilites with a polished dish!
And here’s a little taste of what they would look like in comparison.
Onto the fitting! Unfortunately I somehow managed to misplace my original locking wheel nut socket and rather than do the logical thing and purchase a universal one, stubborn me decided a tight fitting socket along with a hammer would do the job just fine. It’s safe to say “just fine” was an understatement; an hour or so later after a lot of swearing and frustrated sighs I did finally manage to get those bleeding nuts off and on went the new wheels!
Already starting to look somewhat beefy huh?! It was at this point, after using up both of my 18mm sockets on the pesky nuts and basically melding them together, I decided for the sake of £15 (and my sanity) it was worth a trip to Halfords for a universal socket. So far there hasn’t been much fun at all huh? Before I go any further here’s a second picture to give you some context for the next part of the story. Can you see the issue here? Aside from the legality that is.
You guessed it! The turning capabilities equal to that of The Flying Scotsman! No clearance what so ever. As you can imagine, attempting to reverse off my drive way without slicing the new wheels to shreds was also no fun. I was never a fan of the 3-point turn let alone a 12-point turn. And it’s at times like these when you fully come to appreciate the invention of power steering. Alas, I made it off the driveway and up to Halfords!
Now this is where the REAL fun begins! It was time to put the garage and the contents within to good use. After removing the skimpy little arches it was clear to see how much cutting had to be done. Time to bring out the big boy tools! Remember: always wear your safety specs!
A shower of sparks later and a few “oohh ya f*cker” comments we are making progress!
One side adequately chopped up its time to install the new arch! A little forceful squeezing and gentle persuasion coupled with a few fibreglass splinters and here we have it! 1 successfully installed group 6 arch! One down, three to go.
A little blue peter magic later and... here’s one I made earlier.
But wait a minute... in typical mini fashion; the front end is desperately digging the ground in search for its dismembered pieces of body work while the back end sits high and mighty sniggering away to itself as it needed no butchery at all!
Now, as a person who’s all for equality that just will not do. Try as you may little Mini you are no drag queen (woo another pun). Allow me to show you to your correct seating position, none of that Santa Pod shenanigans here! Time for some hi-lo adjustment! 6 turns on the left, 4 on the right. Ever a fan of symmetry.
Looks about right to me!
Back to the driveway!
There we have it ladies and gents. A job well-done (in my personal opinion) and one weekend well spent!
Shameless cross-over plug. The Chromes are up for sale here: http://www.theminifo...egal/?p=3543473
Edited by kyle_1275, 10 June 2018 - 05:28 PM.
no worries dude. I'm still tempted to do a buy, but my p700s are brand new so I might wait a while lol
