88 replies to this topic

[kws]

Nice. Any reason you didn't get new seat base foam..?

 

The foam isnt in bad shape really, and to be honest im trying (and failing) to keep costs low until i have the car road legal. I'd like some later model SPI seats or something in the future.

[kws]

When I got the car, it had this weird heater valve on it that didn't work, oh and it leaked. That was no good.

 

I haven't quite worked out what this heater valve was from, but I suspect it pre-dated the car by a while. It didn't line up with the cable, and there was a steady leak from the top of the housing

 

I got a replacement standard style valve from Minispares with my last order.

 

Like an idiot though, I somehow forgot to buy a gasket. Oops. I smeared some sealant on the face of the valve and used that to transfer onto the gasket paper, so I could cut out a new gasket

 

Of course it wouldn't be one of my cars, or British if it didn't do this

 

Thankfully that particular spill was planned, unlike a couple of later ones. I removed the two nuts that held the old valve on, and removed the hose clamp. The old valve came off easy enough, as did the gasket (yes, woah, an actual gasket?!)

 

I thoroughly cleaned the mounting face, smeared some sealant on the gasket and on went the new valve. Shiny.

 

Now, you can see one thing I did wrong in the above photo. A: the heater cable is bent at the end so doesn't push in further, and B: that metal part in the clamp shouldn't be there.... but I didn't realise this was wrong until I fit the replacement heater cable.

 

This is what the cable should look like. It takes some fiddling when fitting to get the correct amount of travel.

 

The heater valve now works from the pull lever inside the car now.

 

One other coolant related issue I had noticed with the car was that there always seemed to be some coolant on the block below the thermostat. I finally traced this down to a weeping thermostat housing gasket. It's hard to see in the photo, but obvious in person

 

I thought to myself, "oh, this will be a quick job. Just pop the housing off, make a new gasket and away we go".

 

It didn't go like that.

 

The first warning should've been when I took the top hose off and saw the damage to the end of the thermostat housing and how brown it was in there.

 

I took off the three nuts on the thermostat housing, and the two on the radiator, removed the bracket and then tried to remove the thermostat housing. It wouldn't budge.

 

After MUCH abuse with many tools, it finally started to shift. It turns out the front stud was corroded into the housing

 

Unfortunately the stud didn't survive the job, so I had to source a replacement. Once I saw the thermostat I was a bit suspicious of that, and a quick test showed that it was very sluggish to open. A new one of those, a gasket and a new thermostat housing were sourced.

 

The new housing shows how much was missing from the old one

 

I used the double-nut method to wind the new stud into the block, with a generous coating of copper grease on the threads. I also greased the actual studs, in the hopes they wont corrode to the housing again. The other two studs were OK to reuse.

 

On went the new gasket

 

The new housing looks much nicer.

 

I topped the coolant up, but I'll need to actually run a flush through I think. There is a fair bit of brown crud in the system. I probably need to try a CLR-water mix flush to try to remove some of that corrosion in the block, but that's another job for another day.

[kws]

Having repaired the Drivers seat, I needed to carry out some more work to get it back into the car again.

 

The first issue I had to fix was the hand brake mounts. These had been torn out of the floor by some muppet, so I needed to get my weld on and stick some metal glue on it.

 

Now, I warn you, I have never welded with electricity before, and although I am enrolled in a welding course, that doesn't start until next month. I couldn't wait that long to get this little zap of a repair done, so I cracked on anyway.

 

The first issue I had to deal with was using the dreaded flux core wire. I didn't want to get a gas bottle yet, so chose this for the task. I know its frowned upon by many, but it seems to have worked (just) for this task.

 

Another issue was that despite having watched many YouTube videos I didn't initially get the welder settings right, so I think I didn't give it enough power right off the bat. This meant I got some nice blobby rubbish that didn't really stick too well. I did crank some power into it to make it actually stick, but by then I had already made the mess.

 

I'm not kidding myself here, I doubt I got good penetration in the metal, so it probably wont stand up to time, but it doesn't really matter. As long as it holds up long enough to get through the inspection I can weld it properly once I know what I'm doing.

 

The final result is this. I gave it a blast of zinc paint to cover the bare metal, and I wont give a close up photo

 

It works though. I have the handle adjusted to three clicks, and it can hold the car on my steep driveway with no issue.

 

With that done, the carpet went down again

 

It's a good feeling finally putting it back together.

 

The next thing to go in was the gauge cluster. Before this could go in though I had to replace the oil feed hose to oil pressure gauge. The old one was removed because it was damaged and leaking.

 

The new nylon cable is VERY long, so I couldn't route it the normal way (to the left from the fitting, over the clutch housing and up to the gauge). I don't know why its this long, surely it could have been made the correct length before having the ends fitted? I routed it around the valve cover, next to the thermostat (it's the white pipe in the photo)

 

Of course nothing is easy though, so I couldn't just screw the hose into the block. The old hose fitting used a tapered fitting to seal

 

The new hose requires a flat face with a fibre washer. I didn't know this at the time so had to scramble to get an adaptor. Thankfully they are available from local Mini part suppliers, so out went the old fitting, and in went the new one with the washer

 

If everything goes to plan I'll likely fit a tee there anyway to fit an oil temp gauge too, but that's down the track.

 

The new hose went on easily with the right fittings

 

I still needed to have a loop in behind the gauges

 

I refitted the speedo cable, and fit the new hose to the oil pressure gauge and fit the binnacle.

 

And like magic, everything works.

 

In went the repaired drivers seat. The passengers one is still to be fixed

 

The carpet vacuums up well, but it's completely buggered so will need replacing. It'll stay for now though as carpet sets aren't cheap.

[Vinay-RS]

Those carpets don't look terrible, maybe professional carpet cleaners will be able to clean them up nicely.

[jamesquintin]

Apparently there has been a bad batch of those heater valves, so i would be carefull with it. Some say ones with MEC (or something similar) stamped on the side are ok

[kws]

Those carpets don't look terrible, maybe professional carpet cleaners will be able to clean them up nicely.

 

The rear carpets are perfect, just a bit faded. The fronts... well, there aint much good about them. The drivers footwell has a rubber mat glued on over a huge missing part, and the passengers side footwell looks like a tiger got bored.

 

Apparently there has been a bad batch of those heater valves, so i would be carefull with it. Some say ones with MEC (or something similar) stamped on the side are ok

 

I have heard there have been issues. Ive had the car up to temp and driven it, and so far no issues, but ill keep an eye on it. I dont recall anything being stamped on mine, but its meant to be one of Minispares own "updated" ones.

[kws]

Now that everything seemed to be running OK, we had oil only where oil should be, and coolant was mostly where it should be, it was time to do some old school tuning.

 

 

The main things you can tune on an older car like this is the fuel mixture, the timing and the idle speed. These are all the things I needed to check and set.

 

Obviously before you can even considering tuning the engine up, you need to know everything else is in good shape. I had just gone over the ignition system and replaced the cap, rotor, points and leads. The spark plugs although old, once gapped correctly were OK. The fuel was recent, the pump worked, the carb was clean and I had no vacuum leaks.

 

Step one was to use the knowledge of where the timing marks are (as mentioned in a my previous post about them), and using a timing light try to see where the timing is. I don't have many photos of this, because you need about 4 hands to actually check the timing (one to hold the timing light, one to hold the mirror, one to turn the distributor, and one to stop the cables getting in the way).

 

My timing light is an old Optilux unit that I purchased many moons ago. It only gets brought out occasionally, but I'm always happy to have it. A good timing light is one of those things that if you buy a good one to start with, it'll last many years of occasional use. Mine has no adjustment, no readout, and no tach. Just a simple light.

 

A timing light needs four things. Power, Ground, Signal and something to point at.

 

With no battery in the engine bay (or even a "jumping" point like modern cars) you need to source 12V from somewhere. I chose to grab it from the starter solenoid feed, where the big brown wire (constant power) connects to the solenoid.

 

The Ground was taken from the bolt above the starter solenoid

 

The inductive signal clip goes on ignition lead number 1, with the arrow pointing towards the spark plug. Cylinder 1 is the closest to the fan

 

I found it quite hard to hold in the button on the light, whilst holding it, and the mirror, so I used a zip tie to keep the button pressed.

 

I found setting the mirror up so you can see where the marks would be, and then pointing the light at the mirror (instead of trying to point it into the hole) so the mirror reflects the flashing light onto the flywheel worked best. With the engine running (at the lowest idle I could get without it stumbling, which I guess would be about 1100rpm), warm, and the vacuum advance disconnected and blocked at the carb, using this method I tried to find the timing marks, only to find that they weren't visible at all.

 

I tried using the fine adjustment on the distributor to get the marks to come into view. The fine adjustment is the two bolts on either side of the distributor mount. The holes these bolts go through are slotted, so you can turn the distributor and make small adjustments. One bolt is circled, and the other should be where the arrow is pointing (mine is missing that one)

 

I went full retard on the slot, and nothing, no marks. The distributor was already at full advance when I got it.

 

The next step was to tighten those bolts back up, and loosen off the main clamp, for maximum adjustment freedom. This circled nut tightens the clamp, and loosening it off allows full freedom of turning the distributor.

 

I turned it a further 20 or so degrees and BAM, I saw the marks finally come into view. I set the timing to the 10 degree mark. It's a little more advanced than the 7 degrees Haynes says it should be, but it'll be fine. I'll run 95 or 98 octane in the car in the future anyway.

 

I locked down the distributor, check the timing again, and we were firmly on 10 degrees. Don't forget to reconnect the vacuum advance, which is blocked off by the black cap in the below photo

 

With the timing in the correct place, the engine was running smoother, and would allow me to lower the idle, but I still had a stumble. Looking at the spark plugs I was running very lean. I had a very white spark plug with only minor traces of brown.

 

The engine also stumbled, and stalled when the piston lifting pin was pressed. This is a clear sign that the mixture is too weak, and I needed to enrichen it.

 

To enrich the mixture you use the jet adjusting nut hanging under the carb. This nut raises and lowers the jet assembly, allowing more or less fuel into the carb. The nut is circled here

 

Its pretty hard to see, and harder to get to. You cannot get a normal spanner on it easily, so I found it easiest to turn it with my fingers. One hand on each side of the carb, using both of my index fingers to turn it.

 

To enrich the mixture you want to lower the nut, turning it down, away from the carb body. If you were looking down at the top of the carb, you want to turn the nut clockwise to enrichen, and counter-clockwise to lean the mixture. In my case I had to turn the screw a hell of a long way, the mixture was very lean.

 

Having come from my last tuning experience being the Speeduino, where everything is basically handed to you on a screen, with figures, gauges and logging to work from, this was far more... personal. This kind of tuning is all done by feel and ear.

 

When I was turning the nut, I could tell I was getting close as the idle speed started to rise, and the engine smoothed out. If you turn the nut too far and the mixture gets too rich, the idle speed will start to drop off again. You want to stop at the peak of the idle speed. When you start to get to the point where you think you are near, after each adjustment give the throttle a couple of good blips and wait for the idle to settle again. Happy? Tweak and blip again. Sometimes you may need to rev and hold the engine at a higher RPM for a little to clear any excess fuel in the inlet, and then continue.

 

The piston lifting pin also comes in really handy here too. With the VERY lean mixture I had, as soon as you looked at the pin the engine would stumble, the rpm would drop and it would stall. This pin was invaluable to identifying where the mixture was. If your carb doesn't have the pin you can do the same thing by sticking your finger in the carb inlet and lifting the piston with you finger a couple of mm.

 

What you want with the piston lifting, is for the idle speed to either stay the same, or in my case since I left it a little on the rich side, the idle to jump up a tiny bit and then settle again.

 

I still have a little tweaking to do to lean the mixture, as I left it on the safe/rich side, but its happy for now. The idle is now a lot smoother, the engine is more responsive and its happy for me to drop the idle speed down for a nice tick over.

 

The idle speed is adjusted by the screw inside this recess at the front of the carb. I use a narrow flat blade screwdriver to turn it. What it's actually doing, is it's just a long threaded pin that just pushes on the throttle linkage (that the cable pulls on) under the carb. Not technical, but works.

 

I took the car for a quick hoon around the block and it feels a lot more lively now. Its faster, and doesn't bog down or hesitate. No signs of a misfire anymore either.

 

One thing that makes me happy is the fact that it starts so easily. With the engine warm, it starts immediately, with no other inputs.

 

So with the timing set right, the mixture set close enough, and the idle nice low and smooth, it's actually a nice little car. Cant wait to get it legal and see what it can really do.

[kws]

One tool I forgot to mention in my last post about tuning, was the Gunson Colortune.

 

 

In a world where everything is digital, with sensors and readouts, it's fun to be learning how it was all done back before all this.

 

The Gunson Colortune was basically an analogue, visual, Air to Fuel Ratio display. These days you would use a Lambda, or O2 sensor to detect the AFR, but they didn't have them back then (or if they did, they must have been crazy dollars).

 

The Colortune is, for lack of a more technical description, a see-through spark plug.

 

This allows you to see into the cylinder, and see what the combustion flame looks like.

 

You screw it into the cylinder in place of the normal 14mm spark plug, connect an extension and connect the ignition lead to that. The kit also has a periscope sort of mirror device to make it easier to see in awkward spaces

 

If the cylinder is burning lean, the flame will be a pale blue/white. Like this (oops)

 

Perfect is a dark blue

 

And rich is orange

 

I picked up a Colortune from an awesome member of a forum I'm on, and set it up when I was changing the jet adjustment on the carb. I started with a very light blue since the mixture was very lean, and now I'm on the edge of dark blue and orange. If I lean the mixture out a little it'll be a solid dark blue.

 

There is a lot that can be learned from looking at how the flame reacts to different situations. This is the instructions for the Colortune that identify what could be causing different issues

 

It's a pretty cool little tool, and I will continue to use it when playing with old cars. I may even try it on Tess at some point.

[kws]

This isn't a job I was looking forward to, but one that needed to be done. I had to replace the split outer CV boot.

 

 

The boot was split and spewing grease everywhere. I probably could have tried to get through the inspection with it cleaned up a bit, but figured it was best just to change it out.

 

Step one, as always, is loosen the wheel nuts with the car on the ground. Also do what I failed to do, and remove the split pin and crack the main axle nut before you lift the wheel. It isn't torqued high, but you cant do it with a spinning wheel.

 

Jack the corner up and lower it onto a stand. Whip the axle nut and washer off

 

Next I loosened the nuts for the top ball joint and steering rod end. I gave the metal that the ball joints go through a good whack with a hammer but got nowhere, so I resorted to some WD40, winding the nut to the top of the thread and hitting the top of the nut. This broke both free without issue. I think I need a dead blow hammer.

 

 

Interestingly I found another grease point I didn't know about, on the underside of the steering rod end. Will need to get some grease in that nipple.

 

I left the lower ball joint and tie rod attached (later removed, to flip the bolt around, but it doesn't need to be removed) to the lower arm, and lowered the hub/drum complete. There was enough movement and slack in the brake hose to not strain it, but take care.

 

You can see the axle just slipped out of the hub, and with some wiggling out it came completely

 

Now, I tried to be lazy, and leave the axle in the pot joint and remove the CV, but don't be lazy, it's a waste of time. Remove the large CV clamp on the gearbox pot joint, on the other end of the axle, and the whole lot will just pull out and be removed from the car. Be careful that the balls in the pot joint don't fall out when you remove it.

 

With the whole axle out, it's very easy to split the CV off. Just hold the axle CV downwards, put something soft under it to cushion the drop, and hit the CV with a mallet. It should just pop straight off.

 

Everything is full of grease; this is a very messy job. I have heard of people putting the pot joint into a plastic bag to limit the greasy mess, but I just stuck the joint into a box the CV boot came in. Seemed to work OK.

 

Remove old boot

 

Slip the new boot on and make sure the small end seats into one of the grooves in the axle

 

Refit the CV (I wont say how to do this as it varies. The Haynes manual gives some detailed instructions)

 

And then get really angry at the stupid flat metal clamps they supplied, and the fact you didn't think to get the proper tool for them. No, pliers don't work properly. The boot I got from Supercheap (listed as for "front drums" as I know the ones for the discs are different) seems to be a bit short on the CV end and doesn't sit completely in the groove. It seems to clip in though and doesn't just pop off at maximum angle, so hopefully its OK. Teaches me to not buy it from a Mini parts supplier.

 

I ended up using zip ties to secure the boot, but I have ordered the correct tools, and more proper bands. If/when this boot fails me, I'll probably just get a universal stretchy boot and use that instead. Apparently the stretchy boots are quite common to use on the Mini as its quick and easy.

 

Torque the nut up to the required torque (which is quite low on the standard cars, 81NM), fit a new split pin and away you go

 

Looking good after a quick spin (catch tray to catch the overflow from topping up the radiator)

 

Ok ok, I know it's a lot of posts, but I'm almost up to date now. Clearly I have done way too much work in a short space of time.

[kws]

Right, so clearly that was a lot of work done in short space of time. This post will bring me up to date now.

 

I have been trying to split the previous posts out to make it easier to read and follow, since if I combined them all together it would be one huge MEGA-POST, and no one has the time to read that.

 

This post is more of a brain dump of the other things I have done with the Mini that don't fit a particular category or are too small to be their own post.

 

First up, is yes, the second replacement oil drain plug I fitted a few posts ago (with the thread tape and Rover crush washer) has successfully stopped the oil leak. I finally have oil only where it should be! Praise MOWOG the fickle god of British cars.

 

Secondly this arrived the other day. One monster of an Imperial socket

 

"Whats that beast for?" I hear you ask. Well, when I was in the engine bay the other day I randomly noted that the main subframe tower bolts were... loose. Not just loose, but barely even in their threads loose. 1-5/16" is the size of those bolts, so I got the socket to correctly torque them up.

 

I don't know if they just forgot to tighten them? They obviously had a socket that worked, because they had to remove them in the first place. Oh well. The car feels a bit more planted in the front now, but I'm actually amazed how little you could tell when they weren't tight. I guess it puts a lot of strain on the other mounts though.

 

Another item that arrived is my utterly gorgeous new rocker cover. You have likely seen it in some other photos, but just look at it. MMMM.

 

Unfortunately being the idiot I am, I didn't notice the part that said "when you order this you will need longer bolts to hold it on". Well, I didn't get those bolts, but I did manage to make mine work by trimming down the new bushes. Its tight, but I got it torqued down correctly, and with no leaks!

 

A couple of other little items I had been waiting to fit were some washer jets (the old ones were WELL buggered)

 

And a new hazard relay, so now I have on demand hazard lights. Check out that lovely heatshrink.

 

I secured these two up onto the wiper motor to stop them rattling about, next to my new washer bottle

 

Speaking of washer bottles, the caps are proving bloody hard to get. No one does new ones, but thankfully I managed to source a good used one that will work.

 

Once I had run new hose to and from the washer pump, I found out that the original pump that came with the car, despite making the right noises, didn't actually move any water. I guess that is why it was removed... The replacement pump in the above photo is the pump that originally came fitted to Effie when I first got her. It works perfectly, and now I have two pathetic jets of water that kind of shoot onto the windscreen. Water drops as proof.

 

The last couple of items that also got changed out were the starter solenoid, and battery negative lead.

 

The starter solenoid was absolutely coated in oil. I don't know how, but it was all over it and up in all the terminals. I tried to clean it, but gave up and sourced a replacement. It had also previously overheated the wires, causing some damage to the insulation, that was taped up.

 

This is the trigger wire once I removed the tape. Lots of bare copper and a melted terminal cover

 

I cut the terminal off, crimped a new one on and covered the lot with heatshrink

 

I did the same to the other bare wire; the constant feed

 

I removed the old solenoid from the guard, and fit the replacement in its place. I used copper grease on all the terminals, to help keep corrosion away.

 

The car now starts much nicer. Previously it would be very slow and lumpy to crank, almost like the battery was almost flat, despite having a fully charged battery. Now it just whirrs over, and fires up.

 

I doubt the battery ground lead made any difference to that, but it got replaced anyway. The old one, despite being a replacement already, had frayed badly where it met the terminal on the boot floor. I also wanted to fit a battery terminal with a wing nut for quick disconnection.

 

So that's where we are now. Once I have the rear light bulbs sorted, and the battery secured, we will finally be ready to go for the re-registration inspection. Exciting!

[jamesquintin]

Nice work.

 

I did all this work nearly 20 years ago on my beige Mini CIty E before I upgraded to an MPI Cooper S. Got to love injection!

Q
 

[Vinay-RS]

This has been a nice checklist of all the things to fix/service to get a Mini running. Much of it would make great how-to guides. Nicely done. 

[kws]

Nice work.

I did all this work nearly 20 years ago on my beige Mini CIty E before I upgraded to an MPI Cooper S. Got to love injection!

Q

I dunno, being an huge fan of injection myself, there is something to be said for the primitive simplicity of a carb. It gives great satisfaction in making it all work in harmony.

[kws]

Took the Mini for a quick drive. Compared to the last video, it runs solid now. Pulls well in all gears, and revs out to some undetermined RPM (still waiting on my tacho to arrive). I have a sticky throttle though. Its something to do with my new cable, so hopefully that isnt damaged.

 

I did add an additional ground to the engine today. I find it weird that the only engine ground goes from the engine to the subframe, and then the subframe is rubber mounted. Apparently a bad engine ground can fry the throttle cable as it heats up and melts the inner liner. I hope this hasnt happened, but we will see. Ill pull the cable out and see whats up.

 

Sorry for the mad shakes in the video, but the Mini vibrates just a bit. Dont watch too hard if you get motion sickness.

https://youtu.be/fj9grMAWGlQ

 

 

 

Edited by kws, 04 July 2018 - 07:44 AM.

[robj2502]

 

Took the Mini for a quick drive. Compared to the last video, it runs solid now. Pulls well in all gears, and revs out to some undetermined RPM (still waiting on my tacho to arrive). I have a sticky throttle though. Its something to do with my new cable, so hopefully that isnt damaged.

 

I did add an additional ground to the engine today. I find it weird that the only engine ground goes from the engine to the subframe, and then the subframe is rubber mounted. Apparently a bad engine ground can fry the throttle cable as it heats up and melts the inner liner. I hope this hasnt happened, but we will see. Ill pull the cable out and see whats up.

 

Sorry for the mad shakes in the video, but the Mini vibrates just a bit. Dont watch too hard if you get motion sickness.

https://youtu.be/fj9grMAWGlQ

 

 

 

 

As above this is a "how to" on pretty much every abused and under maintained mini out there!

 

Just looking at the above post the main engine earth should be a lead that goes from the top engine steady bolt to the bulkhead you can see it under the engine steady in the pic below ( I stole this pic so thanks to whoever it is)

 

 

and as such shouldnt use the subframe at all

 

Look forward to the future updates