5 replies to this topic

[Jewson16]

I purchased my 1979 Austin Morris Mini back in January 2019. Due to the fact I've been in college the last year or so i haven't done an awful lot. But now that my second college year has been cut short I've decided it's time to get a shift on.

 

 Side View.JPG   37.33K   0 downloads

 

 Rear View.JPG   37.94K   1 downloads

 

(Apologies for the poor quality of photo cracked my phone lens at the time)

 

So the first thing me and my dad decided to do is to remove the enormous amount of under sealer that the previous owner had plastered the belly of the car. We got all of it off by scraping it off with old chisels and flat head screwdrivers. Was a pain to take off but saved the floor of the car.

 

 Before and After.jpeg   92.87K   2 downloads

 

After that we decided to remove both A panels and the whole front end due to the fact once again the previous owner tried welding the wings to the crash bar and kept on blowing through with his welder.

 

 

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 Front End Chop.jpg   58.19K   0 downloads

 

Now it was time to inspect and remove the dreaded sills! And to tackle it I kinda tipped it 

 

 UpsideDown.jpg   133.4K   0 downloads

 

 

All and all the sills were terrible but the inner sills were okay so I'm thankful for that. The process for removing the sills themselves wasn't too bad I drilled out the spot welds on the actual floor pan of the car then used a cutting disk to cut away from the doorstep. I then used a sanding disk to remove the rest of the material.

 

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 Jacking point removal.jpg   53.26K   0 downloads

 

 Front heelboard.jpg   37.4K   0 downloads

 

 

This was the passenger side 

 

 Sill removal finished.jpg   64.05K   0 downloads 

 

Then the drivers side

 

 Sill removal finished 2.jpg   70.33K   0 downloads

 

After all that cutting Dad  decided to teach me a little about painting and so we prepared and painted the old font subframe and the new rear subframe I had to buy because the old one was rusted through.  

   

 Subframes being painted.JPG   45.67K   0 downloads

 

We turned our attention to the engine after this. I don't have any photos of this process but I bought new:

 

Inlet valves 

Exhaust valves

Valve stem seals

Head gasket 

Rocker cover gasket

carburetor gasket

rear brake piston seals

 

I lapped all the valves in by hand taken me ages to get that done to a good standard. I also cleaned both cylinder head and the block surfaces to make sure they were completely flat. After that i placed the valve stem seams. I wire brushed the rear brake cylinders to remove all the surface rust. I then placed them in some brake cleaner for about half an hour because the piston was seized stuck. After hitting the pistons with a rubber mallet they soon moved and and in about 5 minutes replaced the seals and re assembled the rear brake back plate.

 

 

Nothing much has happened since really I did a couple of odd jobs on the car like remove rust patches in the engine bay and removed the mixture of filler and paint in the roof rain gutter.

 

I've recently fixed my welder and have gas so hopefully the next update i have will be a welding one.

 

Hope you enjoyed my experience so far and I'll be back soon.    

[slidehammer]

Looks like a good solid starting point for a rebuild. The shell looks unmolested and even had it's original sills on. I have worked on far newer shells that are much worse than that. Good luck with it.

[blacktulip]

Great starting point. Watch out you don't dent the roof like that. You certainly have got stuck right into it!

[Jewson16]

Hello everyone just a quick update 

 

So today was a bit too windy to weld (I have to weld outside my shed doesn't have enough room at the moment) so I did some rust removal and have taken a few more photos of my mini in its current state.

 

This is my mini sat in the shed all nice and cozy ready for some sunshine though. As you can see I've also assembled my £30 Ebay special engine stand that I'll be turning into a rotating jig soon. I'll put some photos up on how I do that if some people are interested.  

 

 The shell in the shed.jpg   26.07K   0 downloads

 

I forgotten to mention some things in my first post on this forum and that was that me and my dad had cut out other pieces of the mini in the classic spots.

 

We decided to cut the drivers side scuttle to see what mess was underneath. It wasn't too bad so I used a wire wheel in a drill removed all the rust and then used some rattle can primer to keep the rust away.

 

 Drivers side scuttle panel.jpg   25.56K   0 downloads

 

Parts of the inner sill will need repairing as i can see some holes in it but all in all the inner sills are holding up quite well. I also decided to cut out the rotten front floor pan. The fit up of the new panel isn't great at the moment because they are magnum but ill make them work somehow.

 

 Drivers side inner sill.jpg   23.55K   1 downloads

 

 Drivers side floorpan.jpg   26.4K   1 downloads

 

The passenger scuttle has had a bit of a beating between the rust and the sanding disk has made a couple of holes in it. Im thinking of replacing the whole scuttle and panel beneath them?? any thoughts??

 

 Passenger side scuttle panel.jpg   20.19K   0 downloads

 

Both flitch panel i believe they're called need a bit of tlc so i didn't bother wire brushing it down and waste primer if I'm cutting it out.

 

 Passenger side front heelboard.jpg   32.85K   0 downloads

 

 Drivers side door pannel.jpg   27.61K   0 downloads

 

I did spend a lot of time with the drill with the wire brush on the top part of the engine bay and on both inner wings (forgot to take photos of the inner wings I'll add them in the next update)

 

 Rust removal engine bay.jpg   30.72K   0 downloads

 

OMD this was a pain in the butt. I removed all the the mixture of paint and filler from the rain gutter (as mentioned in the previous list of odd jobs. I know for a fact that welding/repairing this was going tobe very difficult.

 

 Roof rain gutter.jpg   19.43K   0 downloads

 

That's it for today. Hope everyone is okay and is keeping busy.

 

Hope everyone has enjoyed part 2. More to come soon. Until next time  

 

[Junior Mini]

Welcome to the forum! You could get a complete windscreen surround which includes the gutter? https://www.minispar...px|Back to shop

[Jewson16]

Welcome to the forum! You could get a complete windscreen surround which includes the gutter? https://www.minispar...px|Back to shop

This probably would be the best option but I'm on a tight budget. So I'll see where I'm at when it come to it. Thank you for your suggestion much appreciated