32 replies to this topic

[Steam]

Its just a fancier way than drilling extra holes in the original box and lightening the wallet.

[stuart bowes]

to be fair though it does look better than a box with a load of holes drilled in it

 

we've all done it at some point no doubt but it does look a bit home-brew doesn't it

[lippo]

 Decided to sort out the gear change, which had become very sloppy. It went into gear fine, but once there, the stick would be able to be moved around, probably around 8 inches or so from side to side and forwards and backwards.

 

 Thanks, as usual, to this excellent forum and the immensely helpful posts and guides, I was able to do it.

 

 You can see how worn out the yoke was. Those roll pins were an absolute bugger to remove, they were jammed in. A mixture of drilling and smashing with a big hammer did the trick. My Mini Spares roll pin drift was bent beyond recognition. Lots of very old grease in there. The bushes were very worn too. I used an identical sized drift to carefully remove the old bushes, and the nut/bolt/washer trick to get the new one in.  

 

 

 

 

 All lubed up and ready to install. The gear change is much tighter and engaging. Definitely worth the effort.

 

 

 I also developed a leak from the left hand side brake pipe union. I'm not surprised, as the pipe didn't look original and seemed to be a little shorter than the replacement. The bend by the nut was too close to the nut and I think it was preventing an effective seal. It was leaking from within the nut so I assumed the flare had been damaged on the upper part. I did try some blue brake thread seal out of curiosity, but the leak wasn't coming from the thread in the end so it was rather pointless.

 

 

 

 I fitted the new Mini Spares supplied front brake hose and the brakes now work perfectly and no leaks.

 

 

 I twiddled with the mixture on the carb and now the spark plugs are losing more healthy, unless you can tell me otherwise?

 

 

It's not lost on me that I owned a couple of minis in the 80's and 90's and did a lot of work on them, but I never attempted to do any of the things I've done on this mini.

 

 Next steps could be an AFR gauge and a decent cylinder head, I like the look of the Turbo-Mini fast road one so we'll see what happens. 

Edited by lippo, 07 June 2025 - 07:20 PM.