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Rab the Mini interior upgrade


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#1 Boab

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Posted 19 January 2005 - 10:07 PM

My mini as it was.
My Webpage

It looks good but not the look I am after.

I am after a more sutle looking interior. I have sourced the material to do it but I'm still waiting for a few things to arrive. A top rail and lots of clocks bought of ebay as a job lot.

All the carpets will be removed and the floor-pan sanded, sealed and painted.
New underlay and black carpet with blue mats.
Seats could possibly be recovered in black leatherette.
Dash is going to be home made using plans off the forum. Covered in black, padded vinyl sourced locally for £10 a metre. (Dash, door cards and rear quarter panels)
A new steering wheel in blue leather.
Highly polished aluminium heater cover and starter button control panel.
Undecided whether to have totally black door cards or have them black and blue or black, and highly polished aluminium.
New seat harnesses, in blue of course.
I have the ICE already, 12 disc JVC and head unit, but need to find the ideal location for best sound as they were in the pods on the doors, as you can see in the picture, but they blocked the bass out. Possibly, I'll make a box for a sub woofer to sit in the middle of the rear seats.
Refit the headliner properly, and clean it when it is iff.
New seals all round to make the cabin totally water proof, as it has a few leaks at the moment.

Once this is being done by me, my spare engine is going to be undergoing a total rebuild. Possibly 1380cc with all the necessary bits being lightened and balanced, but this is the expensive bit so I will need to think what I would like.
Turbo Phils' engine would be nice. :P How about it Phil????? :thumbsup: :)

Well, thats it for now. I will keep you up to date with the progress and pictures. Wish me luck.

#2 Pavel

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Posted 19 January 2005 - 10:57 PM

Good luck with it, keep us posted!

Replacing all the seals is a definitely good idea! I'd check your floors and sills don't need welding since it would be a shame to rip out all that nice carpet if you discover rust in the future

#3 Boab

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Posted 22 January 2005 - 01:43 AM

Lots of clocks arrived yesterday. Majority are Smiths, so once I have the correct setup I am looking for, at least 3 sets of speedo, temp & feul and rev clocks will be going up for sale at around £30 a set. Just need my top dash rail now to get the correct measurements, as the plans on this forum measure up short. Some of the measurements don't make sense anyway.
The carb is nearly sorted once I setup the mixture, then it will run sweet. Still a little lumpy when cold.
One thing I forgot to mention is that the wheels will be refurbed as well to get that extra "bling" factor.

#4 Boab

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 05:07 PM

Took some more pics today. Just to let you see what I have to deal with. The floorpan is not as bad as the pic suggests, a bit of sanding and hammerite will sort it. The dash is a quick fix until I get my passat back from having the cylinder head skimmed. All in all not that bad so far.

Click here for minipics webpage

#5 Boab

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 05:12 PM

They all seem to be called Ella. Thats the mother in laws name. aaaaaggggghhhhh. Poor wee Rab :thumbsup:

#6 Pavel

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 08:06 PM

Looking good :thumbsup:

Floors dont look too bad at all, but hard to say wihtout a poke + wire wheel :]
I think you should put a bit of a curve on the dash (which incidentally is VERY similar to the one I'm making!), which the MDF should take without too much trouble...

Get some black vinyl door cards with horizontal lines for the doors, that'll look real nice!
Invest in an Mk1 grille + moustache IMHO, it'll look really good.

P.S. What happened to the awesome spotlights?

#7 Boab

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 08:26 PM

They were not sold with the car

#8 Teapot

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 11:20 PM

Small world, isn't it?
Posted Image
Thought I recognised your nice mini from a couple of years back on its way to Trevelgue on the Riv Run....
Or is it another car altogether?
Happy motrin! :tongue:

#9 Madmax

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 12:04 AM

hey rab looks good, hope to see the car in the brands hatch to nurburgring run!!! :thumbsup:

#10 Boab

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 08:59 PM

Small world, isn't it?
Posted Image
Thought I recognised your nice mini from a couple of years back on its way to Trevelgue on the Riv Run....
Or is it another car altogether?
Happy motrin! :tongue:

Thats the car. The grill gives it away. The number was changed to the year it was manufactured. 83. It has had a respray since then though and it is now Dodge Viper blue. A lot of the stickers have gone.

#11 Al*

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Posted 28 January 2005 - 01:25 AM

that was in the mini mag wasn't it? a year ago? :lol:

nice car though. :wink:

Al

#12 clubman_dan

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Posted 28 January 2005 - 10:41 AM

yeah i was gonna say i though i saw that car in one of the mini mags

#13 Boab

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Posted 28 January 2005 - 04:38 PM

One of the mags in Feb 2004. :grin:

#14 Boab

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Posted 03 February 2005 - 05:54 PM

Interior work starts on Monday. :grin:

#15 Boab

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Posted 07 February 2005 - 09:06 PM

Well, the interior work started today. The previous owners had made a right balls up of the footwells. There are five holes, 50p size, 4 of them have metal plates which had been stuck down with mastick. Unfortunatley, this has deteriorted over the years and water has been getting in. These will be sanded, rustproofed, fibreglassed and hammerite the end product. To make matters worse, I had to chip away the covering in the footwells as the water had got underneath it. The rear is in good nick.

The wiring loom has been untangled and most of the wiring has been identified to the coorect switches. Only two sets of red and black wires with spade terminals on go nowhere. I need to find whether they are live or not. Now the interior wiring is almost sorted, I will atempt to trace which wires go to what fuse.

Will post some pics tomorrow :cry:




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