23 replies to this topic

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Shes fat!!! i like it.

[minibazzer]

great work there!! my mate (andy_autogass) is building a Domino Premier Plus from scratch and I will start my build of a standard mini soon. we are progressing nicely with the build but have come up against numerous problems mainly because of a lack of build manual or information. although a lot of things are "standard mini" there are some things that arent and need figuring out - such as the front shock absorber mounts have to be swapped from left to right!

all the work that has been done to date can be seen in the post "Something Different". its nice to find someone else on here with a Domino! it would be good if there is any information that you think relevant to our build that you could pass on....

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Lovely Car, Saw it yesterday at Bw, has to been seen to belive the quality of it

[atom]

Time for an update!

After several months of running the engine in, getting the MJ ignition system set up, and other minor adjustments, I decided it was time to tackle the doors... again.

Originally, I'd done a quick refurb of the Domino's half metal/half fibreglass doors - removing rust from the metal, rebuilding cracked sections, etc. But one problem that I wasn't able to solve was that of the drivers side door simply not fitting very well. The upper frame stuck out a fair bit, causing much annoyance whenever it rained. Not wanting to totally remove and re-bond the fibreglass outer section of the doors, I wasn't able to bend the frame into place.
Another problem had also slowly been getting worse - the fibreglass outer was separating itself from the metal inner, despite my best attempts at rust proofing.

Rather than attempt to patch up the problem, I decided to start from scratch, with a pair of fully fibreglass doors that I'd modify to fit: in short, the removal of around two inches from the bottom of each door, plus the addition of the Domino's trademark sill 'bulge'. With the disappearance of Domino Cars, there was little chance of finding new outer door shells - the simplest solution, I decided, was to just cut this detail from my existing doors and attach it to the new.

I got the doors themselves from this forum - 'The Arc Angels' provided a pair with thick fibreglass walls, along with a smart looking solution to the door opening and locking mechanism. Seemed a real shame to have to cut them up!

Polycarbonate windows would also be necessary with these doors - although in my opinion, fitting heavy glass windows into fibreglass doors would be a mistake anyway. Plastics 4 Performance supplied the windows, standard 4mm polycarbonate with little lockable sliders. These would also need a fair amount of trimming to fit - in order to maximise the strength of the doors, the entire window frames were solid.

So, to photos (I've linked to them to save a bit of page loading)!

Untouched doors,

Marking the section to be removed...

... and, with help from a jigsaw, the end result!

Butchering the existing doors - there's no turning back now.

Test fitting the bulge on one of the new doors,

Making the mountings for the polycarbonate windows - these would be screwed and bonded onto the door frame.

Shaping the old fibreglass pieces to fit flush against the new Arc Angels doors.

Epoxy putty is a very handy substance when shaping large areas...

Next step... cutting the windows down to shape, and getting to doors off to painted (not to mention a new clutch and flywheel needing to be be fitted). Hopefully this will all be done before the next West Kent run on the 15th of Feb.

[Saxo-Fiesta-Mini]

good work i like it

[atom]

Polycarbonate windows arrived, and I've started cutting them down to size. They need reducing in height as well as width, meaning the corner also needs to be re-shaped.

An uncut window on top of a door. Quite a lot of polycarbonate needs to be lost!


One down, one to go.

Just how practical the sliding windows prove to be on a road car remains to be seen. But I think they're going to look interesting!

Weight-wise, a fibreglass door plus polycarbonate window weighs just a bit more than an empty metal door. These are the Arc Angels heavier doors, with especially thick fibreglass in the important locations.

Edited by atom, 30 January 2009 - 01:07 PM.

[atom]

Good news - the doors went off to be painted last week. Bad news - the snow hit, and they were hit by a power cut. Assuming the doors get painted next week, I'm not going to be left with much time to fit the windows, re-attach the doors to the car and get the clutch and flywheel sorted before next weekend's West Kent run.

Fingers are crossed.


Anyway, here are the doors as they were, ready to be painted. The bag contains wing mirrors that will be painted the same colour.

Meanwhile, I've been painting the black border around the edge of the windows, hiding the mounting brackets and matching the black borders on the rear polycarbonate quarterlights.

It's black plasti-dip, which gives a rubbery end result. And which stinks.

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Nice mate. didnt see this update before I have a dvd to give you from the West kent run when i was with you for a bit. Next time mate

[feybrand]

good work on the car so far its not my cup of tea but the things you have done have made it look better so youre going in the right direction and its fairly unique youre unlikely to see another one in youre local area
keep it up