Mini Mayfair Fix Up

[arceye]

Well, the mini suffered a 3 week delay as i stupidly let the boy have my Merc E300 in exchange for a Volvo s80 D5 that apparently needed an alternator. The alternator was the easy bit, after three weeks of misery chasing the vacuum system and sorting out the intercooler pipework, cleaning the diesel tank and in tank pump (twice), that car still refuses to go more than a couple of miles before suffering fueling issues.

I parked it up a week ago in disgust, and there it can stay, effing piece of 12 year old "modern" junk.

So, I haven't got a car at the moment and am not currently in the mood to start chasing any other modern rubbish.

So, project "mini emergency" was born a week ago, hopefully in a few weeks I will be driving about in her, at least if I can find enough hours to get the thing done, the weather is going bad up here and me only have two wheeled transport should keep me motivated. The boys mini has been bunged outside under a sheet for now to give me space and so it is all systems go.

So....

Last weeks work was

To fit the A panel and repair the door sill step, If I had time on my side I'd have bought a step but for the sake of finances and speed I have to work with what I have about.



You can see some of the expanding foam some heathen has put in there in the past appearing in the footwell of the car...

and more door step repairs





and cleaned up



So it was time to get onto the back side panel that harboured not much more than filler at the bottom

That was cut away along with some sill in order to make some rudimentary repairs to the bracing round the subframe mount at the same time



With that done I made a repair section





Welded up one spot at a time but even then I got a small amount of distortion in the panel but not enough to be a problem so all well.





And so it was time to take off the oversill that had been fitted to repair the car at some point, this is what was below it



Despite the sill still being solid it was causing more harm than good like that.

The remnants of original sill, more expanding foam and all vestiges of the over sill were removed and things cleaned up a bit


as I have oversills but not the proper short items that allow ventilation I cut one down to make an "original"





The new sill was fitted with seam welds at the bottom where it it meets the inner sill and plug welds along the top where it meets the seam of the door step / back panel. I don't have a photo of that but it is on now. I'll try to get a photo of it when I remember.

Anyway, grot was present just below the rear side window so that was cut out



then new metal welded in and cleaned up




More to follow soon I'm aiming for a mid November finish if I can only find the time, fingers crossed for me chaps, the motorbike really needs to go away soon, and I can only get the wife out of the house when the boy is home with my old car......

[arceye]

So, Pressing on I shall get us bang up to date.

I noticed that even in the garage, any fresh steel was getting a very light flash coat of rust within a day or two, I suppose it is just that time of year.

I thought I had better get what I have done to now protected, so I got the halogen heater warming the garage and did a little prep work with filler and then primed and painted the drivers side, then with door refitted, painted it again.

The filler prep could have been a little better, but by the time it is t cut and polished it will be perfectly acceptable and will at least do for this winter. I did a little stone chip coating as well while I was at it.





and here is a picture of the sill as promised



I decided to stick with the red as it saves me doing the odd little internal bits, I had planned to get a little more serious but as I need the car now these little things help. I went to the local parts shop which isn't exactly the biggest place but have started to mix paint on the premises. The colour is Targa Red (or at least should be), but when the mix came out it was a little to brown and while it is a bit terracotta the paint mix was way out. Anyway, I just got them to throw a bit more red in until it reached a shade I can live with, it isn't too bad really, and we have the recipe for when I want more



I thought I had better photograph the lid before I lost the recipe....

The plan now is to work across the front of the car and hopefully be far enough on over the week that I can get my boy lifting the engine in and setting up some running gear at the weekend, we shall call it penance for palming of the dodgy volvo on his dad. I have ordered a clutch plate, thrust release bearing and a few other bits so if they come and I get my bit done we should be able to push it on a bit.

I trimmed off and welded in a new gutter on the front windscreen scuttle, then chopped out some grot from the nearside of the scuttle



A quick fab up of a new splash / closing plate to go under the scuttle and a dose of cleaning up and hammerite followed



and a repair piece for the scuttle going in



Thats it to now, lots to do but I'll hopefully be back with more progress to report in the next day or two.

[JPB]

Good work there, Mr Eye. I would love to gather together all of the people who used those wretched deep cover sills on minis over the years and dangle the lot of them from a fence in the way that a farmer does with his captured crows! Well done for doing the job properly, it'll be some time before that lot needs serious attention again so thanks to you, another mini is saved. This is a good thing.

Regarding the modern Swedish sack of Autoshite, look on the bright side. they're quite heavy so you can't lose too much into it.
Has some teuchter been running it on something inappropriate? Hang him or her up along by the dead crows and sill bodgers.

[arceye]

Cheers John, I know I'm being a bit of a heathen myself with the fibreglass front, but waste not want not as they say and it isn't anything that can't be re done if desired at a later date. At least I'm keeping the inner wings. The rest of the car really does have to pass muster structurally as I don't want to revisit things any sooner than need be.

I think the Volvo has a chequered history of fueling, judging by the bits of crap and even pebbles we pulled out of the tank. I'm actually confident that with a bit more effort we could get her up and going but I have lost the love for it. With a bit of luck there may be a lad coming tomorrow night with a couple of hundred notes to take it away and suffer the pain himself, fingers crossed on that one.

Anyway, just a little more progress tonight,

I finished welding in the scuttle end



Then did a small patch on the inner wing



Thats it for pictures tonight but while I was out there I gave things a good clean up around the wheelarch / footwell area and was pleasantly surprised not to find a hole on this side

That is coated with hammerite now which will get stone chipped when dry, I have also started cleaning up the engine bay ready for some rust and paint treatment tomorrow.

Hopefully I can have that complete tomorrow ready to start down the nearside of the car.

[tractorman]

I confess that I'd be using weld-through primer and loads of "Waxoyl" (or better equivalent) rather than Hammerite - though realise that it's often a case of using what's available (hence my VW Tornado red alternator mounting plate).

It also reminds me of why my Hornet was scrapped... and why I hate Minis!!

However, there's some nice metalwork going on there and at least another "classic" is saved. I'm glad to see some decent support for the front end too (not everyone did that back in the sixties/seventies )

[arceye]

Yes, got to admit weld through would be nice but as it is not available locally, and the £60 a week budget I have promised the other half I won't go above, is already stretched a little thin given the timescale and engine conversion / mechanicals. In fact the entire weeks budget this week has already gone to Mini Spares as will next weeks. Besides that tin of silver has been sat on a shelf for about five years so it seemed a good chance to be rid of it

I will however be investing in serious amounts of waxoyl when the car is finished in just about every place possible except for the exposed areas where it could actually get on us

I am still saying this is one of the solider minis I have had the privilege of owning, I don't know if that says more about the cars I buy or the minis propensity to rust from every seam and joint.

I have driven a mini with knackered front subframe mounts, and yes, there is definitely a need for that bracing..

Ah well, a bit of housework then back on it

[tractorman]

Yep, I thought the Hammerite was used for the same reason that I used some on the Landy - though I will have had mine on the shelf a while longer and still have an unopened tin that I bought to touch up the gate posts about eight years ago - I'd forgotten that I had the opened tin!

I use a lot of aerosol cans (U-Pol) of various primers as it's convenient to use for an odd small patch and Halfords are on the route to/from my preferred supermarket, pet food supplier, B&Q and Maplins (the last three are almost side by side on a very small trading estate of four shops!). The snag is that they aren't necessarily cheap at about £15.00 per can, so I sometimes go to other motor factors and probably pay a few pennies less - but a pound or two in diesel to get there!

I had a one-piece front on the Wolseley (someone reversed into me and cracked the front end along the "flange" for the front bumper where it bends up to the front wings! I didn't put any bracing in it (I was young and daft), but it was scrapped before the front end started to buckle!

Housework - ah yes, I did clean some greasy spots of the back bedroom carpet yesterday! The back bedroom is my "railway and electronic stuff" workshop and I had been stripping the Landy's instrument panel wiring - it's amazing how much oil gets in and around insulating tape The really annoying thing is that it was the best carpet in the house. I suspect I am lucky though - my "partner" is the one who causes all the mess: an old dog who leaves lots of white hairs on dark carpets (and black ones on the light carpet) and Bonio crumbs all over the place!

That reminds me, she hasn't had her morning Bonio yet. She will not be amused!

[arceye]

Well the front end is pretty much ready to accept the engine so just a few more jobs and I can get on to the nearside.

I cleaned up the engine bay and gave it a lick of paint, nothing fancy but it looks respectably tidy, clean, and it gave me a chance to treat a bit of surface rust, I also stone chipped the nearside inner wing / wheel arch area.

Sorry for the blurry photos, the super duper all singing all dancing fancy camera does not like low light levels (and today has ben wet windy and bloody dismal) unless you turn the flash off and let it take a longer exposure, that and my hands don't go well together.

Anyway, here are the pics,







I then remembered I had intended to fit a small plate to the A panels where the bottom of the fibreglass front will meet with them to give me something to fix to. So that buggered up the paint on the drivers side A panel then, but that can be put right easily enough.

These are the plates I quickly made for the job



and here is one fitted



So, I then got on with the windscreen scuttle prep / filler work and gave that a coat of primer ready for the topcoat tomorrow, no photos of that yet as my internet is rubbish tonight and I can't upload to photobucket again...

Anyway, piccies of the scuttle / screen surround tomorrow all being well, that will just leave me a couple of bolts to do on the bracing bars and then I can move on down the side.

[arceye]

It is amazing how my computer can upload at light speed in the mornings, slowly after dinner, and often not at all after tea time.

So a photo of the skimmed and primed scuttle area that will get some top coat later.

[TerryG]

Looking good
You are keeping up amazing progress.
Bodywork is my least favourite thing, I have to do an hour then go away for a bit or I get annoyed.