118 replies to this topic

[Sir Cheat]

Any updates Tom?

[tomgale]

now you mention it sir cheat, i have been waiting to finish a patch on the back:

well upon closer inspection of the right hand side of the rear panel has been dented in and is mostly made up of filler; methinks a crash has occured at some point

the bottom of this side was very corroded and full of holes and other nastiness, so out came the grinder and off came the skank: (you can just about see the bit we cut off on the right)


so we made up a patch: held in with clamps:


tacked in:


welded up:


ground down:




and finaly primered:




as you can see the filler is pretty thick here and a little bit of rust is forming underneath i cant afford to repair the panel so a good quality filler repair will be in order when respray time finaly comes around. thats all for now as the welder we borrowed has been returned to my mate, so progress from now will be in reconditioning and rebuilding both subframes from my extensive piles of spares as at some point in a few months we will hopefully be moving to congelton where we will build a new house (with a double garage for the mini )

[sharps555]

surely in the long run it would be better to fix the panel now whilst you have it in this condition then later on :s

[tomgale]

its not too bad, not properly rusty just a bit lumpy and uneven, still strong though and the budget is very tight so dont think itl be replaced might try to smoothen it out myself though.

[Sir Cheat]

Keep us up dated Tom, Good Luck with the new house!

[tomgale]

cheers!, if it happens then the garage might have an inspection pit!! makes me happy

[davethemini1293]

looking good tom, keep it up...

[Down&Out]

Nice to see someone, of the same age, doing such good work.

Your welding is good .

Keep it up!

[daemonchild]

Good stuff man! Good stuff.

[tomgale]

cheers everyone!! nice to have encoragement!! my friends think im a mental case and that the mini is a "rustbucket deathtrap" but they know nothing!! and when i finish it before im 18 dave owes me a fiver!!me welds arnt that great, bit messy but the camera is quite flattering, shame ive had to give the welder back really, half term next week, might try and borrow someone elses for a few days or see if ben is using it.

[tomgale]

well today i got a letter from the DVLA saying they were 'procesing' my V5 request (the previous owner lost it and i applyed for a new one several weeks ago) and as it happens the mini is not one of the first mayfairs but one of the last HLEs so now the project thread title is a bit wrong.

[Down&Out]

cheers everyone!! nice to have encoragement!! my friends think im a mental case and that the mini is a "rustbucket deathtrap" but they know nothing!! and when i finish it before im 18 dave owes me a fiver!!me welds arnt that great, bit messy but the camera is quite flattering, shame ive had to give the welder back really, half term next week, might try and borrow someone elses for a few days or see if ben is using it.

Yeah well my 'friends' think i've "broken" it and think it will "never be finished" because they're thick skulled morons who don't understand the concept of restoration.

Keep at it, half term should give me a chance to do something useful as well .

[tomgale]

yeah lol

[tomgale]

update!

its been a while, hasnt it, it was october when i last updated. any way, i got lots of shiney new stuff for christmas:

new panels, brake stuff, pliers, wire wheels and a welding magnet.

anyway, since my mate wanted his welder back for his rusty old car ive been doing mechanical stuff, a pair of radius arms have been cleaned, repainted and given new pins and bearings, reamed out by the very helpfull local garage for only £20 for the pair. i havent got any pictures of these because i forgot. however i have got pictures of the main thing ive been doing, refurbing one of the 8.4 inch disk setups that came with the car, they did both look like this:



in short: quite skanky. and the pistons were seized. so we stripped them down, ground off all the rust same with the hubs and the drive flange and gave them all some shiney new paint. then the calipers were given all new pistons and seals, the hub had new oil seals and the bearings were cleaned and repacked with grease, its incredible how much fits in there! there are new studs and new hub to caliper bolts. i also replaced the ball joints and lapped them in with grinding paste. so this is what it looks like now:

(its balanced on a wheel because i dont want it to touch the ground, it could get dirty.)


i think it looks the dogs, personally. I offered the setup up to the 10inch weller to see what it loos like and to check clearance, althogh it does clear the out side of the rim(just) it is fouling on the balancing weights. we are going to try and get them rebalenced with the weights only on the front of the wheel but we will have to put on small spacers anyway. this is making the mini wider, and wider... i lined up a weller with a standard steel(on the ofset) and added an inch for the disks and a bit more for the spacers, its going to be a good 4-5 inches wider than standard on each side. im gonna need lots, and lots of ball joints .....

comments always welcome, tom

Edited by tomgale, 16 January 2010 - 03:56 PM.

[tomgale]

right, ive got some pictures of my radius arms all cleaned up and nice:

an old arm (for comparison)


and next too the newly finished arms:



the arms have new brake lines, bleed nipples, cylinder clips and handbrake gators.


everything else has been removed, cleaned and repainted before being replaced, like the adjuster screw and wedges.



the new brake lines. mmmmm braided steel


and new pads and clips fitted to the front disk assembaly which is completed:


the other front hub is on its way to completion, but im going to do do some bodywork soon as i borrowed the welder of my mate, unfortunately we did have to lend them the tourque wrench in return so reasembaling things could prove intresting, and i cant for the life of me find the new set of oil seals i bought for the other caliper.

tom.