118 replies to this topic

[tomgale]

update:

got welding the boot back together, so another patch was welded in the right wheelarch:


my mate matt welding a new patch on the left hand lower rear panel:


the patch:


thats all welded in and ground down now, very happy with it.

then we could get on with welding in the boot floor repair panel in:

before:


and now, tacked in by me:



the panel has had to be much modified due to typical pattern panel quality of fit.





not all bodywork though:

old top arm waiting for cleaning and paint:


and its counter-part having recived the first coat:


trunnions cleaned and given a first coat:


and the other brake caliper, cleaned up with new pistons and seals, with braided hoses waiting for when there on the car:


need to get hold of a bumper to make sure the rear panel is correctly aligned as it looks a bit of an odd angle and has a lot of play, then rear valance and closing panels can go on.

comments welcome,
tom.

[MateyTheMini]

Looking good Can't wait to see the finishing product!

[tomgale]

thanks matey!

anyway, today we seam welded the boot repair in:





its really nice to be putting it back together properly much better than taking stuff off!

that will be ground back and seam sealed soon.

patch for the left hand floor in:


now, with the help of my little brother, the rest of the front suspension stuff is painted:



bar a another coat on some that is all front and rear subframe suspension and brake components cleaned, refurbed and ready for assembaly.

getting new knuckes as these are the ones we removed:


one on the left showing the wear, one on the right actually ok but removed using "my method"

detail of the patch in the left hand bumper lip i forgot to take a picture of yesterday:


and finaly, may have left welding helmet borrowed from a mate next to one of our halogen spotlamps for a few to many seconds:


the halogens are incredible, when i have one in the boot to help me see when im welding im more worried about it burning me then the welder! both have broken bulbs now unfortunatly.

tom.

[Mini Basher]

Excellent work, lots of welding in of new panels, just what the doctoer ordered, nice welding , keep up the good woork

Andy

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Good work mate.

[tomgale]

thanks andy and craig! positive feedback is always nice!

anyway rain and me being out all day has ment no welding today, however all the components have had a second coat and i started attaching trunnions, bushes and brake lines to the rear subby:

(that side has a new pin, its very shiney. the other dosent unfortunatly.)



cant find the shorter brake line at the mo, but we will pull the car out tomorrow and im sure it'l turn up.

that subframe was painted in july and has no corrosion at all so the paint is working! only thing it has gained was a spider's nest which i have removed now

hopefully another update tomorrow,
tom.

[tomgale]

hopefully another update tomorrow,
tom.

yeah, that kinda didnt happen, i should know better than to promise progress.

well i suppose i should provide everything ive done in the month and a half following my hopefull end to my last post.....

but the truth is, not a lot has. ive had exams, and revision and coursework and a whole host of other rubbish which has got in the way.


however: i have done i tiny bit this easter holiday, not much, granted, but some. progress has been somewhat hindered by having to do a full gearbox and cluch swap on my dads van (without so much as a haynes manual, in one weekend), a one week holiday to cornwall, starting work on my new house (with a double garage ) and most recently a new cousin!

enough excuses!! progress!!




the mini has been tipped on it's side:




this has of course exposed some of the more 'unusual' work of my predecessors:

the flitch panel is an absoulte bodge, but i havent got any pictures at the moment,

the rot around the subby mounts is bad:


as is the drivers foot well (at least it isnt bolted on like the passengers)


i have also started patching the rear sub rear mounting points but forgot to take pictures.

tom.

[tomgale]

right, here is what i did last weekend (i just forgot to upload )

because we are moving soon it is nessecary for the mini to be made rolling fairly quickly. i used this as an excuse to bolt together my front subframe:




hubs all shiney and built up on the frame:



top arm is not bolted in properly, cant find the little bolts so will order them soon.
(sorry about the dog in some of the photos, she's a nosey bugger)

might not be able to get more done for a bit, got 4 weeks to the exams and apparently i should be revising, not welding. but after that aside from working a few days a week im free all summer!!

also if a mod sees this could you change the mayfair part of the thread description to HLE please, thanks!

tom.

[tomgale]

right here is what we did a few days ago:

chop off the oversils..






have got inner and outer sills (proper vented ones) but cant seem to find the stiffener brackets each end of the sill, any ideas on where to get them? and what they are for?

also a patch on the rear subframe mount i did ages ago and forgot to take a picture off:


this afternoon we got the engine out of the shed and hoisted it onto the table:

started stripping it down


head came off, as did all the rocker gear and valves, manifold, pushrods and covers.

engine seems fine, just a bit grubby. probably hasnt been cleaned for the best part of 30 years.
head was cleaned up with gunk, hosed down and left to dry:


now i need to know if the head is unleaded or leaded, i have no idea how to tell if it has been converted, would have been leaded out of the factory. what should i look at to try and figure it out?

thanks for looking,
tom.

[tomgale]

small update,

yesterday we started trying to get the clutch off. removed the clutch cover, (4 bolts were missing from the bottom, and one snapped off. looks like bodgy previous owner only did up the ones he could reach ) and attached a halfords 'mini flywheel puller'not sure if it ment it was for minis or just small, but it worked well after a huge amount of force was put on it.


we spent ages trying to figure it out before we realised that the 'haynes mini restoration guide' only had early type clutches in it. used my dads old autodata book from 1984.


then i took off the flywheel housing:




there is some play on the idler and transfer gears, is this acceptable?
over the next few days i hope to split the block (as soon as i can find somwhere to put it)
thanks for looking,
tom.

[tomgale]

right, update: i split the block:





and cleaned it up:


that yellow paint, although skanky, has survived quite well. oh well, i painted it black:


i liked it in black, a lot. so i painted the timing cover too:


i also polished the clutch cover and flywheel housing, because i can and it looks damn good!



these shiney bits will be bolted to a guessworks 'box when i get round to ordering it. also remember this?

its a standard leaded a+ head, all-in-all: rubbish. so i bought this of a nice man called paul on here and had it relayed up to me by various family members (many of whom were over 80 ):

its a 12g295, unleaded, with new valve seats, springs and guides from slarks (came with a recipt) and not been used since! i think ive blagged myself a bargin here!

then my friend with a welder let us have it again and we started to confront the flakey orange mess which is the mini's underside:

then we cut a lot of it off:


soon i will start to fill these rather large holes with metal!

[matty121]

awesome project keep it up!

[tomgale]

awesome project keep it up!

thank you!, have just noticed that the paint on the block looks awfull and you can see the yellow through it, belive me in real life it looks solid, camera must have picked something up

[tomgale]

sills! kind of. cut more of the bodged floorpan away, (3 layers thick in places)


and welded in the new inner sill after cutting it carefully to follow the remains of the original.



then i cleaned up the fuel pump, not sure if its the right one because its different to the one in the haynes manual and on minispares but oh well



then we decided to sort the gap beetween the bottom of the new sill and the good metal with a rather epic patch:



(arty fading into the distance shot by accident:)


that patch runs diagonally accross a 'bulge' in the floorpan and down the other side and includes the bit where the 'bulge' becomes flat and was quite difficult to make, we're very pleased with it (though worryingly the pattern inner sills seem to be half as thin as the floor metal ^^ that patch is made from an offcut of inner sill)

then i got a minispares order, brilliant service was dispatched monday, arrived wednesday(with a part missing but one fax and we recived a phone call saying it was entirely their fault and the part arrived on friday with a note saying 'apologies on it') couldnt ask for better! with my new floorpan and lots of shiney for various parts including the engine build!
and this water pump, which was shiney so i wanted to see what it looked like:

[tomgale]

ohh, havent updated this in a while! massive update will be here in the next few hours..