1065 replies to this topic

[Kam]

Keep the cabin of yours pink if you add pink bits to your engine bay your gonna get a slap mate

Its borderline enough putting that green paint on a vauxhall engine!!! How dare you!

Hows the exams going or are you wasting your time on this forum?

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Powdercoater? Can you do wheels?

[Kam]

Craig - I don't do powdercoating, the guys up in teeside so its a bit of a trek!

Best bet to look for local folk to do the wheels, not gonna be purple are they? pink I can understand but purple? c'mon!

[Burnard]

Keep the cabin of yours pink if you add pink bits to your engine bay your gonna get a slap mate

Its borderline enough putting that green paint on a vauxhall engine!!! How dare you!

Hows the exams going or are you wasting your time on this forum?

exams were over a month ago

Im guessing you havent seen my lastest project haha.

Edited by Burnard, 27 July 2011 - 09:16 AM.

[Kam]

Yeah been a while since I took exams

I'll chime in yours now and see what the hell your upto!

[Kam]

Right, I've managed to weld another nut on top of the goosed one in the rear subframe, not exactly alot of room to clean it up to get good metal on it to weld or even weld the nut itself but a dremel and a drill attachment worked

Rear subframe all ready to go back in, gave it another coat of waxoil spray



All in and finally done



I've left the rear ARB unattached at the blades, will leave it like this for whoever sets it up for me, that kinda stuff is out of my jurisdication!

Then, well not sure really, I have literally run out of things to do I'm still waiting on the engine to be built so I'm at a standstill until thats here, the rad will be done next week and I haven't chased up on the exhaust yet but them both being here don't help me out

So I decided to take the 1.8 type-r out and take the front subframe off for a clean up (really clutching at straws now!)





With the front frame off it at least gave me a chance to replace one of the brake pipes, nothing wrong with the old one but its the only pipe that was still factory



Then chucked some paint on the underside of the bulkhead and inner wings to clean it up a bit and decided sod it, so I'll threw some on the frame



Ran out of paint! so will commence again when I can be bothered with the ghastly blue

[Burnard]

KAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Whats on the front cover of the mag with the ARB guide in it?

Cheers babe.

[Kam]

For the KAD bar its in the Miniworld October 2010 issue - silver aussie mk1 vtec mini on the front titled *Modified to the max*

For the Minispares one its in the Minimag June 2011 issue - two red minis (obviously!) on the front titled *Family fortunes*

Ping! You have mail......

Edited by Kam, 16 August 2011 - 04:32 PM.

[j-b_2009]

read most of this today (MUST get a life ) really nice project, ill be using it as a reference

[Kam]

Thanks for the kind words j-b

I know its alot of waffle on this build diary but I've never made any apologies for that, its like that for a reason, you see before I bought this mini I had never held an angle grinder/welder etc before? I have always paid someone else to do any work on any of my previous cars (I've had about 15 or so now) so to say I'm pleased with myself I managed to get a 1.6 in with a clubman front on the road is a bit of a huge understatement, if I manage to get the 2.0 in and working with a standard roundnose then cue some more pleaseness (word?) I will be bigging myself up for sure!

I've gone into OTT detail on this diary to hopefully help anyone who might be in the same situation as I was, about 98% of the 1.6 build was done by me on my todd, unfortunately theres not anyone here I can ask to hold this or that, so if someone is wondering whether they can do it then if you got the time/space and money then yeah you can, I've proved that and aint done yet

[Kam]

Right, this is my first update since the forum has changed, so if any bits are missing or dont make sense then blame admin and not me

Managed to finally get the front subframe painted up, then decided to be brave and make some cushioning for it......the top large tower mount bolt is mounted solidly to the frame with Allspeeds own solid collar, but the rear of the front subframe which attaches to the underside of the body is mounted directly to the body itself so vibrations is always gonna be eminent. I found this with the 1.6 in there, idle was rattly etc

Now my idea is either: a huge waste of time, hilarious, interesting, might work, or all them put together? but I thought sod it, lets see

So I cut some 'padding' of my own for the rear of the front frame plates and also the tower bolt areas



Incase your wondering what I used to cut them from, well the story goes like this - there is always a story with me

When I got my workbench from machine mart and bought it home I found they packed three 'anti slip mats' rather than two, so I put the third aside for a rainy day.......it rained a bit yesterday.....

I think you know where I'm going with this



They are about 4mm thick so will they work and help counter some vibrations? don't know, but it can't be any worse vibrations than before as there was nothing there in both them areas, it was bolted directly to the body

Actually they look like burnt mcoys crisps

The best bit is I placed them 'ribbed' side down because that will help more won't it?



Hmmm I think I should've kept this one to myself

Back to reality - subframe is all in



While I had my paint brush out doing some Tony Hart (legend!) I threw some on the engine mounts aswell as they were looking a bit dowdy (middle one is Allspeeds own mount)



I hadn't finished with the brush so the gearbox got covered in it aswell, I know I painted it already at the start of the build but hey ho



Obviously this aint a concours car, its not meant to be so I've just brushed everything on, I've done a splash n dash wham bam thank you Kam

So subframe, mounts and gearbox is all done now ready for the engine

Next up I thought I'd try and sort the dials I want in the dashboard, when I bought the 'adjustable' Blox brackets I knew they were too big but I already had a plan for that - rubber foam strips



So far so good





They will compress nicely now so they'll be secure in the holders, just got to mount them now 'inside' the glovebox, don't want them on show!

Spoke to the engine builder today, all going sweet and engine will be ready by end of this week, I won't be able to pick it up till end of next week though due to work

Knowing the engine is almost done is a big boost, getting excited now

[Broomer]

Germani?

[Kam]

Unfortunately not for the mini or me now Liam I was hoping to nab in a quick weekender but things have come up this end so can't commit now

Oh well as they say, theres always next year - don't you just hate that phrase

[Kam]

Right, I've managed to get the dash finished, just need to sit in my favourite chair in my favourite office now and adjust/tilt the dial faces to my likings but thats a long way off yet

So with the glovebox closed





And my view with a quick flick of the two right hand dials



That'll do for me, its a road car so the glovebox will more than likely only be open for business on a track day anyway

I don't want the dials on show, its a standard looking car, its gotta pull off that look, end of

Next up, as I had painted the front subframe I took off the allspeed rose jointed tie bars/lower arms and put them to one side and remembered something that Martin (MRA minis) told me whilst he was giving me advice on something else - rose joint covers?



Picked them up from ebay, had to trim them to fit but I never knew these things existed in the first place, end of the day why would I? thanks again Martin

Also picked up my custom rad earlier aswell, guys have done a fantastic job



Got them to offset the filler cap as having it in the center would mean I can't shut the bonnet!



They also managed to get the core as wide as possible whilst making sure the tanks didn't have too much overhang



And this is a single core



I initially asked for double core when I first spoke with them going by what I've read on here but I didn't really understand core widths and single or double cores differences and what they meant until he showed me the insides of a rad, so a single large core was chosen

Will it work? haven't got a scooby, I'll let you know, trial n error people trial n error.......

He also gave me the blue filler cap for nothing, its just a generic cap but they powdercoat them in certain colours and haven't started selling them yet, they won't be out till xmas time but he liked what I was doing with the mini

Also got my speedo cable that Geoff (Watsons) made



One side is made up from a Rover 214 so its sits snugly with my standard rover clocks and the other he made up so I can just plonk it on the gearbox when you take the VSS off



He's assured me that it will pass my 110mph dial and just keep going round till the car runs out of juice, I don't have a stopper where my needle sits at zero mph so the needle can't hit anything

I don't believe him so I will need to test this out on a private airfield, honest officer

Next up, clutch, I bought one.........

Keeping in theme with the cars "jekyll and hyde" character I decided I didn't fancy doing anything simple and also chance blowing up another clutch with my stupid driving so best thing to do is to get something OTT Kam stylee

I think a stage 4 paddle competition clutch will compliment my cars look



Or 6 puck for our friends across the pond

If your tuned in expecting some normal going ons then sorry I don't do normal or expected

I'm not bothered by the heavy pedal feel as I had this feel with my last car so I'm used to it, plus I'm also using an AP 14mm master raised on an 8mm spacer so that might help that side a bit but as for the on/off biting point for a road car? who cares, I'll have to live with it

It should be good for some bloody good awesome launches though

Should be picking up the exhaust tomorrow so we'll see, its almost like xmas here

[Kam]

I forgot to mention when I was picking up my radiator yesterday the guy there was praising my "toliet seat box mock up" he said apart from being very different to what they are used to receiving it was alot easier to work with than most of the drawings people give them because basically it fits, end of

I picked up the exhaust earlier aswell



I got them to polish up the manifold as when I removed the exhaust heat wrap it left some markings on it making it look dowdy and something like some crap cheap ebay kind of crap thing you would buy! This manifold cost me enough so I want to show it off in the bay and get some nice gold colouring on it like before (old pic below with some added heat!)



I not bothered about under bonnet temps either, I've got more important things to worry about

He also cut and put some longer 'legs' on the manny so if I need to drop the link pipe a bit for clearance I can, I think they have an extra 40mm or so over what the original jig ones he makes



I wasn't sure how much I need to drop the link pipe in the tunnel and also how much I needed to clear my anti roll bar, I can always trim them down a bit if needed

He also made an exact copy of my old 2" play mini universal link pipe but now its in 2.5" guise



Half n inch is massive! Size matters people!



Its quite chunky so will be interesting to see if my gear linkage etc clears, when I mocked it up I pulled the 2" link pipe as high as I could get it so it was hugging the frame/tunnel to give as little room as possible for the gear linkage, only time will tell if my mock up is a **** up

I decided to be posh and got a flexi put in, I never ran with one before on the old link pipe! They also put the lambda hole in the same spot as before as all this pipeage should hopefully be plug n play



He also made me a back box the same as my old play mini one, old was was 2" with 2.5" exit pipe, this one is 2.5" straight through so will look exactly the same as before at the rear of things



The hangers are all in the same place as before but the only issue I'm thinking is the size of the silencer itself, old one was about 17.5" by 6", this one is 18" by 8" its a big boy, but I've just hung it on the rubbers and theres enough room around it so no issues there

Ian has done a fantastic job as usual, I don't mind paying a premium when it comes to stuff like this, money well spent, and no issues either with knowing if I had tried to make one up myself if the whole system would be running right? I know his manifold is 110% bonafide as I ran with it before and am more than happy for him to make the rest of the system up

I then started on the front end again, needs alot of tidying up but getting there





Gonna paint up the front legs of the frame so the blue aint on show

Getting there