79 replies to this topic

[project mini chris]

lol your scuttle has rotted in exactly the same place as mini interseting build mate, im watching this

Edited by project mini chris, 19 August 2010 - 10:59 AM.

[M J W J]

Yesterday I did a bit of work on the car. Took some photos but when up loading them to my mac they seemed to disappear (first problem I have really ever had with a macintosh). Anyway retook them today.

I striped off all the mounts and other bits that aren't need on the runners for the seats and drilled the hole to bolt them to the mini seat mounts. I also cut a piece of angle and started to weld it to the runners as I did on the other side. Got it all tacked in place. Welded one side then went to weld the other and ran out of wire . That halted play so had to drive off to Telford to get more.



Today after sorting the welder out I finished welding in the angle piece. I have also spent the day sorting out the door bar. With the seat in place and the door on I could work out where to make it go. Just need to finish welding the mount on the rear half of the cage for where the door bar bolts to and grind a few welds down. Will get back to it on Monday.


Managed to get it so that it isn't in the way of the window winding handle:)

[M J W J]

Right finally to the main reason why I logged onto t'internet tonight. Anybody who is not a member of the 16v mini club (why not ditch the a-series) or who has not yet seen it go to

http://www.16vminicl...ead.php?t=23017

and follow the link. It will make you cringe.

Today I ground down a few of the welds on my door brace bar and smoothed it off ready for paint, re-tacked the rear mounting lug as I managed to snap it off when removing the bar, butchered a knackered mini seat to get the parts I need for the passenger side seat mount, welded a bit more together on the passenger side seat mount, I made and welded pieces in place to close off the ends of the tube that make the door bars so they do not end up filling up with rubbish and filled a small hole up in the top of the drives side A pillar. Will need to get the Dremel on that at some point to grind it down.


what was left of mini seat after I attacked it with an angle grinder:D







will hopefully get the passenger seat mounted tomorrow.

[M J W J]

Haven't posted anything in the last week as I don't have much to show. But here's what I have done.

Thought to myself last week that I should be able to make the seat mount for the passenger side quickly. Built most of it as the last posts pictures show. The hoop on the bottom that supports the seat when it is clicked down, I stupidly welded over to the wrong side. In the photo below you can just make out where the welds were. They should be over by about an inch. I forgot that the passenger side should be a mirror image to the drivers .
I then spent the next day trying to correct my mistake only to run out of the mini grinding discs for my dremmel. Have ordered more, just waiting for them to turn up. I need to get the old welds out of the way so I can weld the mount together in the correct position and so the latch works.



Also while I have been working on the mini I have constantly been tripping over the engine wiring loom that was still connected to the engine. I have finally removed it along with the inlet and a piece of pipe work to make it easier to get the gearbox on when I have sorted that.



I have spent bank holiday Monday and today stripping the old paint of my rear sub frame and the last few parts attached to it. Who ever painted it before in that stupid blue hammerite had good intentions but never bother to clean it properly. You can run your finger nail along the sub frame and the blue paint comes off it.



I will hopefully finish stripping the paint off it tomorrow. I can then put some rust preventer on it and give it a coat of paint. I also need to fix a stud on the sub frame for which I have a plan. Me thinks I will be spending some time with the lathe. I will put some photos up when its done.

Edited by M J W J, 18 January 2011 - 03:26 PM.

[M J W J]

I finally finished stripping and cleaned up my rear sub frame last Thursday. That only took 4 days. Spent most of Friday and the rest of the weekend drinking heavily and then recovering from a major hangover so only got back to work on the mini today.

One of the studs that the rubber bushes goes on, on the sub frame partly sheared off when I removed the nuts holding the bush in place. It was only the threaded part that sheared off so I was not prepared to scrap the whole sub frame and buy and new one (actually my wallet kind of dictated that) and didn't want to go majorly cutting into the sub frame to replace the whole stud. So here as said before was my idea to fix it.



Step one. Machine piece of bar to slide over what is left of the metal stud. This piece of bar has a 5 mm hole drilled through it so that an electric drill can be used to drill a hole in the centre of what is left of the stud and also perfectly square.



Step two. Slide part onto sub frame and drill hole.



Step three. Tap hole out to M6.



Step four. Machine stud extension piece. This has the male M6 thread on one end and the correct 7/16" unf thread on the other. The two different diameters of the stud extension are connected by a 45 degree chamfer. That is for step 6.



Step five. Screw stud extension into sub frame. (This is where I have got up to)



Step six. Weld stud extension to sub frame along v groove that is between the extension piece and rest of the stud.

Step 7 smooth weld (if necessary) and thread rest of repaired stud.

The last two steps I shall hopefully complete tomorrow when I take the sub frame back to my garage.

[M J W J]

Right, as planned yesterday I have welded the stud up, smoothed the welds out, threaded the rest of the stud, finished coating the sub frame in rust treatment stuff and dismantled the N/s radius arm. Tomorrow will be a day of painting.


stud after it had been welded and the welds smoothed out.


stud after it had been threaded.

Well that has just saved me £304.99 plus delivery:D

[M J W J]

I have painted the sub frame, sub frame mounts, radius arms and even the washed that go up against the rear sub frame bushes in wonderful red oxide.







I have started to strip the original sub frame that was on the car. This sub frame is completely rotten however, as I was hoping, I did discover that it has a better set of radius arm pivot pins as they are not grooved like the other sub frame's. Also If I can get the pins that hold the front bushes in place out in tact then I won't have to buy a replacement. I broke one of them on the other sub frame when removing them (not to be confused with the stud I sheared). This will help save £12.


second sub frame that is being stripped

Looking forward to possibly getting the rear suspension mounted next week

[M J W J]

Haven't done much over the last few days as I have been waiting for it to stop raining so I could take my sub frame out side and spary it (garage is really dusty at the minute). Finally had long enough today to spray the sub frame, radius arms and washers black. I am quite impressed with the quality of wilko's own brand spray paint. Any way here is how they have turned out. I can start reassembling the sub frame tomorrow.




(sorry about the black grass gran )

When trying to remove the pins that hold the rubber mounts in place on the sub frame they kept spinning as I tried to undo the nuts. My solution was to weld a bar to them to hold them still. I was going to grind it off but have decided to do that when I have put the pins back in place so I can hold them still to tighten up the nuts.



Also I have finally welded the seat mount back together after I had to cut it apart to correct my mistake. I just have to put the pull handle on it to release the catch and it can be bolted into the car.



I only have tomorrow left to work on the car before I have to go back off to uni.

[M J W J]

Today was the last day I could work on the mini before I go back to uni so have had to spend some of today tidying up the garage and finding all my dads tools that I need to bring home.

I finished the seat mount for the passenger side and have fitted the passenger seat to the car



I have fitted my new poly bushes to the rear sub frame and put it under the rear of the car ready to be bolted up when I get back at christmas. I stupidly forgot the grease so couldn't fit the radius arms. Again something I will do when I get back.

I started to make the mounting lugs that my door bar for the roll cage mount to.



Last thing I did today was to have a bit of a play with the gearbox. This has been a problem since the start of this project. As Jayare and many others have correctly pointed out that I have a small block engine so should have an f17 gearbox. However the gearbox that I removed from the engine had F18 cast into the top. I went and bought a replacement f18 with 3.55 final drive before knowing that it wouldn't fit a small block vauxhall engine. I have finally stripped apart the f18 gearbox and offered the case up to the engine. It fits.



All I can think is that the broken gearbox I took off the engine was a limited addition for the astra bertone coupe (my engine was from one of these) or a previous owner has made a hybrid box out of an f17 and f18. I am at this point very confused . Any way instead of going out and buying a diesel's f17 gearbox which I can't really afford I am going to buy a set of seals for an f18 and swap the gear clusters over when I get back to the car at christmas. I will also count the teeth on the diff and find out what the final drive is of the broken gearbox. If its not 3.55 then I will swap that too.

If anybody can enlighten me please do so.

[daveeeeee]

Nice save on that stud hah

[M J W J]

Nice save on that stud hah

Cheers. Its called being a student and tight. If it hadn't of worked then all I would have lost was a days work and would have had to replace the sub frame or do more major surgery to it.

[M J W J]

Hello all. For those wondering I am still around. I haven't done much on the mini over christmas as I have had to work a lot of over time and was frozen out of the garage for two weeks (physically couldn't get the doors open). Decided I must get something done over my holiday before I have to go back to university on Saturday.

I drilled the holes and mounted the passenger door so I could measure up for the door bar.



I finished off and made the rest of the parts for the passenger door bar for the roll cage. Went to tack weld them together and realised I forgot to take my mask with me. Will have to weld it together at Easter.


small kit of parts that will be waiting for me at Easter

sorry for the poor quality phone photos

[M J W J]

Just a quick update. Had to go home from university on Saturday to pick up some stuff that I need for my project so thought I would do a little bit of work on the mini while I was there.

First of all I welded the door bar together. Just need to weld in the end pieces to close off the tubes and tidy up the welds before painting. The mounting tabs are only tack welded in. The rest of the cage will be removed next time I go back so will fully weld them in then as well as painting them. Just need to make the bar that goes at the top of the windscreen first before removing it all.



I also took the differential out of an f10 gearbox I bought a week ago and dismantled my new f17. There is method in my madness. I found out that the differentials will physically fit in each others gearbox which was my original plan to gain a mechanical drive for my speedo however I found that it was just as easy to swap over the plastic drive gears. For anybody who is interested all you need to do to remove the gear is use a pulley extractor and a flat bladed screwdriver. It is then just a case of hammering the gear back on to the other differential. I have put the electronic sensor pick up bit back into the f10 and put it back together for the time being. Hopefully I will be able to sell it on ebay as my garage is getting a bit full of gearboxes. Just now need to by a replacement set of seals and reassemble my f17 gearbox.

Sorry for the poor photo. Had to use the phone again

[M J W J]

Hi all. For those of you wondering if I am still around here I am. I got back from university last Friday for Easter so have commenced work on the mini (supposed to be writing up my dissertation ).

I am aiming to get the engine sitting in the sub frame by the end of Easter so have had to start my little side project to do so.


can you guess what it is? (answer will appear in the other projects bit in a minute)

[M J W J]

Over 3 months have passed and I haven't updated my build thread.

If anybody didn't see the thread, the item shown in the previous post was the start to my home built engine crane. Any way I finished it and then ended up using it much sooner as anticipated as the engine in my astra decided to go pop. Despite being an old banger it proved to be cheaper to swap the engine out so that is what I spent the last 4 weeks doing (I realise this seems a long time to do an engine swap but there are good reasons why).

Anyway. Astra is fixed, Msc applications done, undergrad course done and still only working part time so I can now progress with the mini.

I have altered the frame I started to allow a better fit for the N/S brace bar (not made yet), cut out what was left of the old frame, reinforced the front lower arm mounts, started making the lower arm rear mount and rebuilt my F17 gearbox complete with mechanical speedo drive. I have also altered the bar that went across the sub frame at the back as in its previous position it would have clashed with the differential housing. Here are a few pictures.


rebuilt gearbox


rear suspension mount tacked in place


frame ready to be mounted to mini and have engine lowered into it