3 replies to this topic

[MiniMonty]

HAHA ! The rat box lives.

I convinced myself it was the clutch (but it wasn't).
Anyway, while I was convinced it was the clutch I was also convinced I would either take days over it or make a hash of it so looked into finding
a mini specialist garage in or near Birmingham who could sort it pronto and not rip me off.
Found a place in Wordsley who have had good reviews on this forum and they suggested a guy to recover the car - got on the bloke and he charged me
£30 for a low loader from Bearwood (result - the next best price was eighty notes).
They called when it arrived - head gasket (DOH) !

Having paid to have it sent there I thought I might as well have them do it (rather than pay again to have it brought back and
then do it myself). Went to collect it at 4:00 today and it wasn't quite ready so I hung around with a few top lads, looked a few nice Minis (and a Moke type variant)
and generally chewed the fat while it was finished.

They did the gasket, oil change, flushed the cooling system, found and cured a water leak, new plugs, new oil filter, general check over and sort of
valve clearances, timing and mild tuning so it's starts on the key with no choke, refitted the bonnet so it actually closes like it's supposed to (something I've been
trying to do for three years) , threw in an RSP centre cap for the rear near side wheel (hard to get and £15 each at Minispares) and then did me a basically brand
new K&N air filter for a tenner.
All in - £130 - which I say can't be bad.

So here's a big hats off to Paul Higgs cars who do Minis and nothing but minis. LINK to their website.
(although he also has a rather tasty silver Peugeot 304 rag top (if you like that sort of thing - which I do).
Only minus point is they had no fridge - so they had no milk - so we had no tea !
But that won't stop me putting them at the top of my list of places to go when in need of skilled work by people who actually give a monkey's and at a good price.

Recommended.

Best wishes
Monty

[Rented]

sounds like perfect bit of work done by them and at a very cheap rate ! Good to read about such things

[cradley-heathen]

just found this by accident, twos i that did the head gasket on that beast. i remember the car well, matt black paint but brilliant chrome work i think.

we still dont have a fridge though, so we still dont always have milk for sutomers tea!

[Steely]

They seem to sell very nice conditioned mini's at a very fair price :)