740 replies to this topic

[blue blood]

Jesus that is one bodge of a shell. At least its got you on the case to fix the problems. Top job Mr B

Regards Blue

[MrBounce]

Cheers Blue!

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Coming on really well mate! I love this thing so much

[seancv1]

Interesting read keep up the good work a lot of people give up after things not suddenly coming together in two months .

[MrBounce]

Well it's been a while. That's because my hands threatened to drop off anytime I went outside during most of March. So I didn't. I have spending my eBay funds (and birthday money) on stuff that I need for this project so numerous little parcels arriving in the post were gratefully received. I also went to Mini Spares to get some heavy stuff and to exchange an old steering rack for a new one.

The list is as follows:

New front wheel bearings
New balljoints
Exchange Steering Rack
Rack to body bush
Rack to U-bolt strips
Rear brake drums
Some core plugs for the block
A pair of brake discs
Handbrake levers (for the rear drums) and their gaiters
Lower arm bushes
2 TR7 fuel caps - one of which was the wrong one. Doh!

I also received a petrol tank sealing kit and a set of TR7 rear light gaskets for my birthday.

I was so fed up with grinding and sanding fibreglass (I am also helping a friend with his Biota - it's got about 5 layers of paint and makes my car look in good nick) that I decided to do some mechanical work. I spent the afternoon fitting the new front wheel bearings and shimming up the balljoints. I remembered that I always used to hate balljoints. After this afternoon... I still do. Only one of them was easy to sort. Each of the others took at least 10 minutes each!! At least the bearings were nice and straightforward. As I was on a roll I thought I would do the rear hub bearings too - the previous owner had chucked a couple of rear bearings in the spares box. Never trust someone who's selling you a project with the truth about bits. They were indeed bearings, but they were different from each other & neither was for a Mini. One was a rubbish ball-bearing race (and the grease had congealed - nasty). I don't know what it's from as the part number has ripped off the box. The other was a nice Timken kit for a Marina/Allegro/TR7. So that's something else to add to the shopping list.

I also decided to prepare the fuel tank for the sealing kit, so I have put the sender unit back in (not sure if Gaffa tape will hold up to it). Of course one of the bolts has sheared off. And one is missing. Where's my hammer???

New Discs



1st new fuel cap, showing how badly wrong I got it. Of course the two fittings are totally different...



Steering Rack! (A present from Mrs Bounce xxx)



The 2nd fuel cap. This one fits.



Hubs all bearing'd and ball-jointed up (yes I will knock over the lock tabs before fitting to the car!)



1st "Mini" rear bearing - for Allegro/TR7/Marina...



2nd "Mini" bearing. I have no idea what it's for. Apart from the bin.



Tried to get a photo of inside the tank. You can just see how horrible it is in there.



Sender unit bolt snapped. Yay.

[Artstu]

.

Edited by Artstu, 14 April 2013 - 04:54 PM.

[MrBounce]

This weekend I have mostly been playing with chemicals, removing rust and painting. A light touch of the Dremel's cutting disc was all that was needed to make the broken bolt move again, this time under the power of a flat-blade screwdriver. After a tiny bit of cleaning I could actually see the pinhole in the side of the tank so it was time to deal with it. I taped up the pinhole, fuel sender & fuel hose holes and got to work with the Marine Clean part of the petrol tank repair kit. This stuff is evil, even if you only use 2 pints of it, mixed half & half with warm water. Although they say in their instructions to "tape up any holes in the tank", Marine Clean of course is used to remove the built up gum & deposits from fuel. This includes glue on Gaffa tape. A little seepage was ok to deal with, although I did have to replace it quite regularly whenever I moved the tank around. I re-used the sender unit & gasket after the first "seepage" incident. You are advised to keep this evil concoction in there for 24 hours, regularly rotating the tank. Although I have no pictures to show what it can do (can't get my SLR inside the tank!) it is AMAZING stuff.

Whilst I was waiting for the Marine Clean to do its stuff, I realised I had only removed the bearings from one of the rear hubs. So I got on with the other one complete with all the surface rust and its nasty gummed up bearing. Some of the grease inside was black. The old bearings were quickly drifted out and binned. I cleaned the hubs up in the parts washer and gave them a coat of fresh paint as well as cleaning up the threads on the studs.

I also had a quick look at the old coilover shocks from the rear of the car. A bit of searching showed they're Spax units with the number "EF 377" stamped into them. I have no idea what this means, although couldn't find much on a quick Google search. Anyone got any ideas?

My calipers (which are just plain ugly) desperately need a refurb, being covered in bad black paint and rust. I managed to get the pistons out using a combination of a punch, hammer & molegrips - given the state of them it looks like the calipers were painted badly as there's paint on the exposed parts of the pistons. I shall deal with them later...

After 24 hours I drained the Marine Clean and got a frothy brown liquid which looked a bit like real ale. It did NOT smell like it... I then rinsed the tank 4 times and used the Prep & Ready rust remover. This went in neat and only needed to stay in for an hour or so. Bonus is, it's reusable (although not as strong the more times you use it). Given the seepage from the pinhole, its rust removing capabilities are pretty good. Once more the tank was rinsed.

Then, finally, it was time to seal the tank. The instructions suggest only doing this when the tank is completely dry, and you can only do this using either a heat gun or hairdryer. I don't have a heat gun, so I managed to convince Mrs Bounce to lend me her hairdryer. Luckily she doesn't use it too much, so I jammed it in the filler neck and left it on high for a while until every last patch of damp had been dried out. I then poured in the sealant, rotating the tank so it got a really good coverage, especially around the pinhole area. After draining the excess out, it has to be left for 96 hours to set properly. Thumb twiddling time!!

"Repaired" bolt on sender unit.



Pinhole just visible in centre of pic



Taped up (which didn't really work...)



Oh my. How good is this stuff??



Disgusting congealed grease in rear hub.



Cleaned ready for paint.



Painted & threads cleaned



Shocks were Spax, apparently... Anyone know what this number refers to?



How ugly are my calipers?



Pistons aren't much better...



Beer anyone?



Rinse time!



How to dry your tank completely. Thanks Mrs B!



Lovely silver zinc lining inside filler neck. Should now in theory be properly sealed...

Edited by MrBounce, 14 April 2013 - 07:08 PM.

[MrBounce]

Tested the tank with water yesterday. It is leak free!

[MrBounce]

Not much more to report this weekend (had a wedding to go to) apart from the tank has had its first coat of paint.

[MrBounce]

Once able to get back into garage I have finished off the rear hubs - they now have their bearings and are sat inside my tool cupboard in a box so they don't end up with loads of crap in them... I then had a little think about what to do next. I have LOADS of bodywork to do I know, but I thought I would avoid that by checking out the front bumper instead. I am not entirely sure this was a wise thing to do as I found some evil stuff.

It's now well known that the guy who did the bodywork on the car after its smack on the front end can best be described as a bodge merchant. This bumper is no different, especially as it was the first thing that took the impact. It seems he has done his usual: chuck a load of filler in it then paint over the top. The matt black paint he'd used was thick & nasty and had cracked all over where there were cracks in the fibreglass, but the 80-grit 3M sandpaper I had made relatively short work of it. Sadly the cracks are fairly deep so I am going to have to grind them out. Whoop-di-doo.

There were also some repairs to the back, with a huge wodge of "new" fibreglass at the right front and in the middle, plus also an enormous lump on the underside of the bumper on the far left. And of course there was filler; but not as much as in the bodywork. Still enough to really annoy me though. Most of it is now out, leaving a hole the size of a 5p piece on the front right corner. Repairs will follow.

I also looked at the rear bumper, hoping to see no cracks as I don't believe the car has been rear-ended as well (thankfully). Still the same horrid black paint, but a lot less in the way of damage. I still have to scoop out the foam left in it though.

Hubs finished



Cracks, cracks & more cracks. In the paint and in the fibreglass.



Top, Middle or Bottom? Doesn't matter, it's ALL awful...



There's filler in here. What a surprise.



Here, too.



Bottom left corner. A "step" of 2-3mm. Gotta love this guy's attention to detail.



"Repair" job in the middle



Worst of the filler removed.



Rear bumper. Better than the front.

[MrBounce]

I attacked the bumpers this afternoon. I took the Dremel to the cracks on the front bumper (there were a LOT!). I am now covered in a mountain of fibreglass dust. I am eternally grateful for my "Bane" mask complete with filters that kept all that out of my lungs. Once I had finished being evil on the outside, there was a hole on one end and very thin fibreglass the other. So I cracked out the new fibreglass kit and patched those up from the inside. The outside has now been repaired with a varied mix of resin and P40. I have the lovely job of sanding to follow. It's my intention to use "hidden" captive nuts on brackets so I can use bolts on the inside of the car - a much tidier idea than the wood screws poking through the bodywork with the heads exposed on the outside of the bumper.

While the front was drying out, I scooped out the foam in the rear bumper. This took ages. And unfortunately, because the foam itself was not sealed into the bumper, it was partly damp. Yuk. The end bits where the screws went were covered with fibreglass, so these were Dremel'd off revealing a very rotten piece of wood underneath. These fell apart almost instantly as they'd been damage by the damp. Eventually it was all out so tomorrow I will have the delight of preparing them for any repairs they'll need. And getting rid of that awful matt black paint.

Nasty end of the front bumper...

 

...and the other one

 

Repairs on the inside at one end

 

 

...and the other end.

 

Wood in rear bumper. This was rotten.

 

All this came out. It's now in the bin.

 

 

[blue blood]

Bloody hell I do not envy repairing bodge job repairs in fibreglass. Its a lot harder to detect for a start than in metal shell! Good work though Mr Bounce keep it up.

 

Regards Blue

[Minidarren83]

Not sure how I missed your thread before but bloody good effort man you sure do have your work cut out for you

Keep it up
Darren

[MrBounce]

Sorry to bore everyone, but it's more bumpers today. I gave the front bumper a sand down after attacking it with resin & P40, but there were still a few low spots. As such I had another go and utilised the lovely bright sunshine to dry it out. This meant I could have a look at and sand down the rear bumper.

On first glance, this looked really quite good. After 5 minutes with a block and some 80 grit, less so. The horrid matt black paint hid a multitude of sins and I was left with some cracks, a couple of holes and an interesting bit of middle in the middle where the two halves had originally been joined together. So once again it was out with the resin and CSM. I reinforced where the cracks were and drizzled some resin into the holes having ground out & feathered the edges. More sanding tomorrow no doubt...

Front bumper drying in the sun



Obvious join in the middle of the rear bumper



Paint hid such niceties as this



Resin applied



Repairs made to one corner...



...and also to the middle



I have decided I like working with fibreglass again...

[MrBounce]

The bumpers are almost finished. I say that, there's still a bit of sanding left to do prior to paint, but not much. The rear bumper cleaned up quite nicely and only needed the tiniest of skims of filler for the very occasional bit I had missed with the P40. Just 180 grit sanding & it should be ready for the next stage: fitting them to the car. I will need to make up some brackets first. I have taken advice and will not be filling the bumpers with foam.

The front bumper was a little more involved, mainly due to the large amount of sanding I had to do, but now I am just waiting for the final filler skim to dry before finishing it off prior to bracket fitting. I need access to a welder for this and that won't be for 4 weeks thanks to holidays!

I have also run out of fibreglass resin -  I took the time to fill in the hole where the old remote style gear linkage sat. I stuffed the hole with various rags around a bottle then used a cardboard template (made from a Jaffa Cake box of course) which I covered with tape as a release agent, then laid the fibrgelass & resin over the top. It's not perfect, but it will do for now until I can finish it off. I made a start on covering the various holes in the bulkhead as well. There are so many of them (some of them terrifyingly bad) that I thought it'd be a good idea to blank off everything and start again from scratch. That will make it a lot tidier!

Rear bumper pretty much done



Front one in progress - final skim done but not sanded



Card in place ready for fibreglassing



Glassed in (still more to do)



Bulkhead coming on before I ran out of resin...