393 replies to this topic

[lawrence]

This is bloody great, think i may have to stop reading it though, its making my work look a bit medeiveal haha. Keep it up

[Davie Boy]

wow!
Its great to see it all going well with lovely new metal!
ganna be great when its done!
it must feel good looking at it now to when you first started pulling it apart!

[minifcd]

Thanks for the comments guys! I forget just how bad it was until I look back at the photos! Sometimes I think I must be crazy trying to restore minis due to the amount of work they need doing to them, but I hate seeing them scrapped and it is satisfying when you see them starting to take shape again! So thanks again guys.

[minimissions]

Wow that looks so good buddy, your welding is amazing! such a nice finish. whats your plans for the finished car?

[minifcd]

Thanks minimissions, I'm not too sure on plans yet, but want to keep this one fairly original. Just concentrating on getting a shell together first.

Ok, another update but a bit of a boring one i'm affraid. A few more bits to finish off the right hand half and one of the holes in the floor had some rust around it. As it was not needed a decided to fill this one.





A square was cut and welded in.




And cleaned up.


The inner sill came with the front slinging bracket already fitted, but I had to remove it as the join between the inner sill and the foot well panel, ran underneath it. I wasn't quite happy with the shape of it anyway compared to the original and as Heritage ones were on back order at the time I decided to remake it. I flattened out the bracket with a big hammer and refolded it in the vice and am quite pleased with the results.

Slinging bracket removed from inner sill/floor.


Remade bracket.


New bracket compared to original.


The bracket was then welded to the floor.


New Heritage fuel and brake pipe multiclip ALA5527 was then welded in place.


Three Heritage fuel and brake pipe clips ALA5536 were also welded on to replace the rusty old ones.


I then removed the right hand rear wheel arch and made a repair piece for the lower corner of the rear quarter panel.
Welded in, cleaned lipped edge of panel down and primed with zinc rich weld through primer.


Prepared the new wheel arch (again Heritage 14A9558), drilled for plug welds and zinc primed.


Here you can see the bar I made up before removing the arch to help align the new arch. Bolted through the rear damper hole.


Welded in. You can also see the closing panel welded in at the front of the arch, 14A6611.


Rear quarter corner repair cleaned up a little.


Floor cleaned down to bare metal and etch primed to protect from the damp.




Thats the right side done, sorry I didn't have as many photos of before shots as I thought.

Thanks for looking.

[grahama]

Lovely work around the rear arch. Good tip using the bolt on a bar to align it up properly. Looke so much better with some primer on, keep it up

[minifcd]

Thanks Graham. Yes the bar actually helps take a lot of the guess work out of fitting the arch, because as well as it keeping the arches the correct distance apart, it also allows some measurements to be taken from bar to seat back, bar to floor etc, to ensure arch is positioned as correctly as possible.

[jwb_moto]

Cracking work there scott, i think you should put some pics up of your other mini. As i definately think its worth a magazine feature!!!

[minifcd]

Thanks James, I may put some pictures up at some point when I get time, or make another thread and link them to this.

Thanks mate.

[sonikk4]

Scott is this the same car as in your Avatar?? We met at the Stamford car show last year and had a good natter about your mini and Project Erm.

I'm afraid Erm wont be appearing at Stamford now as we are moving done south in January. It would have been nice to have taken him to the show.

Neil

[Frik]

I get goose bumps. You make it look so damn easy.

[minifcd]

Hi Neil, nice to hear from you again. I have been following your progress with Erm since we met. Looks good now its in paint and a nice colour. The mini in my avatar is the one I had at the show, (the first mini) but this is my new project. I currently don't have a thread for the first one but may add one at some point. Have been uploading photos to photobucket, ready for another update on this project. Its so time consuming, selecting and uploading! I'll keep track of Erm as it progresses.

Thanks for the comments Frik and thanks Neil.

[minifcd]

Hello again. With the drivers side done, I turned the mini round and flipped it on its side to see what was needed on the passengers side, and again, not good!
Nice hole in the passengers footwell.


Another oversill with some messy welding.








Peeled back the oversill to reveal this!






This gives some idea of when they were fitted. Dated 7.10.96 which would be about right as it was last on the road in 1999.


With oversill removed there's not a lot left!






I cut the inner sill/floor out between the first and second grooves, but sorry no picture and found the end of the second groove needed some repairs, so cut it out.




Made this by folding in a vice.






Cut and tacked in place.


Then started on a repair piece for the floor to heal board joint. Will add pictures of that soon.

Thats it for now. Thanks.

Edited by minifcd, 23 November 2011 - 09:14 PM.

[minifcd]

The repair piece for the rear lip of the floor was made from one piece and folded to shape. This had to be made with the impression wider than the original as the new heal board was different, probably made for later cars.








Tested for fit against the new heal board.


Clamped, tacked and welded in place.






Next the lower rear corner of the companion box needed a repair, so folded a small piece and clamped in place.




Tacked then fully welded.


Ground down.


The finished piece.


Thanks.

[hughJ]

Scott that is amazing fabrication. You are one of these on the Forum that just has the 'hands'. Stunning work.

Hugh