780 replies to this topic

[alex-95]

Done a bit more in the past 2 weeks.

Fitted the roller bearing into the top arms and the bush and bearing into the radius arm.

I managed to borrow a radius arm reamer from a club member but it didn't have the supporting part, So I got a friend to make one up on the lathe.

 

I fitted the brake and fuel line using P-clips, M5 stainless allen bolts and 1/2" tap washers.

 

I chopped out the rust in the roof and made a repair for it.

 

We also fitted new bearing to the front and rear hubs, Just need to do the ball joints. I've been painting bits in the evening as well (radius arms, hubs, top arms etc)

 

Hopefully I'll have a bit more enthusiasm next week to do the roof a flip it

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Alex;

 

I too have used P clips and 5mm bolts for my fuel lines, the similarities in our restos are uncanny

 

I may nick your 1/2 washer idea though?

[alex-95]

Alex;

 

I too have used P clips and 5mm bolts for my fuel lines, the similarities in our restos are uncanny

 

I may nick your 1/2 washer idea though?

Yeah, haha. Carry on, I was going to get thinner ones but that's the only rubber washers screwfix had. http://www.screwfix....ck-of-100/14504

[alex-95]

This weekend we fitted a new electronic dizzy to the ritz and adjusted the tappets and timing etc. The we made a repair for the roof corner and a bit for under the scuttle and welded them in. 

Picture of the brake lines.

And rolled it back over   We split the pallets again and chopped the mattress so there is enough room to fit the subframes when they're done. Will make moving it around easier than having it on it's wheels.

 

Then today I cut out the rust on the 1/4 panel that I couldn't get to when it was on it's side.

 

I cut a piece off of the 1/4 panel I bought ages ago to fix the curved part/corner

 

And ground it down

 

And I managed to get hold of an original set of mk1 light panels, much better than the conversion panels.

 

 

 

 

[alex-95]

This weekend we did a lot of measuring and cutting to fit the mk1 rear panels. First thing we did was to spray the back panel white to make drawing easier. Then we used the indents running along the bottom of the windows to mark down the same amount each side and used a laser level to mark a line along a a datum point.

Then cut out part of the boot lip on the car so I could clamp it on using the petrol tank hole for the height.

With a lot of measuring I cut the mk1 panel and then traced it onto the car.

 

Luckily there was enough metal on the mk1 panel to get around the patch I put in before.

 

Used the clamps that We made and made a few more to clamp it in.

 

And tacked it in, 

 

Then marked out the other side which was easier as we already had the dimensions.

 

Chopped out the boot lip again.

 

Traced around it and cut it out.

 

And clamped in.

 

 

And welded in

 

Alot better than these

 

And today I started grinding the weld down, just needs a few pin holes welding and the boot lip welding together.

I also removed the paint off my GB badge and Welded holes as I want to drill them lower and one hole was split.

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Nice work Alex, I too made a Panel Clamp, not as many as you did clearly, I must do better

[grahama]

Great change to the early lights, that and de bumper end rear are my ' wish I had done ' bits. Coming along well

[alex-95]

Nice work Alex, I too made a Panel Clamp, not as many as you did clearly, I must do better

Cheers jonny, I don't use them that often but when you need them you need loads

 

Great change to the early lights, that and de bumper end rear are my ' wish I had done ' bits. Coming along well

Cheers graham, just need to make a set of dummy external hinges...should be fun

 

Dad pretty much finished grinding down the welds on the mk1 light panels last weekend, just needs a bit of weld where the boot seal goes.

 

I repaired the front roof corners and the top of the door frame just below it on both sides. the roof isn't a full curve it has a slight edge on it so I made panels with this in and I managed to cut the corner piece just below this so I didn't need to make the 2 curves of the roof. (not great pics and no before pics)

 

For the repair on the curve of the door frame, I made a card template from the other side to get the curve for the joining lip, then traced around the cut out of the top bit. cut out the 2 cad templates and bent one bit to the curve of the joining lip and welded the 2 together. and welded it in and ground it down.

 

 

Welded in the corner piece on the inside of the roof that we repaired a while back.

 

Then I've welded up the extra windscreen wiper holes just to make the scuttle look cleaner.

 

and repaired part of the scuttle gutter.

 

We have also been doing some grinding on the car and panel beating which makes it feel a lot closer to paint And finally this arrived, I've been wanting one for quite a while but wasn't to sure on the size but for the price I think it was a good deal.

 

 

 

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A wood rim moto lita 14" wheel of course.

 

 

Alex

 

EDIT: before pics in the first post on this page

Edited by alex-95, 27 July 2015 - 09:08 PM.

[JonnyAlpha]

At first I thought the tent was for spraying the Mini!! oddly again in common with your good self I have had my eye on a steering wheel like that one for a while, need to replace the ugly British Leyland one

 

Spotted a few on eBay but not been tempted yet.

[alex-95]

Bit of an overdue update. I've been plodding along getting bit's done. 

The rear bumper lip has all been ground down, a couple of places rewelded, ground, rewarded...

 

I cleaned out most of the boot, a bit difficult as the underside is painted so can't get it to hot, which I may have done and blistered the paint

 

Then I decided to weld up some of the bulkhead holes, Not rusty holes but the ones from factory of the left and right handed cars. so I had a look at the ritz and marked which ones I did and didn't need. So cut out some circles and welded them in. I then wire brushed the bulkhead (again) and also under the scuttle. I also welded on the bonnet hinge mounting bracket on, The best method I found for this was to bolt them together with the hinge in between, dad holding it and tacking it in. 

 

Then I treated it with metal ready rust treatment and Painted it with the zinc spray.

 

Then I got my bonnet it down from the roof to start prepping it as I had previously welded it up in the corner. I decided to clean the underside down to bare metal as there was a bit of rust. most of the red area in the pic below was heavily pipped and once I wire brushed it a hole appeared. So the search for a new bonnet started. First call was to the rusty white sprite, it was rust free but with the hinges attached It didn't fit very well. So the search continued which led to a local one and also one from here which I had a courier collect. Of the 2 the local one (red one below) fitted the best, even better than the original.

So I removed the bonnet lip and the john cooper stripes.

But it did need a bit of a repair in the front x member, Luckily my old bonnet was pretty good there so I Cut it out but still had to make a piece for the front lip/seam.

I drew around the curve of the bonnet lip on some wood and cut it along the line. Then got some 1mm steel roughly the size of the repair and bent the 90degree on it, I then heated it up and clamped it between the wood in the vice to get the slight bend of the bonnet.

 

 

And welded it to the part off the old bonnet. Then wire brushed the bits, sprayed them and welded it to the bonnet.

 

Then I had an idea of strengthening the new bonnet as on most bonnets I've seen it splits either just after the hinges bracket or in the middle of the curve. So I got my old bonnet again and chopped off the 2 edges.

Which I trimmed down to suit, They are a tad short as on mine it split. I I just need to bend some 1.2mm steel 90degrees and cut out part of the hinge bracket so the weak point is removed then I'll weld it to the hinge bracket and bond the rest on, not sure what adhesive to use yet though. So that'll have to wait for a while.

 

I'll try and Update the rest tomorrow.

[alex-95]

Also got a few nice bits.

A DSN pedal from miniman24 

 

And another set of wheels All the way from the Netherlands. ATS classics 

A couple of dents on them though

 

[alex-95]

We have also been doing some filler work, not many pics of it but heres the drivers door so far. It needed a bit of filler as the car it come off was rolled so had a big dent in it which we knocked out the majority of it. You can see some of the filler on the wings and scuttle.

 

For sanding the filler we bought a few sanding blocks but also made this one out of plasterers float. 

 

I cut it down to the width of the sand paper. And made some clamps, I cut a piece of pipe in half, drilled a 6mm hole in the middle for a 6mm bolt. Then drilled a hole the size of the bolt head in the float and glued in the bolt.

 

and then bolts it on.

 

I picked up a couple of engines last weekend a 1330 and what was supposed to be 1275 but turned out to be 998  So I've been sorting and tidying the garage this weekend. 

I had the take off the thermostat housing off a head to fit it in. I tried to undo the bolts but stripped the heads straight away. But after a bit of drilling hammering and cutting I got them off... just in a few more pieces  The bolts were locked onto the aluminium, I ended up cutting it up and managed to used the thermostats parts to undo the bolts.

 

 

 

Theres not much else been done on it, I may or may not have put a offer on another mini

 

[alex-95]

Ok an overdue update, We've been plodding along with it and doing other stuff swell like putting insulation in the garage and collecting 2 other minis and doing an few bits on the Ritz, one being sheldon the RSP below. Anyway stuff we've done.

Modified the boot hinges and smoothed them out.

 

Got the rusty sprite into the garage to steal the engine, which has been all stripped down, the gearbox sent off to guess works, the block re-bored and crank re-ground.

 

Had a bit of a problem removing the flywheel, we had a laser one which we put a bit too much force on and push the centre out and damaged the first thread in the crank. 

 

So bought this beast from guess works. Which with a breaker bar and leaning on it still didn't get it off after leaving it over night, so put a bit of heat on it and off it popped.

 

 

split the gearbox and block.

 

And freshly re-ground and re-bored with new pistons and thrust washers etc.

 

 

I've cleaned off the underside of the bonnet and welded the cracks on the bends where they are prone to going.

 

Cut and bent some 1.2mm sheet for the strengtheners, welded them to the bits that i cut off my old bonnet.

 

De-oxed the underside.

 

Then zinc sprayed it and glued them the majority of the way with gorilla glue and welded it to the corner strengthener where the hinge mounts to.

 

Cleaned off the excess and sprayed it.

 

And we've been doing some filler work which is very nearly complete, so hopefully it should be in primer in a couple of weeks.

 

 

Then I remembered that it would be a good idea to check the seam strips which the fronts didn't fit that well. So I wire brushed them, fitted them on and clamped the down, made slot in a bit of oak with a curve at the back so it wouldn't damage the curve of the strip and gave it a few hit's with the hammer which they know fit (no pics )

 

Any one know what this sticker is? it was on the passengers side B post just below the door catch.

 

Ooo and got a nice box of goodies, mainly panels for the RSP, but other bit's like bumpers, cam, pistons and exhaust. and got some DSN stuff's

 

Other than cleaning off the inside floor and spraying it with u-pol zinc primer, Thats all the things I can remember I've done/ got pics of, but it's moving along. I'm hoping to have it ready for riv run and maybe London to Brighton. A mate of mine bet that I won't get it done by the end of the year, I'm trying to decide what I'm going to spend my winnings on  .

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Keep going alex

[alex-95]

Keep going alex

 

Cheers mate, nearly ready for primer now.

 

Right We've doing lots of wire brushing, paint stripping and fillering. sorry about the crappy pics

 

Picture of the inside in primer

 

First off was the roof gutter, started roughly in the middle of the drivers side first and found this 

 

so chopped that all out and chopped into the panel sitting on it so I could weld it. 

 

and made a new panel for it and welded it in and ground it down.

 

While cleaning off the a-post I found a few pin holes just above another repair we'd done ages ago, so chopped out the old repair and welded in a new bit.

 

cleaned off the roof.

 

and the gutters

 

Then wire brushed the rear windscreen aperture which also ended well...

 

Cleaned off the bonnet , all the pen marks are rusty areas so am going to does that.

 

which left a nice layer of red on everything.

 

then cleaned off the passenger door 

 

which left a nice layer of blue on everything.

 

Then started cleaning off the boot lid which I decided then to get sandblasted.

 

and sprayed it with etch primer when I got it back

 

 

and that leads us up to this weekend where we re-plumbed the compressor with bigger pipe and added 2 more water traps, one being an regulator type you buy and the other a drop tube with a tap on the end to let the water out, and we'll have a small one on the spray gun. we also fitted some cellotex insulation onto the other garage door as it was getting in the way .

Then we rubbed down the filler and started to give it a thin coat of dolphin glaze to give a finer finish, most of the front and drivers side and bulkhead is done.

 

oh and somewhere in the mix we swapped the mattress for another pallet and carpet so it sit level and doesn't rock about as much. we bolted some wood to the rear subframe boot holes (bit that we used to wheel it around with the one wheel) and bolted another bit to the toe board mounts and jacked the front up with the back leaning on a stool.

 

and bought these, mg metro head with the bigger valves and inlet manifold.

 

other than that and owning it for 6 years last Thursday thats about it. Hopefully it will be etch coated and primed next weekend ( although I've been saying that for a few weeks ) then paint in the week after .