156 replies to this topic

[miniBrain]

Welcome to my 1275 GT restoration project.

I bought the car off ebay, knowing that it needed "extensive welding". But since these cars are becoming rare I just had to have it. There's a few pics below to show the state of the car as purchased.

I'm not a complete novice, having restored a Spitfire and MGB GT before. But this is my first mini, so the help and and advice that I've already obtained through reading through other projects on this site has been invaluable. In particular Sonnik4's project Erm, which has answered almost every question I had about repairing the structure so far.

My plan is as follows:

Stage 1 - Driver's side structure: New floor, sill, heelboard, door step/post, flitch panel.

Stage 2 - Passenger side structure: as above.

Stage 3 - Engine bay: Engine out, refurbish/replace engine compartment parts, do structural repairs as neccesary. Remove subframe, strip, repair as necessary, repaint, rebuild with hi-los.

Stage 4 - Rear area: Boot floor repairs, valance. Paint new rear-subframe.

Stage 5 - Fit exterior panels: Scuttle, wings, front panel, outer sills.

Stage 6 - Repair roof.

Stage 7 - Paint, underseal, rustproofing.

Stage 8 - Re-assembly, detailing.

This plan will remain "flexible" (as in "oh **** - I forgot about that - it doesn't fit - help!"), so I reserve the right to be wrong at any time!

I chose to do the floor & heelboard in two halfs rather than the whole lot because a) There's no rot in the central areas; b) It retains some structural integrity while the floor/sill sections are removed; c) It retains valuable reference points so that you can align the new panels; d) It minimises the amount of bracing/jigging needed.

I decided to use heritage panels where possible, since this is my first mini resto and I did'nt want any added uncertainty.

The first thing I did was to assess the state of the engine so that I could decide whether to take it out early and send it away for a re-bore/re-build whilst I worked on the body. Well the engine started, ran and sounded fine with no visible leaks. The compression in each cylinder was almost bob-on 13 bar, 190psi. It appeared the engine was in good condition, so no rebuild necessary.

I've almost finished stage 1, so further post to follow shortly.








I plan to get a roof quarter from a breaker's to fix this. I might have to buy the whole roof though!




Braced both sides, ready for cutting!


The subframe literally had to be ripped out as one of the bolts had sheared and I couldn't get at it to cut it off.


This is definitely an area that needs liberal quantities of Dinitrol once rebuilt.

Edited by miniBrain, 17 August 2013 - 09:38 AM.

[Artful Dodger]

man on a mission to save a 1275GT

good luck! looks like you are going to be busy with the ole welder!

[leaky]

Jeeees that is some mega work their. With the roof I would recommend getting a whole roof. As trying to join part of one with another one is just gonna be alot of hassle. Good luck with it though.

[Bungle]

good luck, your going to need it

[miniBrain]

I live close to Mini Sport at Padiham in Lancs, so it makes sense to use them for the parts required. I went along to see them and explained how much money I need to spend (about £2k+) on this project and asked if they could offer me any inducements to spend it with them. After a bit of bartering, I secured a 10% discount on everything! Can't be bad. Even better they've got a lot of stuff on show, including those lovely 4-pot calipers.

Anyway here's how stage 1 has progressed:

Acquired this nearly new subframe from ebay for £219. It even has Mini Sport adjusta-rides and many new or nearly new fittings. Will just need to rub down and paint before fitting but will fit new poly bushes as well.


Made up this simple jig to ensure correct alignment of the heel board half:


Just fit plates to subframe then tack weld plates into position on angle section:



Taking measurements before cutting starts. Measured the door frame at each extreme and the distance between LH and RH sills:


Fitted the flitch panel and marked cut-out:


Removed the old scuttle to allow trial-fitting of new one to help ensure correct fitting of door post, A-panel and wing:


I kept a spirit-level handy to check level after every cut:


Supported the body with timber under the rear shock mounts:


Floor, heelboard and flitch sections cut-out:


Surface rust treated with Fe-123 (my favourite rust treatment) inside cross-member and I also had to remove the front lip due to rot. Will fit new lip later. I also cut out some rot around the seat mount and re-fitted with clean metal and the original nuts welded into position:


Trial fitting of floor and heelboard sections to allow cut-outs to be marked. Note old doorstep left in position to aid alignment:


Floor and heelboard sections trimmed, drilled and cleaned up ready for welding with a coat of weld-through primer over the bare metal:


Inside cross-member etch-primed then painted with some Hammerite I had handy. Will be sprayed with Dinitrol later:


Floor and heelboard tacked into position. Will weld up properly once the flitch is in place and then the structure should be strong enough to take my weight. (I needed to get inside to get into a comfy position for welding). I left about a 1" "tongue" when cutting heelboard half to shape which was joggled then overlapped against the existing heelboard for extra strength. Also, the bracing parts and the old door post/step could be removed after adding additional supports under the floor:


New doorstep/post tacked into position:


Although the door post is still a bit flimsy, I wanted to check that the door fit was OK to continue. Happily, the door fits OK and the gaps look reasonable. The gap between the A-Panel and door will close up a bit (I hope!) with a bit of fettling once the door post & flitch are properly fitted.



Trial-fitting the panels shows a reasonable fit.


Will just need to push a bit harder to close this gap - but happy with this so far.




I've got a few more repairs to make around the companion box and flitch and will close up the air vent hole before welding the flitch panel in place. Also need to fabricate the sill stiffener that fits across the heelboard/sill joint. Then that's it for now on the driver's side. Will move on to the passenger side (Stage 2) next week and repeat the process.

Any comments and advice welcome.

Edited by miniBrain, 17 August 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[lawrence]

That is looking rather good there i must say, alot of rubish metal cut away too ill be keeping an eye on this thread. Great progress and it must be nice using heritage panels instead of pattern too!
Lawrence

[miniBrain]

Thanks lawrence. I'm quite impressed with the genuine panels. I used pattern panels on a Spitfire resto and they were pretty poor by comparison. Spent hours trying to get the profiles to match and then ended up using more filler than I'd like. I think the extra cost is worthwhile.

[iDemonix]

Quite a mission this one, subscribed!

On a sidenote, how would you compare restoring a mini to restoring a spit? For the last year of saving I've been absolutely torn between a Spit or Mini but swaying towards Mini purely because a soft top in this country seems like it'd never get used. But every time I fire up YouTube and hear a 1500 Spitfire start up with a 4-pipe Monza exhaust I instantly fall back in love.

[Artful Dodger]

very impressive! but then again, you have done 2! that MGB looks nice!

im going to subscribe too:)

[miniBrain]

On a sidenote, how would you compare restoring a mini to restoring a spit? For the last year of saving I've been absolutely torn between a Spit or Mini but swaying towards Mini purely because a soft top in this country seems like it'd never get used. But every time I fire up YouTube and hear a 1500 Spitfire start up with a 4-pipe Monza exhaust I instantly fall back in love.

Hi iDemonix, The Spit I mentioned only needed a "light" restoration in terms of bodywork; e.g. rear lower quarter panels, rear wheel arch repairs and some rot cut out of the bonnet arches, then some paintwork. The main effort went into the mechanics. So its difficult for me to compare the Spit & Mini in terms of a full resto. Although they are very different in structure, I'd say they are about equal in complexity - but maybe the Spit would be an easier job due to the access provided when the bonnet and roof are removed. And the body can be separated from the chassis by removing about 12 bolts. Once all thats done, I think replacing any major panel should be a lot easier than a Mini. You're right about the weather - the Spit is definitely not an all-weather car, even with a hard top. Mine had a wide-bore exhaust which sounded fantastic. But to use a J.Clarkson phrase it simply "turned petrol into noise" - i.e. The 1500 ain't a very good engine - not a patch on the A series! But its a beautiful car and makes you wonder what happened to the British car industry when we were producing designs like this.

[tedmcedd]

very nice work, no messing about! the B looks good! I used to have one myself...

are the plans to keep this original? nice steering wheel on it

Ed

[miniBrain]

very nice work, no messing about! the B looks good! I used to have one myself...

are the plans to keep this original? nice steering wheel on it

Ed

Yeah the 'Bs a fine car - just need to get some parabolic springs at the back if I can afford them after the Mini, Will aim to keep the Mini as original as I can apart from deleting the fresh air vents, Minilites, hi-los and uprated exhaust and filter. I need to get the wheel repaired though, the leather stitching has come out!

Cheers,
Bob

[miniBrain]

Progress update on 1275GT:

Completed the LH floor heelboard, floor and doorpost/step - piccies below!

No real dramas but this almost caught me out: When I cut the floor out the doorstep sprung out by about 10mm. This nearly went unnoticed since I thought the doorstep was quite stable and did'nt pay too much attention to the dimensions in this area - bad assumption! I took a measurement across the sills as an afterthought - lucky for me I'd not progressed too far and I was able to correct it before I'd welded everything up tight. Just goes to show the value of taking measurements before each step.

Floor, flitch & heelboard cut out:




New heelboard half in position, supported and braced:




New floor in:









I needed to replace the passenger door hinges which broke due to rust damage. But the screws were rusted in solid and even after a good soak with WD40 would not budge and of course I eventually rounded off the Philips slots. To get them out, I put in a slot using a thin cutting disc which allowed me to use a beefy flat blade.




Success!:




But didn't work every time. This one had to be drilled out for a screw extractor - about £12 from Machine Mart - to get the remants out. If this don't work, I might have to drill out oversize and re-tap or maybe I could get a another nut on top of the old one? I'll leave this 'till later - two screws will do for now.




New flitch repair welded and door fitted to test fit. Also started to install the first of many small fiddly repairs required. I needed to cut out more of the old panel (to get rid of all the rot) than the width of the flitch thus the long patch you can see on the lower left. The remaining rust you can see is quite light surface rust (except for the top front of the inner wing - which needs some repairs) so should be OK with a bit of treatment.




The door fits reasonably well at this stage and closes with a nice clunk. When I got the car the door sagged by about an inch and fouled against the rear post - it needed lifting to close it!





Thats it for now. I just need to make and fit the numerous small repairs then I can get on to the next stage. Next update will show (hopefully) engine & front subframe out and the bulkhead and inner wings stripped and repaired as necessary.

Thanks for looking - any comment gratefully received!

PS

After long consideration, I'm thinking about POR-15 for the underside, inner wings, engine bay and interior floors. I plan to use the the standard black then finish with a POR-15 blue topcoat (Flexcoat). It means I'll need to take these surfaces back to bare metal - but I've read so many positive thngs about this paint that it MIGHT be worth the effort.

What do you think?

Edited by miniBrain, 17 August 2013 - 09:43 AM.

[SAL 821X]

<sub>I think your doing a cracking job there fella.

Really like your in depth description aswell really helps with us mere mortals like me.

Will be watching as my cousin has a padgent blue 1275gt to.</sub>

[chrisj]

Fantastic project, will follow this one closely.

Very similar panels to replace to me so to see the pictures is a great help.

Chris