48 replies to this topic

[minimk1]

hi there this is my dads 1962 mini cooper 997cc in blue that we brought earlyer on today we went into london to pick it up from a garage, where it has spent the last 5 years of its life sitting there, the car has had one owner from new and had kept it in a very reasonable condition considering the facilitys the car was stored in.it has very little rust especially compared to my 1977 mini barney (my mini resto). unfortunatly since the car has been stored for five years it has no TAX or MOT also the previous owner had started to dismantle the engine bay. with no chance of running the only way to get the mini back home was a lowback van. so we got our local man to meet us there,when he got there i had the pleasure of steering the old girl out of the garage and onto the lowback, but as we were using man power and the brakes seemed to be non agsistant the only way to keep me from rolling back down of the lowback was to shove it into gear witch at the time was a tricky job to do as it was very stiff but we managed to do it.once back home we rolled it into the garage for cleaning here are the pictures !!!

















dads plans are to restore the mini to be an original cooper the same colour but upgrade the engine, also a full respray, some 10"cooper s cream wheels with yokhos on, a saftey roll cadge and some seatbelts as this car was not buit with them other than that and a brake upgrade it will be standard

[Furyblade_Lee]

Awesome find! Good luck with the resto.

[tedmcedd]

what a find! nice to hear its gping original, those 997 coopers are rare now! might want to consider keeping the engine original too....

Ed

[mini_in_progress]

thats a mint find and has a real sweet body too. i have one of those rocker covers but with an mg placque not austin was in my mini when i got it i thought it was a metro one!

[Ryang556]

What an awesome project! 997 cooper, I'd be keeping that engine for sure if it was mine, beautiful find! Especially with the one owner from new!

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

997 Cooper is definitely one of the more desirable Minis in todays market... upgrading the engine would do bad things to its value when you sell it I think.

Absolutely great find though.

[minimk1]

Hi by upgrading the engine I ment subtle mods such as trumpets on the carbs and other mods like this he is keeping the same engine but just adding a few mods to it.

[minimk1]

update on the mini out in the daylight after a quick clean up, some of the paint is still in realy good shape and is actually shiny. the only rust we manged to hunt down was on the left front wing and the sills and there are only small holes on these anyway,amazing condition for a 50 year old car, we also attactched some parts such as air filters and rear number plate

pictures not loading so will put them up tomorow sorry

[Ryang556]

Look forward to them dude!

[Badchilli]

Great car good luck with the restoration , looks to be pretty much complete , anything missing ?

[minimk1]

had another look at the min cooper today to see what is missing ? .After jacking the car up i discovered that the nearside brake caliper has been removed!!, that is on the to get and do list.. all the interior is complete very nice too,although the drivers seat has collapsed a bit.My first main objective is to try and get the engine started,it is turning over on the crank,but there are various parts missing ,.not many though . The distributer has been removed at some point, fiddled with and then placed back in with some parts left off ? not sure what im going to about this at the moment im new to the mini scene but loving this new challenge not sure my wife shares the same enthusiasm!! other parts missing are heater valve and associated parts,a couple of bolts from under the rocker cover that hold the rockers down.and something is missing from on top of the clutch housing two cables must bolt on to this i believe,i will try and get harry my son to upload some pictures of the parts concerned and hopefully some one can help me out??. I think this is going to be an interesting project. Yes it was an amazing find!! and in pretty good shape lovely colour got the bumpers ,cooper wheel trims,some spare wheels lights,and some bits and bobs the registration is two numbers and three letters ,i would love to know more about this..An interesting thing i found today is that the engine stamp code is 9f -sah-**** But the cylinder head is 12a 185 which i believe is a cooper s head ???? please advise ...thanks for reading harrys dad .

[ace01]

Ok, you are extremely fortunate to find a 997 in such a good condition. To answer some of your queries:- the 12 A 183 cylinder head is the rather less common variety fitted to the 997 and is original to it. Unfortunately there is a 1071 Cooper S head with exactly the same number! The difference back then was identified by giving the Cooper S head a colour mark (I can't remember exactly which colour, either white or blue I think). The two heads are completely different. A classic piece of BMC confusion that has bothered enthusiasts for years.

The heater valve is correct. I am assuming you have a simple heater in the car, which is a very square box with a flap that pulls out? Fresh air heaters (rare) have trunking and a snail shaped blower in the engine bay and a large rectangular box for the heater.

It sounds like the part missing from the clutch cover is the slave cylinder, but a photo would be needed to confirm.

The rocker cover is correct and a rare part very often missing. The difference with other rocker covers is the angle of the breather pipe.

As for the reg, my own 997 is 939 ACE and as the 997 Coopers were being built before pre fixed regs came in 3 numbers and 3 letters are not uncommon. Sorry I just noticed that you said 2 numbers and three letters, which is a tad unusual.

I would suggest that you visit the Mini Cooper Register website www.minicooper.org The guys on there have a considerable wealth of knowledge and will be able to help you.

Edited by ace01, 10 January 2012 - 10:32 AM.

[mk3 Cooper S]

Nice find, Looks in nce oriiginal condition

[midridge2]

is that the correct colour fuel gauge for a pre 62/63, the early ones were white/magnolia colour?

[newnham500]

thats nice, and buy tge looks of the garage your set you to give it the help it needs.