236 replies to this topic

[fatmini]

cheers dude keep up the good work and let us know about the chroming !!!

[sherly]

Well done so far Mart, really stunning mini!

Love the colour aswell, pool ball gear know still going ok..

Cheers matey - pool ball gear knob is ace!

cheers dude keep up the good work and let us know about the chroming !!!

Chroming works out quite expensive from my initial quote - looks like it's just as cheap to buy a new clubbie bumper (£150ish?) Apparantly it's quite labour intensive - lots of polishing pre-chroming to get a good finish. Effectively this means that there is no real advantage to getting a batch chromed up as the only bit which you save money on is the guys time for dipping after polishing. This is only one company's perspective though - I'll try a few more before giving up on the idea......prices for smaller items (under and overriders etc) seem quite reasonable (£30-£40 a pair) but the lead time is about 7-8weeks! Maybe I just picked a shoddy company....?

[sherly]

Progress!

I've had a few days off work recently and made progress on the Mini with the aim of MOT-ing this month. I've done loads of niggly little jobs and I'm fairly close to being ready - the only sticking point is the britax roof and whether I can MOT without it fitted (i.e. with a big hole in the roof, but with the frame fitted)

One of the bigger jobs to do was to finish off my headlining by cutting a damn great hole in it and trimming it to suit the hole and frame for the britax roof. This job started with the slightly nervous operation of removing the 3 headlining bars which straddled the hole. Then, even worse, I had to plunge a stanley knife blade into my newly fitted, pristine headlining



Once the scary cutting had commenced I felt slightly better about it all. I figured the best course of attack was to glue the headlining in every corner, clamped using quick-clamps and then progress to pulling the lining outside the car, glueing in place and securing with sill trim while it went off.





I let it cure fully for 24hours then proceeded to trim the stuck edges back and fit the frame. The frame adds loads of stiffness back into the roof panel and clamps the headlining in place - meaning if any of the glue hadn't quite gone off then at least it wouldn't go anywhere. I've used normal M6 bolts which are obviously too long. I'll replace these with the correct fittings prior to the MOT.



I enquired about getting the vinyl recovered on the britax roof this morning and I got quite a reasonable quote from a local retrimming company. The plan is to get the car MOT'd near to the workshop with no roof and then drive it home to Essex to have the roof trimmed ready for the long hot summer we're gonna have

More to come.....

Edited by sherly, 11 June 2008 - 12:37 PM.

[sherly]

Alongside the relatively scary job of potentially trashing my headlining I had a long list of niggly jobs that had to be completed.

Over the last couple of visits back to the workshop I have:

Mounted the horn,
Fitted the final front wheelarch (thought this was going to be an absolute nightmare but was quite easy),
Sorted out some wiring issues to the side lights,
Wired in an inertia switch into the fuel pump circuit,
Replaced the fuel return line (which I'd managed to kink in the process of rebuilding everything ) This was an absolute pig of a job as I had originally fitted it with the car on its side and with no subframes on it,
Plumbed in my TIM oil pressure gauge - had a smiths one originally, bought the TIM gauge and realised it had a different fitting. Had to go and buy an adaptor to suit.
Plumbed in a TIM turbo boost gauge - trying to find a shop selling a 1/4"BSF tap on a Saturday morning in Norfolk is bl00dy difficult! Ended up borrowing one from my mum's place of work (fixings company) and tapped the spare manifold that I have, only to then shear off the brass fitting trying to tighten it up Cue another trip to SCA race/rally in Norwich to buy another fitting.





Fitted a new hydraulic brake light switch, mashed my finger in the process due to a slipped ratchet incident, and then bled the brakes.
Fitted new fuel level indicator into the tank, cheers GiT (Lee)! Now works a treat. Old one looked well and truely fubar'd.
Centralised the track rod ends on the steering column as I noticed the front wheel was rubbing on full left lock but fine on right lock. Did it by measuring the exposed thread on each track rod end and equalising them - Will obviously get the tracking done when finished though.
Made up a connecting tube with a breather stub attached to it for the airfilter and mounted this on the inner wing,



Mounted the washer bottle and plumbed the washers into the quirky push-pump thingy in the centre of the dash. I'm sure it'll end up being really cr@p in everyday use and I'm sure I'll end up replacing it for an electric pump, but for the time being it's staying...

Thats about it really......I still have a list of stuff to do but its all pretty minor (mainly to do with mounting the bonnet, door check straps etc) then MOT.

One issue with the MOT at the mo - the V5 says the car is Blue and has the original engine no. on it as I haven't updated it yet. I guess this needs to be ammended and sent off before I can MOT it? I have been told by somebody that because the MOT is computerised the MOT station can actually change this info for you. Personally I don't think this is the case. Gonna phone tomorrow to check.





So, onto MOT and Britax roof retrim!

Edited by sherly, 11 June 2008 - 05:13 PM.

[fatmini]

cheers for the info about the chroming ,not good news but there u go !!!

[mahesket]

looks great, fingers crossed for the MOT

[sherly]

cheers for the info about the chroming ,not good news but there u go !!!

I'll do a bit more phoning round to see if I can get the price a bit lower. Apparently theres a place in Basildon that does rechroming - will give them a buzz soon. I definitely need a pair done as my chrome is not all that fantastic.

looks great, fingers crossed for the MOT

Cheers! Hopefully MOT should be OK as 99.9% of the mechanical stuff on the car is either new or refurb'd. It's always a nervous time though

[GreaseMonkey]

Excellent Clubby, really looks good

Any news on the MOT?

[sherly]

Wow - it's been ages since I updated the progress on the clubby, or indeed even been on the forum..... Some of the niggly jobs have been completed but still no MOT yet, mainly due to lack of funds (and a house that I'm in the process of doing up). Also bought a new daily driver to play with - an Alfa GTV

Anyways - Plan is to head back to the workshop over the first month of the new year and hit the show season head-on next year.......I've had a fairly good insurance quote so hopefully it shouldn't cost me too much to get on the road!

Heres to more cold weekends at the workshop for the final push!

Mart

[sherly]

Thread from the dead! Seeing as I haven't updated this thread for over 4 1/2 years I thought I'd better add some details......

 

Car still isn't finished - life has got in the way unfortunately and other things have taken priority. However the car now resides closer to home, meaning I can work on it a lot easier.  Since I've moved it down to Essex I've changed the head gasket, and started going over the car working on a "hit-list" ready for the MOT. Things fixed since that list:  horn now works, track rod ends changed (these were brand new about 6 years ago and the rubbers have corroded with no use!) wiring loom tidied up and some interior trim finished off.

 

Just waiting for a new fuel pressure regulator to turn up: she was running really rough on idle - massively overfuelling - turns out the diaphragm on the reg was split allowing additional fuel to be sucked into the plenum. 

 

Took a few lightpainted photos in the dark after putting the spanners away last week.......

 

......am I allowed to say MOT soon? ;)

 

clubby by sherlylock, on Flickr

 

[olds_kool_lews]

Looks sweet as! Maybe youll have it mot'd and at a few shows this year lol

[Alex_B]

Gorgeous clubby! and wow a thread that I hadnt seen before, its quite rare seen as I have been on here since 09 and thought I had read most of the old project threads, and really given me inspiration to get my Gt restored! 

[sherly]

Gorgeous clubby! and wow a thread that I hadnt seen before, its quite rare seen as I have been on here since 09 and thought I had read most of the old project threads, and really given me inspiration to get my Gt restored! 

 

 

Thanks - Yep....I was stunned at how long it's been since I last said the words in a thread post......MOT? I got close in 2008 and the project has stalled big time for the last 5 years......to the point where it's getting embarrassing when anyone asks about it!

 

Looks sweet as! Maybe youll have it mot'd and at a few shows this year lol

 

Cheers, love to be driving it to Mini shows this year......it's been a long time since I went to a show! 

[megamini_jb]

Very nice looking clubman. Will have a proper read through the thread this evening :)

[sherly]

Couple of pics from last month - decided to bite the bullet and change the head gasket as the first job since moving the car down to Essex.

 

Reason - because the engine is a bit of an unknown to me & it's a relatively cheap job for the peace of mind that all the stem seals/gaskets are renewed.  With all the other work I've done on the car I guessed it would be a shame to finish the car and be let down in this area because I hadn't taken the time to remove and overhaul.

 

Anyways, whipped the head off cleaned all the faces, checked for flatness, de-coked, lapped in the valves & reassembled.

 

Got the car running but noticed that it was idling really badly......seemed to be overfuelling. (It was doing this prior to the head change too)  The car would "clear" itself when revved but then back to idle it was running really rough.  After some investigation I found fuel in the upper pipe on the fuel pressure regulator, indicating the diaphragm is possibly goosed and allowing additional fuel to be sucked into the plenum.

 

I'm now awaiting a new FPR to arrive (been messed around a bit, should've been here last week)    

 

Bit peeved that the weather is sooo nice now and I can't get the car finished to make the most of it........

 

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