193 replies to this topic

[Skortchio]

Special order from Sweden, dude. Feed 'em pancakes and they go for hours!

[rally515]

Noted i'l get on e-bay for some now ;)

[Minidarren83]

Loving the work there sir I think the switch to the 10's will make your mini look even fatter and overall awesome

[Skortchio]

After a bit of a faff (and a bit of Chunky assistance) the rear camber brackets are on and done up, just a geometry set up, corner weighting and tracking to go and I can find out what all the fuss is about.

In the meantime, I managed to find a bit of rust that escaped my previous scouring of the car. On the upside its easily accessible and not near the paintwork so I'll hopefully have that cut out and fixed in the next week or so!

In between the brackets and trial fitting some new seats (yep, more seats) I got started on flatting down the paintwork for polishing as I figure that 6 months was probably enough time for it to cure fully.

And cure it has, so much so it's taking blooming ages to flat down. Had to start on 800grit just to make a dent (figuratively) but it seems to be going down nicely.
Next step is to follow it up with 1200, then some G3, moving onto Merguires Ultra-cut, Ultimate compound and then some wax.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the £52 the paint job cost me, time will tell how the durability holds out. But it's holding out okay so far.

Some shots for the dedicated.

It's a process.


Here we go again!


Must get those wheels back on sometime.


Finally getting somewhere!


Not bad for 800grit and a wipe over.


Reflection shot.


Along with the ever looming dashboard and speakers pods / enclosure, there's some new seat subframes and a some solid front subframe rear mounts to go on, along with reinforced spreader plates (courtesy of Darren).

[AndrewMini]

nice project, cant believe how good the paint finish is! good work

[Minidarren83]

Suppose I'd better get cracking and make those spreader plates lol the pictures just don't do it justice the flatted parts are almost gun quality

[steven]

for that price you could change the colour every year

[MrBounce]

Just read the whole thread fron start to finish and it is amazing. Love what you've done!

[Skortchio]

Thanks guys,

Really helps to get positive feedback! The last week has been slow between medical hold ups, weather and generally low mood plus a few "little" jobs that need sorting before the wheels can touch down again.

If the paint continues to finish the way it's going it should far surpass a factory finish once I've got it polished. Here's hoping!

[Minidarren83]

Update on behalf of Dave

I was over there today from about 11 to 4 and set about doing the welding required on the underside generally a very rust free car just a few odd patches that maybe got missed with the underseal



Then on to help with cutting and polishing the paint Dave had previously cut back with 400 then 800 so we used from there g3 compounding on a rotary polisher and this is what we got after 10 mins



And my mug in the reflection



So we moved on to do a bonnet half I think you will all agree not bad for a £30 roller job with dulux I am seriously impressed

[Skortchio]

Cheers for the invaluable help today, dude!
Was good to see some progress on the paint front, after you left I got most of the car G3'd to varying degrees. Next time I'm over I'll go over with the finer cutting compound and try a bit of polish too maybe!

Might even see him on his wheels this side of summer

[Skortchio]

Slightly disappointing weekend was had overall.

After getting back to the garage for the first time in about 8 weeks I was eager to crack on finish where I left off.

A couple of days towards the end of the week getting the car G3'd consequently killed the polisher (it was old) so this weekend I pulled it to bits and gave it a clean - Huzzah it worked again!
Managed to get almost all the way round with the Meguiars ultra cut before it keeled over again. Given I've got to clean the remnants of the compound off as well as actually polish it yet I might be getting a new polisher it seems.

Not a bad start though:


Darren was happy with the results:


So with the paint work off the menu I decided to crack on getting the car on its wheels again.
Tightened up the radius arms, exhaust on and then went to set the camber brackets at a neutral point until I can have them set up...
Only the find the plates which allow adjustment don't match each other! They should be a mirror image but for reasons only known to Minispares are not, it looks like the threaded stud was welded on the wrong end of the plate on one, but I'll wait and see what MS have to say about it before going at it with a grinder.





With the wheels on the floor not an option I resorted to the seats (Alpha GTV), hopefully more supportive than the current MG ones. Initially the runners wouldn't move forward very far meaning the seat wouldn't slide back and I need a lot of sliding back! So a few seconds with a grinder to remove the stopper tabs and a tap with a punch to stop the bearings dropping out and they're ready to test fit... Once the car is on the floor. Bah!

So with the long wait for camber brackets and polishers starting I decided where I'm going to put my new sub and took some rough measurements on how much mdf I'll need for it.
Now I just have to get it!

[Minidarren83]

I can't see them plates being a problem mate them bolts are for the up/down adjusent? Ie camber then their location on the plate makes no difference so long as they still move the pin I may be completely wrong here but I don't see the accuracy of the plate manufacturing affecting your overall setup so long as the ridges still hold the toe and the bolt still holds the camber while the rad arm bolt is done up

Edited by Minidarren83, 23 April 2013 - 05:24 PM.

[Skortchio]

Essentially yeah, but the problem is that the N/S plate can't be positioned in such a way to give equal or toe-in because there's too much meat on the plate to allow it to move forward enough.

On the plus side, MS came through and have shipped me some new ones.

Ordered a new polisher too, so with a bit of luck by the end of the week I might be able to crack on!

[Minidarren83]

Nice one shouldn't be long now then and you can come and help me lol just bought an electric hoist to get the mg motor out so can start work on the frame soon just need steel and a suitable saw for accurate cuts