Well I brought it in march in 2011 as I wanted a car for when I past my test, after looking over Cannock and Buxton, I dropped on one just round from my uncle about a mile away from me, it was a 1989 mini city in white with a black roof set of minilight’s on looking pretty standard from the outside
the interior was abit tatty but I wasn’t bothered as I wanted to make it my own
and a link to the album (http://s1230.photobu...st got my mini/)
The first mishap with it was bringing it home, my dad hit a pothole that neither of us saw and the wheel hit the plastic arch and snapped it , so upon that I ordered a new set of arches for it and I thought while I’m at it I will order a stage one kit as well once them came I fitted it all, so it was sat on my drive for a couple of week and I decided to buy some more stuff for him, so I ordered a new head unit , new walnut dash , rocker cover and t bars, 6x9 speaker board for under the rear seats, boot lining kit and a sub that kept be busy for a short while and then it was back to spending , next was a sump guard , 2 red dot cones, a set of hi-lo’s and 2 new shocks so it was left like that for a week , I tried start it and it did not want to turn over so I put the battery on charge it was fine but I came start it again and still no joy , so out to get a new battery , I knew I wanted spotlights so I brought a 306 diesel battery as they fit snug in the box. This took me to April when I past my test
so insured it taxed it on the 28th of April as I was that eager to get out and drive , after driving round for abit I could tell my car was pulling to one side , turns out my piston was stuck in one side of the calliper, and the discs weren’t the best , so safe stripping and rebuilding my callipers , I brought 2 callipers discs and pads for £128 that I thought was a good price for new ones .once that was done I was loving every minute of driving it but I felt like I could do with more light at night. Sooooo was to the bay of e and next thing I know I won four cibie Oscar +’s, now I had them I needed some brackets and I ended up buying a set of tyres on here then it was to fitting them, all I could say after was LIGHT and lots of it, but the results of that I think I killed the alternator so again I ended up buying another one but brought an up rated 80amp one then I was good to go so I had a few month of trouble free motoring until mini fest came ( came back with a set of wheels + some wipacs ) and September when I had a range rover flick a stone up and me and put a nice chip in my screen that grew down the side 
October brought my M.O.T and a list of failures as well , the main ones being front sub frame mounts 2 were not connected together and one was badly perished, windscreen had a crack in it, as well as my emissions way out , so I took a trip to minispares to get a screen got the screen and ended up walking out with a set of cobra classics as well leaving my interior looking like this
:L replaced the mounts with poly bush’s and took my mini to mikeanics down Congleton to get it rolling roaded and sort my emissions ( my 998 had 38.8bhp with a stage one ) took it back and yes a pass
. So I had a week of motoring withought a problem and then on the 17th I had an accident , my car under steered so I hit the brakes and slid head on into a kurb :’( resulting in my subframe being pushed back , and my front end dragging down
link to the album (http://s1230.photobu...ailey/accident/ )
I was gutted I could of cried , so a phone call to a friend and he came pick me up on his transporter where it got dropped off at a family friends until I sorted something out as I didn’t want claim on my insurance , so I got recommended a body shop I gave them a ring and they went to have a look at it and said they would be able pull it straight and it will only take a couple of weeks YESS ! so he picked it up at the end of October and it was left with him then , gave him a ring 2 weeks later and he said it will need one more week , then at the end of that week he said he needed a floor pan so my dad got him one and dropped it off , another week past to cut the story short 2 months after it went in and £600 quid later I got my mini back , just pulled straight with some sikaflex in the seams , I was just glad to be able to drive it again , but when I got it back the steering felt funny , so I took it to be 4 wheel aligned the bloke lined it up all so I took it for a drive went back and he checked it again and it was out , so he lined it up again , and I went at that , but there was still movement in the steering , after a few questions later it turned out to be that my steering rack was loose giving me nearly half a turn on my wheel before the car would change direction so I tightened the u bolts up and it was back to being good again and I think it was a little better to be honest . Then it was back to polishing him and keeping him nice and clean until may and my mini’s gearbox decided to give up (bearing race had cracked and bits of metal had filled it ) and lock the wheels up solid leaving work with a lorry sat right behind me doing 30 , he missed my back end by about a foot , so I rung up the recovery people and they came pick me up , but the bloke couldn’t tow it with his van , so he took me home and sent someone with a low loader to fetch it , that when it got brought back to my drive and sat there until the end of June when I decided that I’m going to get all the body work done ( my passenger side door dropped when I opened it will see why further down ) and stick a 1275 in him , so my mate took it to a family friends again where I went about pulling him apart before i started pulling it apart it looked like this
link to the album ( http://s1230.photobu...i before resto/)
after taking the engine out and spraying a little bit of primer it looked like this
before i put primer on
link to album (http://s1230.photobu...berts bodywork/ )
after I did all that he came back down home without an engine until it was ready to go in the body shop , so it got picked up and took down ready to be worked on
so I called down the next day to find the front end off it and an inner wing welded on , with the front off it was clear as day to see what was causing the door drop
( can see more pictures in the album link http://s1230.photobu...berts bodywork/ worth a look of all the rust and work ) what ended up being welded in was
2 inner wings, 2 outer wings, Front panel, Drivers and passengers flitch panel ,2 new door skins ,2 A panels ,Drivers side foot well ,Scuttle panel ,Also had a fibreglass bonnet put on
The next day I called down it was all in primer and started looking more like a mini
The day after it was all in white paint
And the day after that it had the black on and the arches and spots sprayed black to
The painter brought the seam strips , and drivers side filtch + paint and all his work the bill came to £980 and I’m very satisfied , he isn’t happy with how the roof has turned out , the paint has pulled in in certain areas leaving little dimples so he has told me when its built call down and he will respray it again for nothing
And that’s pretty much as it stands atm , I’ve been painting the headlining black but run out of paint so that’s on hold atm , I’ve got a 1275 engine in good condition that is going to get a 276 cam and a stage 3 head on then a maniflow exhaust system and megajolt , I’ve just got to order up a load of bits and pieces now but I am going wait till Uttoxeter to pick up most of them , but I need to order the cam and megajolt stuff separate , I will update it more as I go on
