15 replies to this topic

[nick.evans93]

Been thinking about doing a kind of restoration to my mini but have honestly no idea of the cost of I want doing so anyone with advice would be very nice.

Was thinking about getting a full respray along with an acid dip and primer dip to protect against rust as I've heard this makes the body work last lot longer. While the car is stripped down I was thinking of doing an engine rebuild myself, and replacing the wiring loom myself.

I'm not planning to do this for at least the next 6 months due to lack of funds and university, however I'm planning to do the welding myself if I find the time to keep the cost down but I genuinely have no clue of the cost or how long this project will take given the size of it.

My mini is a 1985 carbed and the shell has minimal rust (if any of that helps).

Edited by nick.evans93, 31 August 2012 - 12:50 AM.

[dklawson]

You are describing a lot of work that will be expensive. Since you intend on doing this work intermixed with your university work and as you collect funds... there is a good chance your car will be in pieces for quite some time during which money will continue to be "tight".

Being "over here" I cannot begin to offer any suggestion on prices. However, as people post to your thread, collect their estimates and I suggest you add about 30%. Whenever you get started on a project as ambitious as you suggest, you will spend more than you anticipate. For example, if you dip strip and respray the body, you are not likely to be happy with many of the interior bits when you start putting the car back together. You might decide then that if you are fitting new interior pieces that a new wiring loom would help reliability. The old glass may be a bit scratched, maybe new glass is justified. And so it goes. Before you know it you have invested more in the car than it is worth. It is your money, but make sure you invest only what you are willing to loose. In the event of an accident, your insurance provider is not likely to pay you any more for the car than what a similar year and model is worth... regardless of how much you spent on the rebuild.

In short, expect to spend more than you first estimate and plan on the car being in pieces and unavailable for a period of months or even years. Do not spend more on the car than its current value or be prepared to lose.

[corrado vr6]

For an idea of time it's taken me a 18 months of weekends and evenings to do mine fitting it around my full time job however I did all welding and respray myself

[nick.evans93]

This is all really helpful to know before I decide to do anything, I didn't think it would take any less than a year so 18 months doesn't sound to bad if I manage to get some help from friends along the way. Is the acid dip and etch primer worth doing?, I live on the south coast next to the sea almost so I think I'm right in saying things tend to rust faster or so it seems.

[robtheplod]

Is it ever finantially savvy to restore a mini, other than a rare one? I would think most (including me) do it as they love the cars - I know I would not get back anything near what I spent on the car .... the joys of a mini!

[rally1380]

I have just looked into the whole body shell dipping/painting process and got this quote from Surface Processing......


Assuming the parts to be all steel with no aluminium present the cost to process yourClassic Mini would be as follows:

To chemically clean the bodyshell including the Boot Lid, Bonnet & Doors - £745.00 + VAT

We recommend that you have your shell chemically stripped of all coatings, take it away and do your weld repair work and then return the shell to us for the zinc phosphate primer. If you choose this route you will get surface rust on the shell whilst carrying out your repair work, however, we would then carry out a de-rust process before coating your shell.

To de-rust the bodyshell to clean surface rust and contamination - £400.00 + VAT (if you have your shell cleaned and coated all in the same visit you would not need the de-rust process).

To electrophoretic coating on bodyshell - £1450.00 + VAT

To electrophoretic coating on the panelwork - £300.00 + VAT. This covers standard panelwork on a car i.e. 2 doors, bonnet and boot lid.



.....so if you add all that up it ain't cheap

Edited by rally1380, 31 August 2012 - 08:35 AM.

[nick.evans93]

Don't get me wrong I never intend to sell my mini, I love my mini to bits even when things go wrong, financially I never expect the value of my car to increase with the amount I will spend on it.

Given that the acid dip isn't cheap, any ideas as to stopping the rust? Or at least slowing it down

Edited by nick.evans93, 31 August 2012 - 08:45 AM.

[tractor]

In the event of an accident, your insurance provider is not likely to pay you any more for the car than what a similar year and model is worth... regardless of how much you spent on the rebuild.

Thats a depressing thought......

Is it ever finantially savvy to restore a mini, other than a rare one? I would think most (including me) do it as they love the cars -

i'll second that and add that by working on the mini it keeps me out of the pub and with the price of beer i'm probably saving money :)

trac

[oliver122]

im just rebuilding mine atm , and ive spent around about 500 quid on panels , 2 inner wings , 2 outer wings , front panel , 2 a panles , fibreglass bonnet , scuttle panel , 2 flitch panels and a driver side floor pan , then the cost of all the welding and a full respray in 2 pac came to £980 and that's body work alone , before i even start on bits and pieces , ive just spent 400 quid on megajolt and a cam xD got another 350 on the cylinder head to spend will be buying a set of gaz shocks as well and then all the little bits of trim soon add up. sometimes i think i should of brought one already done :L

[nick.evans93]

im just rebuilding mine atm , and ive spent around about 500 quid on panels , 2 inner wings , 2 outer wings , front panel , 2 a panles , fibreglass bonnet , scuttle panel , 2 flitch panels and a driver side floor pan , then the cost of all the welding and a full respray in 2 pac came to £980 and that's body work alone

That's probably more my budget when I manage to save some pennies from work

[oliver122]

hes a link to my build thread http://www.theminifo...-resto-filbert/ so you can see the sort of work involved

[rally1380]

Don't get me wrong I never intend to sell my mini, I love my mini to bits even when things go wrong, financially I never expect the value of my car to increase with the amount I will spend on it.

Given that the acid dip isn't cheap, any ideas as to stopping the rust? Or at least slowing it down

I personnally don't think there is any way to stop rust other than cut it out and replace with fresh steel - then paint and protect that. All these rust converter type products don't work in my opinion. If you are 100% sure you will never sell (or crash!) your mini then get it dipped and e coated and do a proper resto job. It will look a million dollars (pounds!) and be a true 99.9% rust free mini (they are never fully rust free!) and last for years and years with the right care.

Will the car be garaged after this resto? A garaged classic car (a mini is a classic even if its an 80's one) is always gonna last longer and a roof over its head will help keep the rust at bay.

I've got the same sort of dilemma with my cars - do i dip and protect or just do the rust removing job myself? My financial head (i'm a tight arse!) is winning at the moment as neither of my mini's are ever going to be worth a huge amount so it's a case of media blasting for me - if they were early cooper s cars then that'd be a different case altogether!

[dklawson]

Is it ever finantially savvy to restore a mini, other than a rare one? I would think most (including me) do it as they love the cars - I know I would not get back anything near what I spent on the car .... the joys of a mini!

That was my point exactly but put much more succinctly.

When I chose my Mini, I KNEW I wanted a project to restore. I immediately found that it was going to take as much time and money to rebuild a standard Mini shell as the one used on an -S. The total cost of rebuilding and painting the body (either body) was going to exceed the value of a complete and assembled standard Mini (a Super Delux in my case). Since the cost of bodywork and paint was going to be the same, I bought the Cooper-S project instead. At least its finished value was going to exceed the body restoration cost even after considering its higher initial purchase price.

Many years ago I cautioned my nephew about car purchases and insurance. He fell in love with a used VW Scirroco. In spite of my advice to NOT pay more than $X, he paid $Y. Three months later he was in an accident and the insurance company paid him about $2000 less than he had spent on the car. The message is/was, don't spend more than you are willing to lose.

[nick.evans93]

Cheers for that thread, I'll follow this closely, looks good so far

[jimnali]

Personally I wouldn't bother with chemical stripping or media blasting and would save the cash to spend elsewhere on the car. In the course of restoring my car I uncovered a more corrosion than was initially obvious and repaired it as I went. So I have now cut out and replaced all of the common problem areas. As I did so I sanded of all accessible rust and painted all bare metal with zinc primer and waxoyl.

The remaining paintwork was solid enough so with a carefull sanding and a good coat of primer it provided a sound base for the top coat. I suspect that media blasting would have not provided a better preparation and would certainly have greatly increased the cost.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.