1843 replies to this topic

[Petrol]

What do you mean by interactive?

Interactive means not much chat. For example I asked about welding and I got no replies. No one has answered my questions. I use another forum and get lots of techie support. So much so..... My questions were answered there.

In fact someone on the "other forum" has offered to weld up the door hinge bolts for me..

If you want me to be honest I thought feck it... why bother? This forum has a long way to go compared to the one I normally use. I am sorry to say that but it's the truth

[Noah]

What do you mean by interactive?

Interactive means not much chat. For example I asked about welding and I got no replies. No one has answered my questions. I use another forum and get lots of techie support. So much so..... My questions were answered there.

In fact someone on the "other forum" has offered to weld up the door hinge bolts for me..

If you want me to be honest I thought feck it... why bother? This forum has a long way to go compared to the one I normally use. I am sorry to say that but it's the truth

I can see where you're coming from.

Honestly I probably know less about welding than Yoda's god son. Exactly. LOL. I have done 1 bit of welding in my life and thats it and that was only a week ago.

I can help with any thing else just not welding LOL.

Edited by Noah, 24 December 2012 - 03:31 AM.

[Artstu]

I'm the same, I pop in and have a look, especially after reading your two threads on the Nissan rebuilds, but having never done any welding on car body work I don't feel qualified to help with your questions, sorry.

I have to agree their isn't much interaction going on in this thread, and without it I'd be thinking the same, "why do I bother"

But I do really enjoy reading your posts Pete, hopefully someone more knowledgeable will take the time to post.

[sonikk4]

Petrol not everybody gets to read all of the threads on the forum. Some threads go without replies for sometime then wham loads so its the way it goes.

You dont need to ask about sending me a pm just go for it and i always answer. I'm a shift worker so dont always get the chance to go through all of the threads to answer questions so its always worth sending a pm directly.

And in answer to the pulse welding you have done it looks ok with good penetration.

The one thing i will say is the repair you have done to the door egde looks fine but where you can see some dark blue spots on the ground areas the metal will be very thin so be careful there.

[Black.Ghost]

The project looks to be coming along nicely.

As for the interactive issue, thats probably because it is within a build thread. If you have a question about welding, you would probably get more feedback if you put it in the general chat section as it is visited more regularly.

I hope this mini turns out as well as the Nissans.

[Noah]

Petrol,

I agree the chit chat also depends on who you're talking with.

For example check any of my Threads and chances are it spouts off into conversation.

Now some people would say thats spam, but considering this is a Forum where people come to meet other people with similar interests I don't see anything wrong with it :)

[Petrol]

Thanks for the replies,
I appreciate that not everyone gets time to read every thread and to some degree, lots of posts that go off topic can ruin a thread as it gets boring. My main concern with this rebuild is there are some areas of the car that have been messed with. The dash for example, was not fastened in at all and I have no idea where the brackets go – don’t even know if I have them! There is no spare wheel and I don’t know how it’s secured as the boot floor looks like it has no way of accommodating this. The list goes on and on and I will need some help later down the line to get this car properly assembled. I am sure however, you folks can help me sort it out.

Merry Xmas everyone

[Noah]

Thanks for the replies,
I appreciate that not everyone gets time to read every thread and to some degree, lots of posts that go off topic can ruin a thread as it gets boring. My main concern with this rebuild is there are some areas of the car that have been messed with. The dash for example, was not fastened in at all and I have no idea where the brackets go – don’t even know if I have them! There is no spare wheel and I don’t know how it’s secured as the boot floor looks like it has no way of accommodating this. The list goes on and on and I will need some help later down the line to get this car properly assembled. I am sure however, you folks can help me sort it out.

Merry Xmas everyone

Well feel free to PM me. :)

The Spare would have to be a 12x4.5 steel wheel, and in most it isn't secured down, it slides under the petrol tank which kinda keeps it in place :)

[Petrol]

Thanks, I will keep an eye on that door edge too, might of overdone it with the sander.

This is the door after 2 days soaking in the Deox gel



The black stuff is carbon. I don't know if a rust convertor will penetrate it enough to work effectively so it has to come out.



The best thing I have found for this is a small wire brush. A smaller brush offers more pressure than a large one



99% of it gone, a final clean with the blaster and it will be ready for primer



That's my lot for today

Edited by Petrol, 25 December 2012 - 11:12 AM.

[Petrol]

Been over to Minisport a few times to pick some bits up

New rubber cones against the old ones and some adjustable ride height



New back brake assemblies. These will be stripped, the back plates need seam sealing and proper 2K paint spraying. The cylinders will also be sprayed to prevent rust



Neggi camber front arms



Mika and I know the lads that work in the garage at Minisport We often pop in to have a chat and look around at the work they are doing. I am a bit fussy and have to say the work they do it top notch. After a good look round they unveiled this genuine works built Cooper rally car



This came 2nd on the RAC rally back when I was very young, hydroelastic lines were inside and the dash was something else!



No headrest on the drivers seat - scary stuff



Padding to the drivers door though



Toolkit



I hope it's in for some "light" restoration to keep a bit of it's originality

That's all for now, thanks for looking

Pete

[Petrol]

I bought the non genuine rear valence closing assembly from Minisport. There's an extra plate between the closing assembly and the boot floor which Mika made. This will be spot welded so I cleaned everything back to bare metal and sprayed it with weld through primer



I bought a 2nd had spot welder and have re profiled the tips to give a contact area of 1/8" Too big a contact are can lead to poor welds. Did a test weld then split it. The weld is stronger than the sheet steel so it's looking good

Edited by Petrol, 01 January 2013 - 01:23 PM.

[Petrol]

Winter restoration on a Mini - I must be insane Got the boot floor welded up tonight. Now using Argon/ CO2 gas mix and find it a lot better.



And a few other bits painted, new inner and outer CV joints masked, zinc primed and sprayed with 2K black



Same with the lower arms



Adjustable tie rods are plated. Paint offers much more protection so I sprayed these with Electrox primer followed by 2K gloss

[baggiebird]

Hi Petrol and Mika
I have been following this thread since the beginning but have not posted here before. What you are doing is really interesting - and I do appreciate what you have said about the lack of technical feedback so far.
I don't have much advice to offer on bodywork as I don't have much expertise in that area but I have done a lot of mechanical work on Minis (1978 1000; 1989 Mini 30 and 1998 Paul Smith in the past, and on other classics. In October I purchased a 2000 Cooper Classic Mpi with 18 000 genuine miles, still needs a lot of work though lol!! I am not doing a complete rebuild on mine as I don't think it is warranted but I have done a fair amount of mechanical work so far. I will have to leave most of the bodywork to (trusted) professionals sadly in due course so it is more of a rolling rebuild which I can still use occasionally. Having removed the dash recently to assess windscreen rust, I can send you some photos so you can see bracket and fixing arrangement etc. as I'd love to help where I can. by the way, I thought the Nissan work you have done was superb.

[baggiebird]

Based on what you asked for on 23 December, here are some photos of the dash from my car. Appreciate that you probably don't need these yet given the stage of the rebuild you are at?!

The bottom of the dash is fixed by handed metal strips at each side which have a captive bolt, plus a shorter straight one in the centre with no captive bolt as it fits over a threaded stud, these all fix to the bulkhead with nuts. The top of the dash fixes with 'ratchet' type plastic fixings, again 3 number.

I hope images are OK as they are very compressed file size, will re-post larger images if not.

 Dash, Dash Top, Windscreen.jpg   47.47K   63 downloads  Dash bracket side view.jpg   39.84K   68 downloads

[Petrol]

Baggiebird those dash pics are exactly what I needed and whilst fitting the dash is a long way off, the car needs a new dash top rail so I need to make sure that any mounting holes are drilled before paint. Thanks very much for your help.

Sanded the weld down across the boot floor and primed it. Didn’t go mad with sanding it down as I intend to come back to this later. I'm thinking of ways of hiding the joint.



Spot welded the valence to the closing panel



doing this enabled me to gain access here



The problem is, the second you weld, you have rust. Whilst etch primer is good for clean metal, it's not good enough to spray over rust even if only very slight. I cleaned off all of the black celly & weld through primer with thinners. Then wiped it down again with panel degreaser. I then sprayed thinned down zinc primer in and flooded it. This was followed by a good blast of air using the spraygun to force the paint right into the seam



This is the other side of the seam where the zinc primer was forced through




Once this is dry, I will do the same to the other side and force the zinc primer the other way up the seam. This should ensure decent coverage.
It seems to me that the weakest point on a Mini shell is rust in the seams and there are plenty of em! I'm also thinking of ways of fully immersing the box sections in wax for added protection.

Thanks for looking and again for your help baggiebird

Pete