409 replies to this topic

[kws]

Ive just read through this whole thread, and i've got to hand it to you, given some of the utter rubbish you have had to deal with during the rebuild, the car looks amazing. Well done.

[1984mini25]

Still working through doing the little niggly jobs. One of witch if you refer back a page or two was the lack of paint behind the a panels.

 

I've already done the n/s, with removing the door, touching up the paint on the hinges, removing the door hinge screws coating with copper grease and refitting, panting the door shims (something that wasn't done) and blobbing some paint on with a brush on the back of the a panel, before putting the door back on and adjusting so its fits better than how he'd left it.

 

Today I've being giving the drivers side the same treatment. Although, on this side brushing a bit of paint on wouldn't have been enough, so I've had to mask off, prime, paint using the poundland silver wheel as its a direct gloss with lacquer, and then blobbing some paint on by brush just to make sure.

 

 

 

[1984mini25]

Popped off to a local monthly car meet yesterday evening, With quite a mixture of vehicles (around 70 in total) and chatted to a fair few people.

 

 

[1984mini25]

The mini hasn't moved since it's last outing. I just haven't ben in the mood for using it and it's been far to hot. I did however cut a ruddy great hole in the n/s inner wing (witch took far longer than expected) so I could mount the electric fan I'd fitted a while back closer to the radiator and unobstructed by the inner wing slatted panel.

 

 

 

 

 

And I'm feeling annoyed that I have yet more paint issues (apart from the paint cracking on all the trim I painted) With this crack in the paint that's recently appeared on the bonnet.

 

[1984mini25]

Another 2 shows. The first being a members only Facebook groups free event at Bicester Heritage ex RAF base, with Fuzz Townsend and his classic oils company.  

 

 

 

 

A few pics taken before being pushed/parked up on the way back home to allow to cool off for half hour, as it was starting to run a bit too hot even with the electric fan on constantly.

 

 

 

 

And the local monthly classic car meet, a bit quitter than last months.

 

 

 

[rossul.burn]

It's a shame about the issues you are having with the paintwork but I have to say those pictures look great. Don't let those little imperfections take away from what a beautiful car you have.

[1984mini25]

I haven’t been on hear for a while for various personal reasons.

 

But since the 25’s last outing at the local museum meet (the money raised goes directly to a local charity) it then spent the next 4 weeks in the garage while I sorted out the brakes. It shouldn’t have taken so long, but you’ll see why in a bit.

 

What started out as a simple change the front flex hoses (witch I’ve had almost a year), replace the sticking n/s calliper (refurbished a used one back in May ready to swap over) and replace the front subframe brake line (witch I’d had made up) turned into a full rear brake and suspension strip down a rebuild as well.

 

So the new front brake hoses, cleaned and painted callipers before the pad retaining bits were refitted. The old brake hoses being an utter ******* to remove and may have been the originals. The o/s not being too difficult to get at from above once the washer bottle and clutch slave/bracket were removed/moved out of the way. But the n/s was a bit of a squeeze trying to get a long enough extension bar down the side of the radiator, and had to chop the old brake pipe because the union was too corroded. Hence why I’d planned on replacing the front subframe brake line.

 

 

 

 

 

And the old hoses and brake calliper.

 

 

 

 

 

And then the fun and games started. Bleed up both the fronts without any issues, but still had a slightly spongy brake pedal. So slid under the rear to bead the rears and promptly snapped the n/s rear bleed nipple followed by some colourful language.

 

So I was looking at least a new rear cylinder, then looing at the corroded brake pipe that as well, then the flexi, then looking at the other side.... It turned into 2 new rear cylinders, 2 new rear flexi hoses and as the rear would have to be drained/bleed anyway all new rear brake lines. Witch then also turned into a full rear brake and suspension strip down, clean a repaint.

 

The offending brake cylinder, which also turned out to have started leaking anyway.

 

 

 

 

The state of some of the rear suspension, stripped, cleaned off with cheap £2 Wilco paint stripper (useless at removing paint) before being either wire wheeled and painted or for the smaller bits, being left in white vinegar, wire wheeled,primed and then painted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The replacement new wheel cylinders and hoses bought from a local motor factors for next day collection for £32 (£8 each)

 

 

And the simple job of reassembly with the hand brake cables/parts I kept from the other mini (and yes I did spray paint the handbrake cables). Or at least it should have been if it wasn’t for the mini specialist/eBay pre made rear subframe brake pipe kit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 out of the 4 brake pipes were ok except for one which should have been at least 6 inches. So I ended up having to buy another brake pipe elsewhere made up to the correct length.

 

 

 

And while I was at it I also rubbed down and spray painted the rear section of the exhaust, which will do until I either replace it like for like or something different.

 

 

 

And with the rear brakes finally bleed and a lot more grey hair (or it could have been from painting the exhaust) it was done in time for the final local meet of the year. Although I think the RC mini in the back window got more attention than the car did.

 

 

Edited by 1984mini25, 15 October 2018 - 09:30 PM.

[1984mini25]

I’d been wanting to replace the carpets for a while. I’d love another set of the same deep pile, velour, hessian backed carets for £40 (or even a complete carpet set with underlay and matching mats for £50 that they also used to sell). But unfortunately 10 years on and the company is no longer around. Witch just leaves 2 options, the cheap budget carpet sets (which aren’t cheap anymore) and even more limited in grey (I don’t think black would suit and I practically gave away an as new black set recently) or the expensive £200 odd newton commercial ones.

 

But while browsing a well-known action site I came across a buy it now listing for a new “light charcoal grey carpet set never fitted”, it looked good from the pic, so I ended up buying it. That’s until it arrived a few days later and discovering it was a lot darker than listed (looked a lot lighter in the pics) and that after a bit of digging I’d also over paid going (not by much, but still annoying) and that its of really poor quality and even thinner than the black budget carpet set I’d got rid of.

 

With no returns accepted (I wonder why) and signed for delivery (I’m not that sort of person to do that sort of thing) I was left with 2 options. Keep my current 11 year old carpets that have faded, started to fray round the cut edges and the hessian backing disintegrating and sell on the new carpet set (at a loss) Or admit I’d be done and fit them anyway, even as a temporary solution.

 

Capet set laid out, and a wheel arch section laid onto of the rear section from the old carpets with a light grey and a charcoal grey (the shade that ‘should have been) car mats, and an old and new comparison.

 

 

 

 

And the set fitted

 

 

 

With those done, I then started on addressing one of the niggles I’ve had with driving it over the summer, only having a single 12v socket. Witch has meant only one of 3, using the dash cam (won’t drive without now), the satnav (great at map reading but have the sort term memory of a goldfish) and charging phone. The simple solution would be to use one of those 2 way adaptors, but I dislike those. So chose to come up with a far more long winded approach modifying a spare switch bracket, making up a new plate, covering it and gluing it so I could fit 2 12v sockets and adapting the wiring to suit.

 

 

With the mot only a few weeks away I decided to leave the mini alone, so decided to clean up, paint and have a play with a spare rocker cover. Adding some stickers, RC mini wheels, spare cap and grommets (since replaced with some chrome t bars I've found) and some left over arch trim.

 

 

 

Sticking to the leaving it alone, I ‘borrowed’ the dipstick from my other engine, chopped the top off and after a quick search on eBay for a suitable £3 key ring I ended up with this. Would have preferred the minion with spikey hair and one eye (same name), but had to settle on what I could find that was suitable. But this one seamed happy enough, even with a drill bit up its...

 

 

 

Then it was the mot, with the only surprise really being that my CO had gone up half a percent to 2.5%. But my HC had gone down by over 200 to just above 400 from last year.

 

Then with the mot finally out of the way I could get back to working on the car, just as well as things never go smoothly.

 

One of the other items I've been wanting to replace is my old Kenwood flip front/hide away cd radio, witch has been in the car for as long as I've owned it and was one of the first items I fitted. The issues being, although it still works it only picks up the bbc FM radio stations and heart, witch was fine until I got fed up of radio one a few years back. And despite replacing the speaker wiring, its also seamed to sound flat with the 6x9's under the rear seats barely doing anything.

 

With every modern car having units built into the dash the choice of the old style singe din headunit is rather limited. Even more so if your looking for one with a cd player and Dab. I eventually found one that had a CD, FM and DAB radio, USB and Aux ports on the Argos website for £130 minus the dab aerial. That was until I tried checking stock in local stores for it to come back as not available in store or for home delivery. So I started searching google once again and found the same headunit on euro car parts site £27 cheaper, with a £20 dab aerial included and 35% off weekend deal and could be collected the next working day. So with the headuint found (and the Argos website now working) all I had to do was fit it, how hard could that be?

 

Firstly the later under dash housing/bracket from the late 80's onwards must have used different holes in the lower parcel shelf. As using existing holes on mine means its sticks out further than the lower dash rail and looks naff, and I'm not going to go making yet more holes in the dash rail, so chose to modify the bracket instead.  

 

With that done it was just a simple case of the wiring. Luckily I'd already wired in standard iso plugs, but for the old unit I only used the 2 lives and an earth. But for this one I needed the remote live (blue) for the aerial splitter (another £14 off eBay as I was trying to ovoid sticking anything to the windows) and orange for the lights on dimmer (its a tad bright). Witch I chose to take a feed from the headlamp feed to the  rear fog lamp switch. With the theory being it was easier than going behind the back of the headlamp switch, and would only dim the headuint when the headlamps were on and not just sidelights. Well that was the plan, until my fog lamp switch decided to fall apart. No problem I kept the switches from the other mini, only to find the bulb in the spare had blown. So had to rob one of the other spare switches for a replacement bulb.

 

 

 

All that was left was the aerial, even though one was included I still chose to buy a splitter and try to use the old original FM aerial on the front wing. And it worked great on both FM and Dab in the garage, switching to Dab from FM witch it deemed to be stronger. On a short drive to the British Leyland 50th rally at mk museum I got absolutely no signal (was never great on FM in this one area) both on the way there or back, but did while parked up in the show.

 

 

 

 

 

So admitting, that although the FM aerial with the splitter works, but won't pick up Dab (only 12 miles from the nearest mast) on the move I stuck the window dab aerial to the windscreen with masking tape, and made repeated trips back an forth along the same 5 mile route. And then found that I could pick up Dab, but not with the dash cam/sat nav attached to the windscreen. So yet more playing about and trips back an forth and I've finally settled on the best place being the n/s rear quarter window next to the b pillar, mounted upside-down.

 

And while I was swapping the headuints I also replaced my old blue dash leds (12v led strips) with some red ones wired up to the dash illumination/sidelights and less fumbling around in the dark for the switches etc.  

 

 

 

Edited by 1984mini25, 16 October 2018 - 09:51 PM.

[1984mini25]

Decided to replace the throttle cable, as it was badly frayed at the carb end and while changing over the carpets I noticed it was also a bit rusty. Witch as it turns out, it was quite a bit rusty along with the inner of the outer cable. Witch ended up braking leaving the brass pass firmly attached to the bulkhead, and after a bit of forceful wiggling with a pair of mole grips I ended up with slightly more than just the brass piece braking free from the bulkhead.

 

A quick look on eBay and handily I found a thread cable adjuster from a local go Kart specialist for a few quid, witch I've shortened and added a washer.

 

 

And as for the new cable I chose to use a bmx bike cable available in various colours, As originally it would of had a yellow throttle cable outer and you can't buy yellow mini cables. It's also a bit longer than standard, and all I had to do was file down the end to fit the pedal and cut/solder it to length.

 

 

 

 

Edited by 1984mini25, 02 November 2018 - 03:55 PM.

[leyland73]

Really like the led ambient lights, where did you get them from?

[1984mini25]

Really like the led ambient lights, where did you get them from?

 

I bought them from hear https://www.ebay.co....4xfiCPvnJPArX8Q

 

I know they are sold as for Scalextric scenery, but scalextric runs off 12v dc as does the electrical system on mini. They also do more expensive car strips under the auto lighting category.

 

I have one 6 led strip glued to the underside of the upper dash rail, and another 6 led strip glued to the underside of the heater, both wired up to the spare no.8 fuse box terminal for the sidelights.

[1984mini25]

After buying both a bulkhead and bonnet sound proofing kit, and being rather disappointed with the quality or fit I ended up buying a 1mx 1.30m of Hardura Felt From Woolies trim for £38 posted. The pre made bulkhead and under bonnet kit, were £52 combined.

 

Witch has turned out to be enough to make a bulkhead piece, redo the bonnet sound proofing, and still have enough to do another bulkhead with extra left over.

 

Although it has meant messing around with lots of paper and cardboard templates, and It would have been loads easier if the brake and clutch master cylinders weren't fitted. And while messing around with the bulkhead I took the opportunity to touch up some of the paint (only hammerite) that would be covered but the soundproofing, and to add some heat shrink to all the blue spade terminals on the fusebox.

 

 

 

 

 

The remade bonnet sections with the pre made kit layed on top.

 

 

And fitted

 

 

Edited by 1984mini25, 26 October 2018 - 07:26 PM.

[jamesquintin]

Has the underbonnet made much difference to the sound? was considering it for my MPI

Q

[1984mini25]

It's hard to tell with only having let it run in the garage (more to give the glue some heat to help go off), as the sound just reverberates off the garage walls. But, the bonnet is noticeably heavier than before and makes a dull thud when knocked on, compared to the tinny noise with the same test on the roof, witch has the two large 1" thick felt pads (not the silly little strip the later ones got).

[paulsv24]

What size thread cable adjuster did you purchase for the throttle cable? As I had exactly the same problem some time back and I came up with the same idea but bought one that was too big and never got round to changing it. 

Really enjoying reading this, you've done a great job.