Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 25 November 2022 - 09:34 AM
What condition is the trim for the clocks in now?
I'll take a photo of them this evening. The silver/grey parts of the trim rings are faded and they're a bit dusty but it's the cleanest housing I've been able to find and almost all the plastic clips on the trim rings are still intact.
One Carb Or Two?
Posted 25 November 2022 - 10:02 AM
For restoring the silver on the front edge, I would get some foam type material, like a car wash sponge, soak it with silver spray then gently press the face of the ring onto it (once you have it cleaned up obviously)
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 25 November 2022 - 10:24 AM
For restoring the silver on the front edge, I would get some foam type material, like a car wash sponge, soak it with silver spray then gently press the face of the ring onto it (once you have it cleaned up obviously)
Thank you! This sounds like such a cool idea! I'll give it a go on one of the spare trim rings that I have first.
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 25 November 2022 - 05:04 PM
Some pictures of the binnacle.
two holes that I filled with some plastiweld and should have been black (but looks greyish)
I can't quite work out if this is paint spatter or something else? possibly worth just a clean up with some soap and water?
One Carb Or Two?
Posted 25 November 2022 - 08:03 PM
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 26 November 2022 - 06:36 AM
Those rings should pop out, then good soak and scrub in soapy water with a nail brush should get the majority of it off.
You could paint it with plastic compatible paint if it won't clean up..
Thanks, Colin. Will give them a clean up hopefully all those little paint(?) droplets lift off.
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 19 December 2022 - 08:49 AM
The weather has been a bit mixed this side. Rainy days and sunny days with a bit of cloud cover and wind. Saturday and Sunday were the latter, so a friend and I decided to take a drive out to Franschhoek and drive the pass up and down.
This was good fun apart from the crazy pinging and (possibly related) overheating that my little Clubman was suffering when tackling the hills. This is obviously less fun on a mountain pass. We retarded the timing after the run and on the drive back home it seemed to play ball with little to no pinging. What's strange is I've never touched the timing and it was set last when the engine was out for the gearbox rebuild so it was odd that it had somehow advanced itself. (I've never messed with the timing on the car as I don't have a timing light nor the expertise to do the job).
Worryingly, my friend spotted an oil leak (tiny drip) on the clutch side which is apparently likely the main seal. Also frustrating since the engine came out for the gearbox rebuild and that seal was replaced then. Perhaps a consequence of the car sitting for a year with not a lot of driving. There also seems to be a little bit of smoke but the car doesn't seem to be burning oil. We'll do a compression test to see if the rings are worn but my friend suggested it might be the stem seals in the head or the car is burning a bit of oil from the breathers. I'm still not sure about the overheating problems. I think I'll replace the top radiator hose as it had a small tear in it very close to the edge by the thermostat, and the expansion bottle hose seems a bit tired too. Hopefully that resolves that issue.
Anyway, here are some cool photos from the drive to make the British envious of our glorious summers :)
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 23 December 2022 - 12:25 PM
Gave the Mini a wash and a polish and wax. Found all the little bubbles of rust under the rubber seals and trims and likely will need parts of the trim removed and a partial paint correction/respray. Will wait to find a new or straight and rust free bonnet locally before making any decisions on where to go to get the rust on the shell sorted and the paint done. Need to buy a new boot seal and new rear window seals too as the rubber seems to be quite soft and isn't sealing well anymore.
Up Into Fourth
Posted 23 December 2022 - 12:54 PM
The car and the weather both look great!
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 23 December 2022 - 12:57 PM
The car and the weather both look great!
The weather was perfect for washing the car. Warm with no wind.
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 27 March 2025 - 11:32 AM
So, it's been a long while since this thread got an update.
Back in mid November 2023, I was driving the Mini back from Cape Town when I suddenly lost power, and the car started smoking/burning oil and it was clearly running on fewer cylinders. This is a dodgy part of the city and it was already getting dark so I limped the car home, borrowed a compression tool in the week, and checked the compression. 100 kPa on cylinders 1 and 4, definitely a blown engine. Called around to find some experienced motor mechanics, and found a well regarded father and son team based in Cape Town who have been building Mini motors for a really long time. They collected the Mini, in early Decemberand took him to their workshop. The hope was it was just blown rings but there was no way to say until it all came out. The outcome of the stripping of the engine was not good at all...
Melted and cracked pistons and scored bores in 1 and 4. Just not a good outcome of the investigation. Anyway, I asked them to go ahead and rebuild the engine and perhaps diagnose what had gone awry with the engine to result in such a catastrophic failure. Turns out the water pump was completely clogged up and this likely lead to the overheating issues the Mini was experiencing.
The completely stripped engine.
The suspicion is that because it sat for extended periods of time without being driven from 2021 to 2022, things got clogged and caked with build up.
The engine rebuild involved boring it out to 40 thou (it was already at 20 thou), new pistons, balancing the rotating assembly, servicing the cylinder head (leak checks, a light skim, new stem seals), and rebuilding/servicing the gearbox. The planned changes were fitting a centre oil pick up and a 3.2 final drive. Just to make it a little nicer to cruise on the highway as one of my goals with the Mini has been to take a few longer drives in the province and to other provinces.
The block back from engineering and the balanced rotating assembly.
When the gearbox was stripped, they found some rather shocking gears in there. It turns out the last people who had rebuilt the gearbox had not bothered to check the condition of the gears in the box... Disappointing, but as they say, school fees paid.
Some pictures from the rebuild. The crank bearings had to be ground to 20 thou due to wear.
New needle bearings and good secondhand gears were used to replace the worn and pitted gears.
The motor got a new clutch installed, new release bearing, new water pump (as the old one was clogged up), and a new oil pump.
The motor being bench tested. One of the jobs for last year, which I never got around to doing before the engine blew, was the fitting of a Minispares super cool 2 core radiator and some new radiator hoses. So that was installed at the same time as the old radiator had a pinhole leak or two and definitely needed a service/rebuild.
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 27 March 2025 - 11:39 AM
Since the engine was out of the car, I asked if the engine bay could be cleaned up a little. Especially behind the carbs where there was always this damaged area of paint that was a bit of an eyesore. This was done before the engine was fitted into the engine bay.
The oil pressure was good, but the engine had really high compression. This was found to be due to the head being skimmed a lot. It was at 68 mm and the result was higher engine temps and pinging issues. When the car first came back to me, this overheating issue basically made it unsafe to drive as our local temperatures can reach 40+ deg C with reasonably high humidity too. Anyway, the Mini went back to them to try and source a fairly standard GTS head (which can be tricky to find as most have been skimmed a fair amount). They were able to find one and fit it.
I collected the old fella yesterday morning. Drove it back with no issues for most of the trip. The engine felt really smooth, the temperatures never rose past halfway, and it revved really nicely up to 120 km/h. The one carb float needle has been getting stuck for a while. This was an ongoing issue when I first rebuilt and fitted the twin carbs to the car. I thankfully was close to home and didn't pack any tools so it made sense to limp the car home for the last distance.
The new head got the extra studs fitted (even though I believe these are not necessary) and a new fan as the old one had be cut for some reason at some point in the car's history.
Camshaft & Stage Two Head
Posted 01 April 2025 - 01:20 AM
Just read your thread from start to finish. I'm sure you are glad to have it back on the road after being off road for so long.
What are your plans for it next?
Put's foolish ideas in peoples heads
Posted 02 April 2025 - 12:54 PM
Just read your thread from start to finish. I'm sure you are glad to have it back on the road after being off road for so long.
What are your plans for it next?
I think just take it on a few drives and enjoy the Mini. I know the main jobs are the GTS three gauge cluster with the tachometer and then sorting out the radio/speakers and possibly modifying an old radio to include a bluetooth module. Also thinking of getting one of these to hold the phone/charge it.
https://boxergroup.c...older-with-usb/
It looks like a clean thing to fit to the car.
I also like the look of these gas struts for the bonnet. Locally made too :)
https://boxergroup.c...-gas-strut-kit/
Edited by Vinay-RS, 02 April 2025 - 12:55 PM.
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