123 replies to this topic

[MiniCarJack]

I was sent another series of photos yesterday showing the final elements of the paint prep, and primer + a bit of colour starting to go on!

 

Rear quarter and all of its various little dents are now smoothed out with some fresh filler, nowhere near as deep as it was before though. Door gaps look very nice too.

 

 

Back on its wheels ready to roll into the oven for paint, plenty of prep done on the passenger side as well - the old holes for the rear wheel arch extensions have now been welded and filled properly on both sides as well (another bonus!). I'll have to get the front sorted at some point too... but for that I reckon new wings & front panel will be needed and that's a whole other project for a later time I think!

 

 

Masked up, and primer coat applied.

 

 

 

 

And the first hint of colour applied inside the boot :)

 

 

 

 

Not too far to go now!

 

Edit - Also forgot to mention Martin is running some wiring up for me behind the C pillar trim/headlining so I can fit a third brake light once I get the car back :)

Edited by MiniCarJack, 27 May 2021 - 10:15 AM.

[Mr Brum]

Excellent news, repair work looking really good!  I bet you can't wait to see it all fully painted, not long now and look forward to seeing it back in it's full colour.

[MiniCarJack]

I'm eagerly awaiting the next update and hopefully some photos of more fresh Nordic Blue paint - in the meantime, I've bought a third brake lamp assembly off of eBay ready to fit when I get the car back!

 

 

I searched around for ages and saw various "universal" LED strips (many with questionable reviews touting poor quality), but struggled to find something in a nice OEM-looking housing that would work behind the rear window glass. Then I remembered my grandparents' old 1st-generation Toyota Yaris having a similarly(ish) angled windscreen to a Mini, and searched up the part number for its own high-level brake lamp assembly. Lo and behold I found one for sale for less than 20 quid including postage, so figured that was definitely worth a try.

 

 

Some Toyota wiring diagrams suggest the black-white wire is the earth and the green is the live feed, so it should be a fairly simple case of joining these up to the new wire that Martin has put in for me while the windscreen is out, and then I'll just have to hook those up to the existing wiring for the passenger side stop lamp in the boot.

 

Aside from that I'll have to figure out a neat way of mounting the whole light assembly, but I'm pretty pleased with how it should look once it's in. To get some sort of idea, I held it up against my Mk1's rear screen and the angle of the shroud matches the curvature of the screen really well, so I think it'll look good in the Neon.

 

 

Unfortunately I'm not flexible enough to have gotten a photo from outside the car while holding it up in place with my other arm 

[MiniCarJack]

Got some more photos through yesterday evening of progress on the prep and paint work.

 

Replacement bonnet arrived from Minispares, we went for the aftermarket type rather than a genuine/heritage item as either type would've needed work to fit nicely anyway, since the front end has been worked on in the past. So it made sense to save a few pennies!

 

 

Apparently the spigot mounting bracket was quite flimsy so that's been beefed up a bit with help from an old donor bonnet, and a bit of tweaking means it now fits nicely.

 

After that the bonnet, bootlid and new drivers' door were all given a coat of wet-on-wet primer.

 

 

 

And the car itself was popped into the oven, all masked up and ready for colour.

 

 

 

And finally, a smattering of colour! Looking nice and shiny now 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearly there now!

[MiniCarJack]

Aaaaaand we're back on the road 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[roblightbody]

Happy?

[cooperd70]

She is looking fantastic!! Not off to National Mini Day next Sun by any chance? Would love to see it.

Enjoy the drive 😊

Edited by cooperd70, 05 June 2021 - 07:29 PM.

[MiniCarJack]

Happy?

 

Really happy, the repairs have been done to a very good standard and the quality of the paintwork is exceptional! Even when you actually look for the difference between the old paint and new, it's near on impossible to tell the difference.

[MiniCarJack]

She is looking fantastic!! Not off to National Mini Day next Sun by any chance? Would love to see it.

Enjoy the drive

 

I am indeed heading over to Beaulieu next weekend, I'm hoping to bring my Mk1 and let my brother drive the Neon so I can have both cars on the day 

[cooperd70]

She is looking fantastic!! Not off to National Mini Day next Sun by any chance? Would love to see it.

Enjoy the drive

I am indeed heading over to Beaulieu next weekend, I'm hoping to bring my Mk1 and let my brother drive the Neon so I can have both cars on the day

I'll look out for both of them. Hopefully it'll be nice weather 🙂

[Spherix]

Whoa, gorgeous. Did you take time before you uploaded the in progress photos or did it really go from painted to drivable in 3 days?

[MiniCarJack]

Whoa, gorgeous. Did you take time before you uploaded the in progress photos or did it really go from painted to drivable in 3 days?

 

I did miss out a few photos of the reassembly process but yes, it was about 3 days between painting and driving off 

 

Not that it's doing a lot of driving now... 

 

 

My "lucky" streak continues!

 

Despite covering about 100 miles on Friday & Saturday and running faultlessly, the engine just didn't want to start yesterday. Before trying to take it out for a spin, I'd taken some time to adjust the rear brakes which needed doing, and also found the source of a mystery rattle I noticed at certain revs - the middle exhaust mounting had failed again, with the metal plate completely separating from the rubber. This is the second one of these I've fitted in a year, so I'm not particularly impressed with the durability of this part! Veering slightly off topic but here's some photos of the state of the mount once I got underneath...

 

 

 

Anyway, after sorting out those couple of niggles in the rear, I thought I'd take the car up the road and back to see how the brakes felt. I made it all of 10 metres out of my parking spot before the engine just conked out as if it'd run out of fuel, and refused to start up again. I eliminated the entire ignition system by testing everything, verified correct voltage and resistance at the coil, could see spark with one of the plugs taken out, and even swapped out the plugs and leads for good new ones anyway just to be doubly sure.

 

So after checking all of that, it looks almost certainly like a fuel issue, as despite turning the engine over quite a bit (which you'd expect to flood the cylinders if not burning the fuel), the plugs were bone dry and there was no evidence of fuel entering the engine. I whipped off the fuel hose to the carb and when turning over the engine it was definitely pumping fuel, so the fuel pump is fine. That leaves the carb itself to troubleshoot, so I've managed to borrow a good spare HS4 off of a local group member which I'll attempt to fit today in hopes of getting the Neon up and running again, especially with Beaulieu just round the corner! Will hopefully have a more positive update this afternoon...

[MiniCarJack]

Well that wasn't too tricky 

 

The float valve had jammed shut, hence no fuel... rather than faff around swapping the whole carb over, I simply took the float valve off the spare one and fitted it to my carb in situ. Hey presto!

 

Edited by MiniCarJack, 07 June 2021 - 12:27 PM.

[bpirie1000]

Every day is a learning day.. another piece of head scratching knowledge for you..

Well done and enjoy the mini looks great.. well done..

[MiniCarJack]

Every day is a learning day.. another piece of head scratching knowledge for you..

Well done and enjoy the mini looks great.. well done..

 

Thank you! I'm certainly a bit more clued up on HS4 carbs now   Might think about upgrading to an HIF38 one day, but for now I'm just going to enjoy it and work on the more "fun" cosmetic jobs like the interior. That said I do need to fix that exhaust mount before the long-ish drive to Beaulieu this weekend, I've ordered what I'm hoping will be a more durable type made of polyflex material, which is due to arrive tomorrow.