167 replies to this topic

[Pie]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Tom you muppet. You alright? What made you decide to take up hedge trimming?

[minivanman]

I'm fine, just *Drunk or yellow human water* off at myself for doing it. Combination of things - driving too fast being the main one, but C**p tyres and greasy road surface didnt help. Needs a wing, front panel and A panel, but I was going to do that anyway. The door gap has closed up a bit as well, so I'll need to press that out, maybe put a new sill on it. Not as bad as it could have been, but I could have done without it.

[Pie]

Your looking at all the bad things though Tom. Think about it this way.

At least its not your van. And even if it was, you'd sill finish before dog

[minivanman]

OK, rebuild time is here. The plan is to have it back on the road for L2B next year as it's debut show. Can a mod move it to the complete mini rebuild section? As thats what its going to be getting....

Right, heres the damage caused by the crash:




Front panel, wing, A panel all bust, I'm guessing the subframe is as well, along with the steering rack. The door gap has closed up slightly as well, but I have a mate with a porta-power I can borrow to press it out with.

The first task was to evict the excess motorbikes, invalid scooter and wheelchair that had appeared in the garage, and move the headlamp tester and winch out of my way. This leaves me with enough room to keep both minis in the garage, bonus!



Until I can get some extra muscle here to give us a push with it, I'm starting to clean up parts to bolt onto it when I start:

Cruddy old callipers:


And with new seals, pistons and a lick of finest halfords red paint:


Stripped and painted driveshafts, ready for new CVs and pot joints:


And on the way home from working up in Durham a few weeks ago, I called into M-machine and got this little lot:


The plan is to get it in the garage, new steering rack and subframe, zap a new front end on, new arches, probably wheels as well, respray and full rebuild. Not much then...

[mini93]

respray? what colour? always has to be the 1st question

tis a shame it happened but hey ho! bigger better things?

[miRon]

dude, is that your personal garage at home??
lucky!
2 lifts??

[minivanman]

respray? what colour? always has to be the 1st question

Same colour - I really like it, and it means theres not as much prep work Just to get rid of all the crappy rusty bits and give it a freshen up.

dude, is that your personal garage at home??
lucky!
2 lifts??

Yep, thats my garage, in the back garden. Theres a 4 post lift in the other bay as well, which is great for suspension setups. Its a hardship I guess, but I struggle along...

[minivanman]

I've some bits and pieces from my box at the unit to sort out - a knackered steering rack and a pair of radius arms. One of my local motor factors is getting the new arms in for me tomorrow, and another will have a recon rack on monday. I also stripped down the rear hubs ready to press new bearings into them. They were a bit of a PITA to get off the stub axles though Had to resort to the puller when the crowbar and BFH failed me

[roofless]

ive got a litre of imperial blue somewhere, ( mondeo st 200 colour yes? ) I'll have a dig around.

thought of you today - roofless spat a cog at the croft services got it fixed though in the end.

[minivanman]

Ooo, cheers martin, that'd be nice. You coming to the club on sunday? Really want to have a looksee at roofless!

Well, the eagle has landed! Shoved it into the garage tonight, so the project has officially begun now.


I went and picked up the new radius arms as well:

Helluva a lot quicker and easier than doing them yourself!

And got the rad out, carb off and all the wiring disconnected:


If I can get a good day on it tomorrow I should get the engine pulled out, and loosen the subframe ready for that to drop when I've got the new one ready to go on. Its a good job I was going to pull it off the road anyway - found a couple of bits that wouldn't have lasted much longer. Big flap of rubber hanging off the clutch hose being one

[mini93]

what stub axles are they?? anodised somthings? not KADs are they?

[minivanman]

Nah, I wish! Its just the protective coating on the shaft for transit.

[mini93]

aw bring me down dude why dont u lol

[minivanman]

Sunday didnt go quite as well as I'd hoped - didn't manage to get the engine out. I had real trouble splitting the offside (undamaged side!) hub and driveshaft from the ball joints and pot joint. Dunno why. Then when it did go it dropped and missed my foot by a couple of inches... Then got a wallop across the forehead by the gear linkage when I was doing the other pot joint I got the hacksaw out as well and whipped the crossmember off the front panel to make life easier. This morning I pulled the engine:


And then pushed the car to the back of the garage. In the safest possible way


Once it was at the back I put the arms back on the ramp and got it up in the air, then undid the subframe. And a sodding brake calliper that I'd carefully tucked up on a tie bar fell off and twatted me on the head So this is how looks now:


Also picked a recon steering rack for the bargain price of £22. The one thats on the car is cracked, and the bulkhead where it mounts to has bent a bit


And finally - all the hubs are stripped down ready for new bearings:

[Down&Out]

minis can be really stubborn buggers sometimes, i had a realy job to strip and and has taken me 2 years to get as far as i am