664 replies to this topic

[M44K TS]

tiny update, the rest of the headlining is now black and i have an interior light that stays on for 10 seconds after the door is closed too!

I didn't think it would be that hard to feed a wire from the interior light down to the bulkhead through the A pillar, but bloody hell, it was a bit of a nightmare, luckily i had my van with my tools so sacrificed a bit of trunking and fed that down, worked a treat but was a tight fit.

Was too dark to take pics of the almost finished headlining but it looks quite nice, it's more of a matte finish but looks good.

I still have the intermittent wiper relay to wire in and the lights on alarm (beeps if you leave the lights on with the door open) but that's a job for tonight if i can get over to the car at a reasonable time.

Also, had one of the keys cut for the new keyfobs but the guy who did it, made a right arse of it, so i have to buy a new insert. Luckily, he only cut 1 so i still have an un-cut key.

[M44K TS]

Little update, been over tonight to tidy out the car a bit as it was full of scrap bits of wire etc. (Once again, appologies for the rubbish pics as i forgot my camera so had to use my phone)

I decided to paint the floor and the bulkhead of the car as they were still in the factory primer in parts, and chassis black where the new panels have been welded in.



Also had a go at trial fitting the rear headrests

They fit fine, just need to find a way to secure them properly.




I was thinking of using some of the plastic inserts that fit into the seats that the headrest poles click into, then i still need to find a way to secure the poles when they poke through into the boot. I best get searching in the breakers for a rover!
I'll get some better pics next time i'm over.

Edited by M44K TS, 07 August 2008 - 09:38 PM.

[kez_19]

Got a parcel today, my new remote locking kit, only ordered it yesterday at 4pm, arrived 10am today!

Swanky new VAG style flip keys.




All i need to do is have the blank inserts cut to the original ignition key.

Also bought another tin of black vinyl paint so should be able to get the rest of the hadlinig sprayed tonight.

you said that you had to take the mitsubitishi (???) key blank does this fit in an older mini like mine from 1976 as i dont have an ignition key at the moment so i cant compare it to anything

[M44K TS]

unfortunatley not, the key needed slight modification to fit a 1996 onwards (mpi) barrel which i think use a different pattern key to the pre '96 models.



Small update on the car too, the front seats are now in, so i can manouver the car about by driving it (front brakes were starting to bind and make it difficult to push out the garage.

So last night, i fired up the car with the fuel pipe into a jerry can as usual, let the fuel run through the pipe then remove it from the car, which gives the car about 5 minutes worth of idling without any form of fuel tank.

I decided to reverse the car out the garage, turn it round then reverse it in as once it's in the garage, i can only get to 1 side of the car, and i have some wiring to do on the passenger side, (saves taking the car out of the garage to work on it!)

This is when things went wrong. Now, doing the experiment to see how long the car would run with just the fuel in the lines, as i say, it ran fine for 5 minutes, but the car decided to cut out just as i reversed it out onto the road as i was ready to reverse it in. To make matters worse, the battery hasn't got much charge in it as it hasn't been charged properlly for about 6 months so there wasn't enough in the battery to bump it in reverse on the starter. So i had to quickly jump start it off my van, then get another fuel line of petrol to get it back into the garage! Only just made it too as it spluttered to a stop as it rolled into the garage.

Anyway, moral of the story, wait until the fuel tank is back in the car before moving it again!

Edited by M44K TS, 12 August 2008 - 07:02 PM.

[M44K TS]

Waaaayyyyy overdue an update. Unfortunatley, i don't have any pics, as i have had a replacement phone delivered as mine was playing up, and it seems it hasn't copied all the images over I've got to go over tomorrow anyway so i'll get some pics then.

I spoke to the guy who will be painting the car (i know, i've been saying it for ages that it will eventually get painted, but this will be a favour from one of my dad's mates so i don't want to pester him about it!) He will let me know this week a date for getting it into the bodyshop to get it painted.

I picked up the new doors 2 weeks ago now, they're '96 spec doors with the side impact bars. The passenger one has had the skin freplaced and a quick repair to the bottom, the drivers one is in really good condition barr one small patch of localised rust on the outer skin. This will be repaired when the car goes in for paint.

Also, when i spoke to him, i asked him if it would be better with the interior in or out, and he said that because the inside isn't going to be painted, i can put most of the interior back in ready.

So, i made a start putting in the sound deadening on the floor, using a very potent contact adhesive made the whole thing alot more pleasent!

After that, it was a quick clean down of the carpet itself, then that glue onto the sound deadening.

Also, trial fitted the rear headrests again, i think i have worked out how i will secure them. Basically, involves a combination of jubilee clips, chrome tubing with some sort of spacer inside to get a nice snug fit.

After the carpet was in, i did a quick trial fit of the new center console, mainly to see what i will need to modify on the new heater.

I found a spare 15amp fuse too for the dash illumination for the 3 extra clocks, so i tried those, found out all i need is one bulb in the clock, so atleast my wiring was right!

That's it for now, like i say, i'll add pics when i take my camera over tomorrow (i can't wait until December when i can change this stupid bloody phone!)

[M44K TS]

Here we go with the pics... ( it was starting to get dark when i went over so please excuse the dark pics)

First up, the carpet's in, and i trial fitted the center console to see how it fits with the new heater, absolutley spot on too


And showing the underlay underneath


Noticed tonight that i need to redo the tops of the new b pillar trims i made as they aren't very tidy (also my nice black headlining in the pic)


At this point, it was getting dark, and the pics haven't came out too good

Armrest in


So, onto the doors, like i say, they're '96 spec doors with the side impact bars.

Passenger side that had the new skin and bottom frame repair.


I need to clean up the hinge area before paint, but i'm sure the painter will do that.


Bottom frame repair on the freshly skinned door


Still debating electric windows, but not sure how easy it would be with the side impact bars.


And the new drivers door, which only needs a couple of tiny bits sorting, mainly where the weatherstrip metal clips have been, and a small localised patch on the bottom of the skin, but that can be removed with the DA when the car gets painted



I also have new checkstraps and celvis pins to go with the nice & tight hing set i now have,(one pair on the new drivers door, and one pair on my original passenger door, sort of one good set out of 2) should give the doors a better feel when they open and close

[M44K TS]

New parcel shelf liner in, all that was needed was to mark the holes for the headrests from the underside, then the holes made in the wood to slot them through


And with them in. (please note, these are not the shelf speakers i am using! lol)


They have quite a tight grip considering they are wedged through the shelf liner and metal of the shelf only. I will clamp them up from the underside i think using possibly small jubilee clips.

I have a couple of lengths of chrome tubing that i found in the garage, which is pretty much a snug fit for the headrest poles, should make it look more tidy when done.


A quick shot from the back of the car.


And how they look in the car (seats haven't been cleaned yet)


And another with the front seats in shot too.



I also bought a set of brushed stainless interior handles as they're totally different to any other set i've seen. Really good quality and they were quite cheap too!





I also have a spare interior light, now i was looking at the glovebox on the new dash, there's a rectangle sort of knockout on the top of the glovebox liner, now i think i might put the spare interior light on there, and link it via the headlights so when they are on, the glovebox light is on too.



So this is how the car currently looks...



And that's it for now, i would like to get the holes drilled for the wallnut cappins for the doors before it goes for paint, incase i slip with the drill, i would have done that tonight, but i forgot my drill

[analogue_radio]

The whole interior looks so luxurious with those seats, carpets, underlay & everything else in there! I just hope she's watertight .

[M44K TS]

cheers, yeah, not very watertight at the minute though with no glass in lol

[minimaff]

Keep up the good work fella, looking good, just in the middle of doing mine,

reading these threads keeps me going lol...

keep us up to date wi rest of project

[M44K TS]

will do mate, thing is, there's not much more i can do until it get's painted.

Only interior things i need to do are cut the front of the heater off for the air vents on the center console, put in the top dash rail and the dash itself, then i suppose i could drill the holes in the doors ready for the wallnut cappings to go on

[androide]

How is your work going, did you paint it ? Do you have more Pics ?
How did you connect the oil temp gauge, I couldn't find it in previous threads.
Cheers.

[M44K TS]

Well, i've hit a snag, the guy who was painting it isnt able to do it possibly until after the new year due to a change around in the owners of the bodyshop, but the car won't be on the road until next year anyway so i'm not too bothered.

I haven't been over to work on it for a while though due to the cold weather, collosal work load and the occasional beverage

I still need to fit the oil temp. gauge, i think i'll use the minispares kit that goes onto the sump plug.

I have managed to wire in the intermittent wiper relay which was a pain in itself, as the way you are supposed to wire it is via a seperate switch to break the negative, but wiring it in with the stalks, i was switching the positive, but when the relay de-energised, the + output that was connected to the wiper motor was dropping off to a negative and putting a full short on the wiper circuit and blowing fuses, so i've had to wire in a second relay so i can get it working.

I went to do a final test on the electrics last night as i have them pretty much done, or so i thought, i have found i have no live at one of the line fuses behind the carb, and i can't get the dash lights to work, but i've had problems with the circuit board on the back of the speedo before and had to bridge some broken tracks, so i suspect they're causing a short somewhere. So the next purchase will be a new pcb for the back of the clocks. Everything else works fine though so i'm not too worried.

I've also had a play about with some black wrinkle paint on the rocker cover too, i painted it, then started to polish the fins on the top, but i couldn't find the sanding block so i just used a dremel, but the finish isn't brilliant. I think i'm going to whip the engine out, clean up the bay then clean and paint the engine in the wrinkle paint too, then clean up the altenator, brake servo etc etc.

Here's a couple of pics of the rocker cover before i sanded the fins...






1st coat


You have to apply atleast 3 coats 15mins between each other in varying patterns, 1st horizontal strokes, 2nd vertical and 3rd diagonal, when it starts to dry, you get something like this...



I haven't got round to getting a picture of it fitted back on the car yet though.

I'm going back over tonight i think to try and figure out why the dash lights aren't working so i'll get some pics when i'm there, and also my new gear knob.

[Down&Out]

good choice on the wrinkle paint!! looks fab that stuff

[M44K TS]

yeah, i like the look of it, but i got a duff can, it wouldn't spray cleanly and kept of creating massive drops of paint everywhere, right over the brand new patio lol

I think i'll do the rest of the engine in that stuff