664 replies to this topic

[M44K TS]

Yeah, it seems its all made down to a price. I'll dig out the Autosol tomorrow and see what I can do.

I'm going over to the garage tomorrow to put a couple of coats of Poorboys wax on the car, give the leather another dose of Gliptone and give the tyres some dressing so might aswell polish the chrome whilst I'm on.


Also, unconnected, I got conformation of my agreed valuation for the insurance. It's now insured for £4500. No idea if that's right, but sounds good to me.

[AndrewJ530]

Yeah mate, Ron's number is 01642 706046. He shouldn't charge anymore than £100. He put mine on the rollers and did a lot of work with the needle and charged me somewhere between £70-80.

[M44K TS]

Cheers mate, I'll give him a ring once it's been to Green & White

[M44K TS]

Managed to get a few of the small niggles sorted with the car, they are..

1, Wired in the power for the remote locking, all working perfect on the first go which was nice.
2, Sorted the drivers door rattle, it was the central locking lever where it joins to the lock linkage was loose, a spire clip sorted that
3, Found the cause of the vibration in the boot when slowing down (coasting in gear up to a junction etc.), That was the original wiring for the rear speakers vibrating against the seat back inside the boot, secured them out of the way.
4, Found out why the drivers window isn't working properly, one of the original clamp on window channels has disintegrated and dropped off the glass so a new one is on order.
5, Ground off the 2 tabs on the bonnet badge, just need some strong double sided tape then that can go on.
6, Cut some chrome tubing for the rear headrest poles, just need to get some seat inserts from a Rover 200 that usually sit in the top of the front seats so the headrest poles will be secure and fitted properly.

So, happy with that little lot, locked up the garage, (the car is kept in my Grans garage by the way) put all the stuff back in the van and some thing on the passenger seat, had all 3 sets of keys, (Mini keys, van keys and garage keys) Made my way round the front, accidentally dropped the garage keys down the drain!!!! Fail!!!!!

So, spent about half an hour trying to fish them out with a combination of my cable rod set with a hook on the end, another cable rod with a rather big magnet on tied to the end, both didn't work, hung around for my Gran to come back in, (She goes down to the club with her friends on a Sunday night) got the spare key for the garage where I had an old pair of Focal Utopia's with a very strong magnet on them, tied the speaker to the end of the cable rod, dunked it down the drain, fished it about for a bit and still nothing.

So it's looking like the keys have gone for good. It's sod's law too, her driveway is the only one in the street with a drain at the end of it. Luckily it's just a fresh water drain for the likes of rain water etc. and not sewage. Luckily my Gran is very laid back so found it funny, so now I have a set of spare keys to get cut. It's just lucky that it wasn't my van key or even the Mini key that went down the drain, I only have 1 van key and 1 ignition key for the Mini, I have duplicates of the other keys for the Mini, but not the ignition key.

So, a disastrous end to quite a productive night.

[M44K TS]

Got a couple of jobs sorted on the car tonight.

First off, fitted the chrome sleeving to the rear headrests to tidy them up once they're slotted through the parcel shelf, they just need secured from inside the boot now.




Now means that you can't see the ugly headrest poles through the back window.

Secondly, the doors had no soundproofing pads on the inside of the door skins and were pretty flimsy and didn't sound right when closed. So whilst in halfords today, I picked up a couple of sheets of sound deadening pads quite cheap.



Fitted them to the backs of the door skins and it's really beefed them up, the door now shuts with a bit more of a solid thud. There was still a bit of a rattle from the drivers door, one of the central locking levers was still slightly touching the door skin, so was rattling when the door was closed. Readjusted the lever and now it's sorted.

I took the drivers window out too to see if I could re-clamp the runner to the glass as a temp fix. Despite the runner being totally rusty, it actually clamped back onto the glass alright although, slotting it onto the glass and tapping it tight with a hammer isn't the nicest of jobs, I was half expecting the glass to shatter

So with everything back together, the drivers window now works perfect, infact it's smoother then it was before.

[evansisgreat]

Good stuff, I hated getting my windows out. I've only had to do it once mind. Now I've got electric windows it's a bit easier, though I dread the thought of having to take out the mechanism out.

[M44K TS]

Electric windows are next on my list when the car comes back from Green & White for the 3.1 diff and cam change.

It's something I've put off from doing for a while now, mainly because I'd ideally like to take the doors off to get the wiring through properly. Did you fit you electric windows yourself or did the car come with them already fitted?

Reason I'm asking is I have MPI doors with the side impact bars on mine and it's supposed to be a total pain in the backside to get everything lined up and working due to the reduced space inside the doors.

[M44K TS]

Bit of a delay at Green & White, spoke to Ian today, they've had a nightmare couple of weeks with other cars so haven't been able to start mine yet, no worries though as I'm not in any rush for it.

So, today, I did a little retail therapy so to speak...

Bought a Morris Cooper flat slat mk1 grille same as this one...



Some more sound insulation for the interior side of the bulkhead and 2 door check strap seals for the A posts to stop water getting in.

I was going to buy a pair of the stainless 1 piece window runners from Jonspeed on ebay, but can't at the moment as some delightful person/vagabond/thief decided to help themselves to £596 from my Paypal account so that's currently blocked.

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...g#ht_809wt_1059

So that little lot should keep me busy when I get the car back.

[wardyxxx]

Looks good mate!

Just a quick question - how did you sort the horn wiring on a mpi steering wheel and stalks? I can't get my head round it. everything else works! Just not my horn!

[M44K TS]

I made my own wiring for the horn, I used the existing purple/black to one side of each of the buttons, then ran a switched live to the other side, then connected the horn via a relay which took it's power from the starter solenoid so no real current would be travelling through the buttons on the wheel.

I found the horn wouldn't work without the relay, I don't think the buttons are capable of supplying the current that the horn needs.

[wardyxxx]

Am i right in thinking that the relay allows control of the higher current with a smaller less powerful one?

I don't know how to fit one of those anyway!

[M44K TS]

Yeah, the relay basically takes the main bulk of the current so there's not huge ammounts of power going through switches etc.



What you need to do to wire one in, is...

Terminal 30, Take a feed from either the fusebox or starter solenoid, if using the solenoid, use an inline fuse holder.

Terminal 86, Use the purple and black wire that usually plugs onto the horn, connect that to 86 on the relay.

Terminal 85, Connect a wire to the car body/earth

Terminal 87, Connect that to the horn.

So, your horn should now work.

[M44K TS]

Got a delivery from Mini Spares yesterday...


First up, the Morris Cooper Mk1 grille


Some more soundproofing for the inside of the bulkhead behind the dash, (I'm on a mission to make the Mini as quiet and refind as possible!)


Check strap seals to stop water trickling down into the A pilars


So itching to get the car back from Green & White now so I can get the goodies fitted

[M44K TS]

Just been up to Green & White to drop the silicone hoses off, the engines out and ready to be worked on, so might only be another week or 2 then I can get the car back.

I aslo asked if I could clean the engine bay up a bit whilst the engine is out, so might do that this afternoon.

[M44K TS]

Called in to Green & White today to clean the engine bay up a bit, it's looking pretty sorry for itslef I must say.. (excuse the shoddy phone pictures, I forgot my camera)

Bulkhead soundproofing needs redoing, just needs glue back down in the right places again.


Main bit that bugged me about the engine bay was the inner wing behind the radiator, it was quite dirty, but I couldn't get in to clean it, so ideal opportunity.


Drivers side of the subframe had a bit of surface rust which I quickly went over with the wire brush then wen over with some satin black paint, wiring looks a bit untidy too, but that will be sorted when the engine's back in.


On to the engine and gearbox...


Couple of surprises, nothing major though considering it's a 20 year old engine and an unknown age 'box

Worn selector fork which had loads of play when in situ, this is what's causing it to jump out of 2nd gear


Old cam


Crank is going to be polished as the bearings were a little bit worn and will need replaced, so I'm having the bearings replaced.


Old clutch, as above, might as well replace it now than a few months down the line


The oil pump is very worn and quite scored, lucky it was spotted as that could have been disastrous if left. Luckily, there's been no oil pressure problems or anything so must have caught before any damage has been done.




And a cheeky shot of the engine as it is at the minute, the core plugs are going to be replaced as a precaution too. Lance is even going to give it a repaint before it goes in as well.



The ever growing list so far..

Oil pump
266 cam
3.1 Final drive
Crank polish & bearings
Core plugs
Clutch
No doubt there's possibly more, but that's all I can think of for now!

Edited by M44K TS, 29 June 2010 - 05:44 PM.