375 replies to this topic

[Bristolboy]

what about mounting the amp under the seat? i haven't done it, but heard of it beig done.

[mike.]

grrr Nothing can ever be simple on my car! Now that the speedo cables snapped i have to have all the dials out again. So i undo 3 of the nuts on the bulkhead fine, no problem. But i get to the 4th nut and try to undo that but it wouldn't! The nut just span on the bolt! The threads looked fine, the nut looked fine and it screwed on fine. I definatly hadn't cross threaded it and only screwed the nut on as much as the other bolts. So basically the clocks were stuck in the car!

So i had to go to halfords and buy a dremel and ended up going through about 6 cutting discs to cut the bolt off!

So now the brackets missing a bolt. I'm just assuming it won't matter if i do up the other three fairly tight, and there only holding the clocks in so they don't need to be tight anyway.

But still! Why can't anything be simple on my mini. It literally was a 2 minute job that took 2 hours.

[ed4ran]

It is a 2 min job if you just undo the screws that hold the dials on and leave the main bracket in place

[mike.]

But you see, with my genious thinking i screwed the surround directly to the clocks rather than using the clips, because some had broke off. So i couldn't get to the screws without snapping the dial surround.

[mike.]

Well on tuesday i popped up to minispares north and picked up a few bits to get my interior sorted. I was going for the speedwell seats at first but after getting there and having a look at them they were way to small and the side support was pretty non existant really. So i ended up buying the new style cobra classic buckets and a set of subframes. They're dam comfy and the new style ones have a better shape, a lower botton cushion and the material is much more leathery then the previous shiny looking vinyl classic buckets. I also got a 13" leather mountney wheel, a black carpet set, a chrome interior mirror, a speedwell alloy gearknob, 2 rear window seals, and i got some black seatbelt pads with a little red mini logo on them from gran canaria while on holiday

I also got a steering column drop bracket, chrome air vent trims and a magnolia dial kit for the 3 clocks. I'v just recieved my set of black seat belts too to replace the blue drivers belt, dodgy passenger belt and the original grey rear belts. My black rear seat covers on its way soon too

Heres a pic of my shopping

[mike.]

Well i made some proper progress today. The weather was fine, my mates were round to give me a hand and i had all my interior stuff waiting to go in, so i began stripping it out.

Started by whipping the old seats out and taking the steering wheel off so we could move about easy, then took the back windows out so we could fit some new seals and get better access and ventalation while we were rubbing the headlining down with thinners. The headlinings almost ready to be painted now, just needs a final scrub with a clean rag and a spray of this sticky stuff remover, before being cleaned and painted. I'm just going to use house paint i think rather than getting the proper vinyl paint, it'll do the job i reckon.



Then we started on the interior heater, which leaks pretty badly (radweld didn't help) so it needing sorting before i started putting in new carpets and seats. So we got the old one out, replaced it and used some bits from the original heater housing and some bits from a newer whole heater unit i bought from the stanford show for £10! So yeah we got that built up and gave everything a good clean.



Then we set about sorting the choke and heater cables, as neither went in and out very easily or without moving them in very particular ways. So we took those out, turns out i need a new choke cable really so nes been ordered. We took the switches out of the the panel and cleaned the switches up, so they went front light grey to like new - black. I also binned the brake test switch and moved the wires over so the fog light switch can replace it, then binned the daft afterthought foglight swith panel, which just in itself gave the interior a much cleaner look.



Then we set about the outside of the car and fitted my new halogen angel eye headlights, and some grille buttons. We had a couple of little probs with the alignment of the buttons at first but we got there without too much fuss. I think they give the front of the car much more character somehow and the halogen headlights are sooo much brighter than the original sealed beams!
You can see my mate behind the car sitting on the original seats polishing up the swithes which he seemed to enjoy



So on the to do list for wednesday is to finish off the headlining, fit the new swith panel, refit the heater, then give the interior a really good clean everywhere and in all the little nooks and cranies, before fitting in all my new interior bits.

[mike.]

After anoter go at the headlining yesterday its finaly ready for paint. I'v used 3 tins of thinners, a can of sticky stuff remover and a bucket it warm soapy water over about a week, to get it from this:



to this:



So now its ready for paint. I'm just going to use a brush and some silk emulsion rather than having to mask up the whole car and spray with vinyl paint.

I'm not expecting results that great because its always going to be tatty and bits of it will always be pulled out, as you can see in the pics but it'll look alot better than before.

So my job for today is to paint that and tidy it up.

[mike.]

Some more progress over the last few days. Since i'm abit of a perfetionist i didn't want to just stick my new carpets in on the mucky floors. The floors were full of 21 years worth of muck and thick underseal with old newspaper glued into it:



So i decided to clean them up good and proper. I started with a chisel and a mallet and chiseled away the layer of soundproofing. i then used just a chisel to get every last bit of the soundproofing up. I then used about 25 sanding pads with my new sander to smooth away any dodgy bits and clean up some of the welding that'd been done. Under the soundproofing was a few large patches of surface rust, and some rust that'd got a little further. Still none of it was structural, but it wouldn't have taken long for it to eat straight through the floorpan. So i got to work treating that with some kurust. The rust was just where i'v put the crust, the brown stuff going up the bulkhead isn't rust its just some dodgy old paint and underseal, although i reckon if i scraped that away i'd find some more surface rust.

Anyway i treated the worst bits:



Then whilst leaving the kurust to do its stuff for a while i vacuumed round the floor to get rid of all the dust and any bits of soundproofing left over from the sanding and started painting on a layer of red oxide. Although it looks a brighter red than my car its more like dull brown! So tommorow i'll get some black hammerite, thin it down abit and give the floor a couple of coat of that:



So after that the floors should look like new! I'm definatly glad i chose to lean up the floors properly, i wouldn't of found that rust otherwise and i reckon by this time next year i'd of had holes in my floor and i'd be looking at a big welding bill. So yeah i'm glad i'v got that done.

Next job is to fit my rear roll cage which i'm picking up on saturday hopefully and clean up the interior properly ready for all the new stuff to go in. So hopefully it'll all be finished by next weekend! Can't wait! I'v had no seats in the car for about 2 weeks now, i'm dying to go out in it!

[Teapot]

This is very heartening since I'm dealing with my pickup's floor pan ATM too and will go the same way with treatment after the new loom has been installed. As for the headlining, it's come off all in one piece on a sort of frame and I hope it'll just pop back. Keep up the good work!

[mike.]

Yeah the floors should look nice if you give them a similar treatment to what i'v done the floors should look great. I hope your headlining goes in alrite; anything to do with taking the headlining out sounds scary to me!

[Teapot]

Well here's the pickup headlining, all in one piece (reverse side showing, natch). Will report on attempts to reinstall!

[mike.]

Doesn't look too bad. But i think its the tucking the edges in properly whilst trying to fix it in place thats the hard part. All my headlinings pulled out from behind the door and widow seals; and because the new seals are a tight fit, they just push the headlining out of the way as you push them on, rather than going over the edges of the lining to hold them in place.

[mike.]

Not as much progress made today as i'd liked because of the rain but every little helps.

I picked up my roll cage from paulrockliffe. Its just a rear cage which i bought of him for £35 which i was happy with Anyway, got that home and got out the sander once more and sanded away most of the top layer of paint. Then got some wet and dry paper and smoothed it all off ready for a coat of fresh black gloss. Also added a layer of hammerite to the floors. They'll need another layer yet to finish them, which i'll do on thursday along with the roll cage provided the weathers decent.

Anybody know what brand this cage is? The previous owner says it was £200 new and it looks like it was originally painted yellow?

Heres a couple of pics after sanding:




So any ideas what brand the cage is? I'd like to get some original stickers for it if possible

[mike.]

Made some more progress over the weekend. Got all my painting done; So all the floors, crossmember, seat base, seat support and halfway up the bulkhead has all been painted; and the bits of the bulkhead that wouldn't be seen i'v just painted with red oxide and not put hammerite over the top like the rest. It looks really good i'm really glad i did it:





Also i'v fitted my switch new polished swith panel and the new choke cable while i was at it which look great. Also sorted the hazzards and indicators out too.



I'v also fixed all the leaks. The main ones i sorted with new window and door seals but there was some leaks coming from the pedals whih leaked down into the footwell. I found these to be water that had (rather than drain away in the gutters under the bonnet) flowed through little gaps in the corners of the gutters and along the gutters and settled in big puddles on thee bulkhead. Then it must have flowed down to the pedals and into the car through the bulkhead. So i'v sorted them by filling the gaps
and adding a bead of silicon down the gutters. This seems to have stopped the leaks completly! So anybody having similar leaks, try doing this:



I'v also finish painting my roll cage. I tryed thinned hammerite but it didn't cover very well on bare metal. So i ended up brushing on some grey primer and my dad brush painted a coat of johnsons all weather outdoor gloss on. It worked really well and now its dry its left a great deep gloss finish!





I also took a random pic of my car from my bedroom:



I'v also noticed that the paint in the roof gutter has started to flake abit and i'v got a feeling its going to get worse, so thats the next job to tackle. I'm abit wrried abit that because there obviosly filler under the paint - you can see it

Edited by minimadmike, 03 October 2007 - 03:11 PM.

[TJenkos]

Youll be glad your cage doesnt have a diagonal on it, else say byebye to the paintwork lol!