374 replies to this topic

[dezshearer]

Safest looking mini ever!

Keep it up!

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Looks Well Nice Mate, You Live Near Seca ? :envy:

[mozzo1]

nice job, loving the cage and all the new biys that is gonna be my personal favorate when done, well it is my no1 now. so keep up all that wicked work and as you know you"ll have a corker of a mini

[minipete]

Wow some great fabrication work there,keep it up.

[Joe250]

The Mini project has a new home. Over the holidays my good friends graciously offered their barn to house the car and all the many parts I've accumulated. It will serve as an excellent workshop and eventually a paintbooth as well. The other big benefit is having my friend assist me. He has bodyshop experience as well as an engineering degree and a significant amount of hands-on experience restoring cars. He also happens to be a royal PITA but he is already proving somewhat useful.




My friend pushed his airplane project out of the way for the time being.


And my big MiniSpares order arrived. Not much else needed to complete the car now.




There are MiniMania's LED taillights for the Mk1's. They needed a little adjustment before fitting properly.


With the rear beam subframe fitted up along with the rest of the rear suspension, it became apparent that there is a problem. The wheels are pushed too far rearward. After a lot of discussion and thought, it appears I will just switch to an FRA rear subframe. Their design is also more compatible with the KAD swing arms I have.


I know I told everyone I wanted to cut those flares off. Notice how the back of the tire just barely shows when looking straight down? I guess you guys got your wish. I've decided to just leave the flares. Not the look I was going for but I'll make the best of it. Besides, this car is supposed to be about 'go' and not really 'show'.


And here you can see my lack of welding experience. These are spacers we fabbed up to raise the front of the seats upwards a bit.

[analogue_radio]

Speechless to be honest, such a cracking build!

[bebbinator]

great looking build

[irishdude]

Great looking build, this is going to be some machine when its finished...

I am located up in Norcal in Santa Rosa, looking at doing a Zcar Vtec conversion in the next few months. I have a Mk1 1962 Mini too.. We'll have to meet up when both are finished and tear up a track day or three at Infineon or Laguna Seca )

Looking forward to the next installment..

[Joe250]

... We'll have to meet up when both are finished and tear up a track day

No! You need to come over and help me build this darn thing!

PM me sometime to discuss your project.

Joe

[buddylove]

Wow, very nice project. Going to be watching this one

[Joe250]

This past weekend I focused on a few areas - finishing the seat mounts (pics of that next time), recreating the exterior body seams that were removed by a previous owner, and dealing with the last remaining (known!) bits of rust.


Here is some 1/8" thick steel I used as the starting point for the seams. I'm using a seam cover as a template


And here's where that seam will eventually go. I'll show you how we're going to attach it to the car later.


That green stuff is phosphoric acid I'm using to attack the rust. It worked very nicely as best as I could tell.




Ready for primer.


And finally it's time for painting. I used 4 cans of Eastwood's etch primer.


The final results.







That's all for now. As always, you can find a few more photos and commentary on my site: http://www.joe250.co.../mini/mini.html

[mad4mins]

great rebuild!!

your barn is bigger than my house, garden and driveway put together lol!!!

whats colours it going to be?

[less is more]

great rebuild!!

your barn is bigger than my house, garden and driveway put together lol!!!

whats colours it going to be?

i'll second that i'd love a garage that big, in fact i'd love a house that big
nice project

[Joe250]

great rebuild!!

your barn is bigger than my house, garden and driveway put together lol!!!

whats colours it going to be?

I wish the barn was mine! It belongs to my friends.

As for the color, I anguished over that for months but at the moment I've settled on green with a white top. I really like the look of the Bathurst Rally winner so I think I'll use that shade of green:

[azzgranty]

I think its great your putting all the seams back on...
Keep up the good work, will definitely be watching to see the final result...

Azzgranty