1991 Mini - Project Trig

[Mini 360]

awesome build! love it

Thanks man!




Another evening down. More good progress.

Continued on from the other night and got my second driveshaft separated from the CV joint. Then cleaned it all out again, thoroughly coated it all in Deox gel, left for an hour while I cleaned other bits and degreased and painted them!

So this is after wire brushing...



and this is after deox gelling. Doesn't appear much of a difference but theres no rust to come back through the paint now



and the CV joint cleaned. See above post for the before!



and painted everything up. I know some paint is on contact surfaces but I'm going to scrape that off with a new blade before reassembly. saves time masking up etc.







Also when everything was under deox gel I tried to get my ball joints taken off the hubs. Unfortunately that ended in me snapping the vice clean in two......its safe up to 1 ton too!




So I may get out to work on it tomorrow night but if not sunday/monday will be next time Im out. I gave PPS a phone the other day and after being assured I would get my subframe back within 'at the absolute max, 2 weeks' 2 and a half weeks later its not been touched. Hopefully I can get it back sometime next week....

[CubbyChowder]

awesome build! love it

[Mini 360]

Another wee while out at the car tonight. Got my dad to take my hubs and driveshafts into his work at Jaguar to get one of the lads in the workshop to take off the hub nut. The wonders of the proper power tools!

So with the hub nut off I managed to separate the shafts from the hubs. The dust covers on both sides were well split and grit and grime had invaded so they needed cleaned out badly.

Took a bit of brute force to get it all apart but was all part of the fun. Ball bearings were shooting left right and centre but thankfully found them all again.

So here we have separated....



All laid out and cleaned!



Then this is a before shot. Going to give this the once over with wire wheel and a drill to get rid of the crap and then deox gel, clean and paint.



Was going to get more done but will go out another night to finish it all off for this side.

[rsingh3g]

Beautiful work so far, cant wait to see the finished product

[Night Colors]

91'? damn , looks like this thing is 71' lol.

[MartinsElerts]

Killer color!
Haven't seen grip tape on pedals before.
Can't wait to see it finished!

[Mini 360]

WOW! this car is amazing i love the red color you did, an so much detail!!!

Thanks man! Comments like that keep my motivation up!

always like seeing progress ! cant wait to see the final product

Thanks! Not far off now....

[SD202]

always like seeing progress ! cant wait to see the final product

[e12anthonee]

WOW! this car is amazing i love the red color you did, an so much detail!!!

[Mini 360]

So I haven't progressed too much with everything over the last couple nights. Lights are continuing to be a pain but determined to get them done.

Only pic of progress to show that Ive got is I managed to get the grip tape fitted to the pedals. Looks ace and hopefully will make gripping them much better.

Before/after photo....



and both done



Notice the height of the brake pedal. Way higher than the clutch and the throttle pedal is even lower than the clutch. Sounds weird but it makes heal and toe far easier. You only do it under braking and as a result your foot is at the perfect height to roll onto the throttle instead of up and onto it in many modern cars.

Hopefully PPS will phone soon saying the subframes completed and I can get it all reassembled, engine on and then installed in the car.

[Mini 360]

Well tonight I got some more done with help from my mate Greig.

Got the battery cable installed but no pics as its under the car and its dark under there....

Ive decided to put the engine in from below, along with the subframe, seeing as the car is in the air anyway. This meant we could get the brake servo in without blocking the path of the engine. Win!

So put Greig to work on that...





and then we thought what to try next and decided to do the lights. Two pairs of hands are definitely better than one and we managed. Needs fine tuning when its all back down on the ground on a flat surface but they fit! Just need to mod the outer rings a bit to fit over the now larger inner rings.







So more progress as ever. Running out of things to do when I have no subframes but hopefully PPS will have the front one done by the end of the week so I can get torn into it over the weekend depending on my workload.

Thanks to Greig for the helpage!

[Jozi]

Nothing like getting parcels I think my bro used to use the same crowd, never a bad thing from him about them.

[Mini 360]

Yet another day, yet another parcel!

MiniSpares order arrived half an hour ago. Really impressed with their service as always. Specified delivery between 16.27-17.27 (hows that for accurate timing!) and it arrived on time. Perfect!

So onto the pics...

The order breakdown is above this post anyway so won't go into details

Mainly fixings etc. Two chunky bags are the ball joints. them have arrived assembled but need taken apart to lap them in as they are a bit rough inside. Easy to do though with the aid of my drill



Brake pipes are a cooper/nickel mix (commonly known as Kunifer) which is easy to bend by hand and harder to kink. Making it super easy to install! (he says hopefully....)

They come pre fitted with all the end fixings and labelled with a guide to where each one goes. Much easier and way less labour intensive than making your own!





And something i didn't expect was this. Set of plastic clips to attach it all to the car underbody



I also got loads of nipples ( ) for radius arms, wheel hubs etc etc to keep everything greased up easily!



Should get the battery cable and a couple other bits fitted tonight

[Mini 360]

Grabbed another evening in the garage tonight.

Went out to get the headlight fitted all perfectly but got annoyed with it so will leave it to another night :lol:

I did get the headlamp bowl fitted though and the rivets have a strong hold.



Not sure if the rivets were standard or not but the old ones were held in by them and they were solid so new ones replace them!

Then I located my internal bonnet release and fixed the bracket supplied in the kit to the lower dash rail. Replaced the kit bolts with stainless as shiny looks better than matt black in a bay.



I got a few little bits like more wiring and fuse box located etc etc but no pics as its nothing significant.

I also got my door striker plates fitted after their fresh paint job. They will eventually end up stainless steel but Im trying to reign in the spending at the mo just to get this back on the road.



I also marked out where I need to drill holes for the harness bar to go. Used my iPhone as a spirit level and it is more sensitive than my actual level......

The bar itself has some weird looking welds so Im smoothing them off by a bit of careful grinding and then adding filler on top. This will make it look like one piece of metal once smoothed and painted. lovely!



and I did my usual end of shift thing of marking down another day on the calendar. Ive got 66 days until the Thistle Run. I want it back on the road before mid May to iron out any niggles Im bound to have but we shall see how I get on



Should get more done over the weekend as Im working all day and home mid evening which means no time for uni work :lol:

[Mini 360]

No progress so far today (might get out to work on it tonight) but I ordered a load of bits from MiniSpares today. Took advantage of my TMF+ membership and got a nice 7.5% off the whole lot Totally worth the £5 to get the membership! Still came to a fair whack all added up but everything is needed to progress.



Also after weeks of thinking about my subframe and what to coat it in I phoned PPS today and Ive decided to put it to them to get blasted and coated in high gloss black powder coat. The way I see it is that the car won't be doing loads of miles and will be getting regular cleaning. Im thinking of putting some clear laminex on the bottom of it where it faces the road to prevent stone chips as much as I can. The laminex is clear so won't be noticeable and works great on car front ends so why not a frame!

Dropped it off this afternoon and should have it back in just over a week. Means a delay on assembling the frame but hopefully my parts will arrive quickly as they are coming by courier.

I also ordered some Scooter deck grip tape. Answers on a postcard for the uses of this......

I got more done to the car tonight though! Not much but what I was doing is complicated....

As you will probably know already I have MK2 Golf crosshair headlights to fit. The problem with these are they are ever so slightly too large for the inner mini headlamp rings. So I had to modify these rings to fit!

Heres the light in question....



and here is the cut to stretch the ring out to fit the glass.



I didn't get a chance to get the placement/orientation done tonight but I did have a quick mockup on the car. Im beyond happy with their look!



Something so subtle but you can guarantee I will be the only Mini on the show field sporting them which is great.