Spring rebuild
Turbo Mini Forums

Here is what it looks like at the minute, not bad you may say, but there is a fair bit of rust to erradicate and its one of the better ones I looked at this age too.



Besides the general body work repeirs Im planning to mod the front and rear wheel arches for as much clearance as possible, right up to the sportspack arch mountings on the front. Also the inner wings in the engine bay are comming out but retaining the welded steel front end. This is in prep for the 16valver and all its intercoolers, oil coolers and extra rads. An all over DIY respray in the same white as original is intended but time will be the factor.

Everything is being stripped cleaned and rebuilt on powder coated subs( thinking white is the coice of colour??)

The standard SPi is coming out and the new 1400 going in, bigger throttle body and injector, to get 500 miles at least on it before I hit the strip as well Maybe a trip to the rollers to make sure its not gonna melt the pistons

This starts next week after I get over building the wardrobes in the back room over the easter weekend

Edited by Sprocket on 10th Sep, 2006.

bah! white subframes!

mentalist!

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Looks nice, best of luck with the project and hope to see it at avon.

-MINI CLUBMAN 1380 TURBO-

I think they will just end up looking very grubby very quickly?

But 10/10 for being different.

not the first time i've heard it, nice looking car

Edited by andeh on 13th Apr, 2006.

I've seen the future and tbh its Pie

I've got a front subframe on BIR 1 that once was white. Now its full of oil and grease and shit... Looks great

Project started. I'm going to report on this each day of work so i have a good idea of how long it has taken

Day One

Todays task was to remove the engine and get the car on axle stands ready for the subframes to be dropped next Saturday. The only snag I came across was the bolt that attatches the gear selector top steady bar to the gearbox had siezed to the metal sleave of the rubber bush. There was no way this was going to move. One hour, a hack saw and a lot of swearing, the gear selector was removed. This task set me back so the car is not on axle stands and is not ready to drop the subframes.

Still the engine is out. It came out all in one go which made things a bit quicker.

is this what your 16v engines going in?

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.

It will be next year, at the moment he is putting his 1400 in it.

Manchester Minis

Thats right, next year for the 16valver. Need time on the engine dyno for running in, mapping and power runs, before I go and break a gearbox with it. Aiming for Avon next year, should be in the car way befor then. Many things to do before then.

This is just to sort out all the body work, properly.

good luck painting the sub

1293 Turbo mini

Well if im going to be getting ribbed like this i think they will now be satin black

Thats a great idea.

Manchester Minis

Mate

Seriously

Day Two

Well today went well. Only one bolt was siezed, one of the rear subrame rear trunion bolts. Not too much of a problem, just undid the bush suport nut and revoved the bush. The subframe then just pulled out of it leaving it attacthed to the car (will deal with that again when I have the cutter going).

So both subs are off, fuel and brake lines, doors off, fuel tank out and wiring disconnected ready to be removed in the engine bay area. loads of other little bits.

Found some rust that I was not expecting, some of which looks like its going to be a little tricky to repair. The drivers side subframe mount on the toe board has cracked a fair amount, this I suspect due to rust weakening the area.( wondered where that knocking noise was coming from(solid mounts used)

Day three should see the car as a stripped shell ready for work.


The car at start of day two




Car at the end of day two




Rust on the car














Looks like this has been repaired before, there is filler here which has bubbled up because the metal was still rusting. Doh!




Heres the problem area on the drivers side toe board. Not looking forward to fixing this




Heres the crack, Highlighted between the two red lines. Folows the out line of the mount funily enough.

I have seen toeboards cracked like that quite a few times. to Repair it, linish the surface back to clean, then drill a hole of maybe 6mm at the extreme ends of the crack. This will help to stop it growing any further. Then weld along the crack following the lines of it, filling up the holes you drilled with weld.

Then linish all this back more or less flat, and then double-skin the area where the mounts sit to reinforce it.

Your moving way too quick on this project, im nowhere near that stage yet :(

Manchester Minis

Up to you, but from the pics cutting it out seems a bit extreme, most of it looks like surface rust that would soon be gone with a linishing disc?

Then weld the crack as reqd, some proper paint and rustproofing and its repaired?

Yeh there is deffo all the way through rot in the area. check below the crack at the point where it turns onto the floor pan and then check it on the inside too, the panel overlap and the area between the two has been exposed to water. There is little there but what is, is all the way through hence why it may be better to cut it out

Dont you just love the mini

rubbish, you better sell it
















how much?

WTF!!!!!

Day Three

The car is now totaly stripped to a bare shell ready for the cut and weld. Started to prod around with a screwdriver to find the serious rot. The inner sills are little worse than i first thought but not extreme.

The only problems I encountered today were the shear bolts that hold the stearing column and pedal box to the dash rail and the air vent base screws which are made of the softest metal screws should never be made of, heads dounder off with very little effort. All these are again going to be left for when I get the cutter and grinder going.

Other tham that, i made a long list of things to search for at the show at Himely hall this coming weekend

Pictures to follow as I cant get the camera to work for some reason.

are you seriously hoping to have this ready for avon?

if you do ill buy you a beer! ( was going to say ill show my arse but you really dont want to see that!!)

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.