The completely not 45 day restoration, Finished
Turbo Mini Forums

I have been waiting for nearly a year for the right time, but my car is finally about to come off the road for a restoration.

Tomorrow myself and a friend are going to strip it to a bare shell and begin welding. It is generally tidy, however rust is beginning to take hold. Rather then mess about repairing it now and again I want to get it structurely and cosmetically in a good state. subframes are to be fully reconditioned.

My plans are:


Restore the bodywork
A nice coat of blue paint with a pair of banging white striped up the middle! or more likely just green without stripes.

Lowered, 1.5 degrees negative camber all round
Riding on 13's - not decided width or offset. And yes I know there not 10's but I know will regret it if I don't.
1275cc metro engine with stage 1 kit.
Cobra monaco bucket seats.


well here it is now, and hopefully it will be ready so i can drive it to work by mid july. It is so annoying some of the rust has been allowed to take hold by the previous owner, because it could have been so easy to fix earlier.

Edited by minimole23 on 18th Sep, 2007.

Hi,
Good luck with your timeframe, you always find more work when you pull it apart
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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good luck with your rebuild....but as bat says....expected the unexpected!
Not being negative...but when people have said to me about welding a little hole up, normally ends up a day job!
Nice car though I guess thats where that metro donor is going!

Edited by Jason G on 23rd May, 2007.

Well after a busy day the car is now a bodyshell and the garage a disaster. It all came apart smoothley yesterday apart from shearing a rear subframe bolt in the end of the sill - needs replacing anyway.

The only real nasty was the boot floor under the fuel tank which will need repairs and the drivers sill door step area. otherwise its small local repairs and the standard wings, a panels, front panel, sills. Thank god the heal board is sound as I was concerned it wouldn't be.

Hi,
That don't look too bad.
I'd remove the floor from under he mounting in the pic and put a piece of sheet in right out to the bumper mounting flange (there's that word again )
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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Good luck. Looking at what you have to do, the repairs to the body shouldn't take too long. Just make sure you stone chip the underside when you finish so you don't have to do it again for a while!

mini machine in darlington make a nice repair section for that boot area pretty cheap! give them a ring they do delivery!

dont worry about that area- just pop some tape over it, and then put the tank back in

(err thats what i did on my car....)

*looks for nic's mot station a few days before avon...*

minimole your the bomb when it come's to getting down to stripping the car! looks ok to me few bits but nothing to worrie about!
loveing the pic's too!!!!!

70 mph oil feed pipe pop!!!!!

I'd love it if it goes back together as fast though! Had a boring day of removing the last few bits and making a wheel about. then got extremely bored cleaning it, and pulling stone chip off the underside.

with regards to the hole I will get a repair section that runs the whole width as its all a bit crusty behind so may as well do it proporly. and water has got into the sanwhich of panels for the bumper so the valance will come off anyway.

Nic, i did have tape blocking off a hole in the door step to stop the foot well filling up with water, only problem was it got wet and fell off

Oh well paint won't stick to dirt so I may as well get it clean before I hack it to pieces on monday.

Does anyone have any experiance with halfords zinc primar. Is it any good?. I bought a couple of tins to do the rough metal when its welded.

as a little test i have coated a one nail in it and put it in some salt water with an untreated nail.

so how are things going with the car james mate you haven't posted for time????????

70 mph oil feed pipe pop!!!!!

I am going to update tomorrow, Quite a bit should have happened by then. all i will say is that that small hole in the boot floor has now grown slightly.

Hi,
They always do!
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

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I've used Halfrauds zinc primer before when I could get nothing else (a bank holiday and I forgot to order any before .. doh!).

Seems to have held up ok but I did over coat.

I use U-pol weld thru primer in the seems ... works brilliantly!

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

good luck on the resto...i'm doing mines as we speak.....

Had a bit of slow progress but I am now awating another unforseen order of panels.

I am so pissed off I haven't got the oversills off fast enough to save the repairs that are now required. I now need to repair the whole doorstep area and inner sill and a bit of the floor pan.

Death to the garage the bodged them on to what was a not too bad sill. - the other side looks worse from the inside condidering there is already a hole and there wasn't in the side I just removed.

Oh well, now the boot floor is repaired along with the rear quarter panel. and I am going to start patching a hole that appeared when armed with a screw driver near the rear jacking point.





look what fell out the sill.



or brushed up

Edited by minimole23 on 3rd Jun, 2007.

Hi,
That'll keep you out of the pub for a while!
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

Visit www.doyouneedabrain.co.uk

My Mini build diary

You have seam welded that rear repair panel in, haven't you??

good to see that someone in UK have realised that oversills are crap too Good progress on the car!

I was also suprised when I went into Bjautobits on friday to enquire about some panels. When I was shown one of the panels I needed, it had a britsh leyland sticker on. Now how long I wonder has that sat on the shelf, a good long while.

looking good mate! i have now got michelles car into the garage so work can start on that !!!!!!!

i need to get photos on hear soon!

70 mph oil feed pipe pop!!!!!

Not much welding has been done this week due to waiting upon an order of panels, I have started painting subframes and ordering stuff though.

My seats just arrived



I really recommend the ebay shop sixonetwo. I bought them from £195 with free delivery, ordered them yesterday, arrived today.