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The car was a complete mess when I started to strip it down. After I had cleared all the rubbish from inside the car and started to look at the shell more carefully I found it would require quite a lot of welding to the floor pans and inner wings etc, but at least I could put some of my old skills to good use. Its interesting to note that after scraping off all the sound deadening from the floor, I put it on the scales and found its weight was the same as that of the roll cage (12kg). Sadly, this is when I found that some of the floor was firmly attached to it.
My friend and neighbour Tim is the bodyshop manager at our local Ford dealership and was able to get me any parts I required to renovate the bodyshell. I borrowed a MIG welder from Peter (yes the same Peter 30 years on) and set about welding up the floor, inner sills and the inner front wheel arches, I had removed the front wings and front panel earlier, having decided to fit new wings etc when I bought the car. After consulting an old motor trade friend that competes in grasstrack events I was able to strengthen the car where required. I figured that he of all people would know the weak points. I had forgotten just how time consuming welding can be, and only working on evenings and at weekends the autumn was closing in when I finally got it done.
It is nice to know that over the years I have made some good friends not only from the motor trade but from other walks of life, who after all this time are prepared to offer help and advice. Some of the people I have contacted I have not seen for a very long time, but they still find the time to talk to me. Perhaps Mr Hudson’s influence on his young mechanic worked. Even these days when the world is very different to that of the 1970’s.
After completing the interior welding I gave the paintwork a protective coat of Red Oxide so that it would survive the winter as all the work I was doing was done outside on my drive.
Over the winter months I cleaned and painted up the roll cage and many other parts and stored them in Barry’s garage (yes you’ve guessed it, the same Barry). I mulled over the idea of stripping the engine and gearbox down before fitting it into the car when ready, but on inspecting it, all looked to have been recently worked on. The head gasket looked new as did many of the other gaskets, and all the core plugs in the engine block had been replaced, suggesting a recent overhaul. I had heard the engine running before I bought it and I must admit it sounded very sweet. I decided to trust my judgement and leave well alone and see how it performed in the car as after all this was supposed to be a budget build. If I am wrong then I really haven’t lost anything as I was prepared to rebuild it anyway. (more on this decision later).
When I removed the rocker cover I got another surprise as I found that the rocker gear had been replaced with a Minisport 1.5:1 roller kit, itself costing £180. (£150 for the lot now seems a bargain). Throughout the winter, as money would allow I bought things that would be needed in the months to come.
Come the springtime Dave and I set about a trial fitting of the rollcage, (not something you want to do everyday) so that we could see where the 3mm steel mounting plates that are required in the regulations needed to be fitted. We measured up and I set about fabricating the plates that support the cage, these were made larger in area than the minimum required in the blue book in the interests of strength. When finished I gave the interior of the car a coat of white paint and felt proud of the job I had done.
From the start I was not convinced that the roll cage I had was FIA approved, although quite a few people had looked at it and thought it was ok. My grasstracking friend had just stripped his car down and agreed to sell me the Safety Devices six point Cage that had been removed from his car, complete with door bars and the FIA sticker attached to the cage. I gave this a coat of paint then Dave and I fitted it to the car. I felt much happier knowing that this was the genuine product. Many people in the sport have stressed to me the importance of safety when building the car, and I would rather not take any chances.
Once the cage was in I could start to plan the interior and dash layout etc. Dave and I had a trip to Demon Tweeks and tried a few seats for comfort. We found that we both felt comfortable with one of the Sparco products, and so duly purchased a pair complete with the correct mounting brackets. I fabricated some plates out of 3mm steel and these will
help to spread the load over a greater area of the floor.
I designed my own dashboard, placing the instruments where they could be easily be seen, and have fitted large warning lights to warn of low oil pressure, or alternator failure. I purchased a new front wiring loom from Auto Sparks in Nottingham, as I have seen so many cars break down with electrical failures in the past, caused by poor contacts and shoddy wiring. A new loom is not cheap, but it is an expense I felt justified in spending. The old loom was in a bit of a state anyway, and would have taken many hours to sort out. This was put to one side for fitting once I had modified the bulkhead by fitting an airbox to accommodate a 45 Weber, and carried out the mandatory fireproofing.
I now turned my attention to the boot area, which was sealed and fireproofed as required, along with some strengthening of the rear shock absorber mounts. Once again the area was given a coat of white paint.
With the autumn nights again drawing in I assembled the heater and pedal box into the car, followed by a trial fitting of the dashboard and the steering column. I considered not fitting a heater unit, but on some of the winter rallies it can be very cold as we have found out whilst marshalling. The Jack Frost Rally is very aptly named, so in the interests of our own comfort I decided to put a heater back in.
Before winter finally closed in I removed the rear subframe assembly. The nearside radius arm unit was complete and undamaged, but the offside had been ‘butchered’, and would require replacing. I found a man at an autojumble, who had a pair of radius arms for sale, along with a few other bits he wanted to dispose of, so I struck a deal for his three boxes of bits and found that I now had all the parts that were needed to rebuild the rearsuspension.
Over the winter period on dry (if cold) nights under a couple of flood lights I set about refurbishing parts so that they would be ready for fitting when once again things warmed up a little. My neighbours must have thought I was crazy working outside in freezing temperatures.
The rear subframe itself was almost new, but had been painted silver, so I set about stripping off the old paint and wire brushing all the steelwork. Dave then gave it a coat of red oxide, followed by two coats of exterior black paint to protect it. In the meantime during the dark winter nights I stripped down the radius arms, cleaned and painted them and fitted new bushes and shafts. New rear wheel bearings were bought as matter of course, but I was surprised to find that one side had been fitted with taper roller bearings and the other with the old style ball bearings. I refurbished the rear brake assemblies using all new brake cylinders and levers etc. Initially I will be using standard Mintex brake linings as unlike a race car a rally
car cannot get the brakes up to temperature before they are needed. I may need to have a rethink on the lining material if I start to suffer with brake fade. I purchased a pair of Minifin brake drums from Huddersfield mini spares to helpkeep them cool.
Next in line for refurbishment were the suspension cones and rubbers. This was just a matter of cleaning up and fitting new knuckles.
With the subframe painted I refitted the mountings using poly bushes purchased from Mini Spares North. New heavy duty exhaust mountings were fitted and in the space across the back of the frame I fitted a piece of wood to make a strong jacking point. In a few years time it could be the only mini to fail its MOT on wood rot!
The next items for refurbishment were the front hubs, callipers and drive shafts. I stripped everything from the hubs, cleaned and painted them, then fitted new heavy duty taper roller wheel bearings and new top and bottom swivels. The drive flanges were separated from the discs and were in good condition, so were simply cleaned and painted. The discs on the other hand had seen better days. I would have liked to have bought a set of 7.9” Vented discs and 4 pot alloy callipers from Mini Sport so I had the option of using 10” wheels, but the cost was a little prohibitive. I decided to compromise and fit some drilled and grooved 8.4” discs complete with ‘green stuff’ pads which were supplied by Mini Sport. I also bought new brake and clutch master cylinders which I put to one side for fitting later.
Although heavy in comparison to alloy callipers the standard units seem to work ok, and so I simply checked, cleaned and painted them ready for fitting, using Goodridge armoured hoses from Mini Spares.
The drive shafts and CV joints were all in good condition, so other than cleaning, painting and repacking the CV joints with grease, these were fine.
Other items I was able to restore were the radiator and competition engine steady bar unit. These came with the engine I bought and I was very happy to find that the radiator was an almost new four core unit, which again was cleaned and painted. The steady bar was fine, other than needing new rubbers, which turned out to be the same as the tie bar bushes. I also
seemed to have acquired in my box of parts that came with the engine some solid rear of front subframe mounting brackets, and solid aluminium front subframe tower spacers etc. A facet fuel pump and filter were also lurking at the bottom of the box.
With the car under a cover on my drive I was unable to work on it very much during the winter, so I decided to splash out and have myself a garage built which was big enough to allow me to work on the car. Planning permission being what it is, this was not given until June (2008). Fortunately the garage I bought was a pre fabricated unit, which could be assembled very quickly when permission came through. The next phase of the build would involve removing of the front subframe, doors and fitting of wings etc and this would be easier to complete with the car under cover.
Once the car was in the garage I secured the front subframe in place using the solid brackets that I had. I needed to do this to provide the correct alignment for the front panel. I clamped the new wings on and at last it started to look like a car once more. I unwrapped the fibreglass bonnet and boot lid that I had bought from Mini racer David Kimberly, and put
the bonnet in place, stood back and smiled.
Once again I borrowed the welder, and over the course of a weekend welded the panels in place. I had bought non genuine parts for economy but these were not a perfect fit and required a little persuasion before they could be welded into place. I would certainly recommend that anyone building a show car should pay the extra for genuine parts. I reasoned that as this was to be a rally car built to a budget price that the non genuine parts were ok.
I now brought the engine in from under its cover on the drive and put it on the bench for what I thought was going to be a quick clean and paint. Whilst looking around it I decided to make sure that the clutch was ok, and on stripping off the clutch cover I found that at some point whilst stood that water had got in and the flywheel, clutch cover and backing plate were all rusty. I removed these only to find that the clutch plate needed replacing and the backing plate was badly scored. The primary gear had excessive clearance and the clutch must have juddered very badly.
Although I had heard the engine running and was not going to carry out a rebuild alarm bells started ringing, so out came the spanners and I split the engine and box. Fortunately the engine had been recently rebuilt and was fitted with new A+ pistons and a reground crank etc. An unleaded 12G940 head was fitted which will now be overhauled, I will also fit a sportier camshaft and a duplex timing gear set if these are not already fitted.
One advantage of splitting the engine from the gearbox was that I could check the gearbox over and see which final drive was fitted. This turned out to be a 3.9:1 ratio, which would give excellent acceleration, but I would have to compromise on top speed. I have a 3.44:1 FD which I stripped out of the gearbox with the hole in the side out of the original white car and considered fitting this to my gearbox. I consulted John Thornton who I have seen out on rallies in his mini, and asked his advice. He told me that his car was running a 3.9 and that on most events this ratio was fine as he spent very little time in 4th gear. I calculated that with this ratio on 12” wheels 6500rpm in top gear is about 95 mph depending on the tyres being used. Quite adequate for my needs. It could be a bit of a problem on the A roads and motorways due to the high revs at cruising speeds, but I don’t intend spending much time on anything other than ‘back’ roads. Having fun is what its all about.
I had also been in contact with Matt Pearce who rallies a 1965 Cooper S in the Historic Rally Championship, and along with advice on general preparation of the car he told me his car was fitted with a limited Slip Diff, but advised that if the car was to be used mostly on Tarmac (at my level) that this is an unnecessary expense.
I put the engine and gearbox to one side for rebuilding at a later date, and concentrated on preparing the front subframe and suspension.
With the front end of the car now firmly fixed in place I could remove the front subframe assembly and the steering rack. I stripped off all the suspension components and wondered what this car must have felt like to drive prior to it been taken off the road, as every bush in sight was perished or broken, and the steering rack felt very rough. With the frame stripped I could give it a good clean and strengthen where required. I welded up the top of the towers, and added more weld to the seams. I made up and welded in triangular fillets at the tie bar mounting points and also double skinned the frame where it bolts to the floor mountings. As with the rear subframe, the front one was treated to a coat of red oxide and 2 coats of black
paint.
The trumpets were cleaned up and the suspension cones cleaned and painted, along with the standard tie bars. Before I do any competition work these will be replaced with stronger adjustable items, but for now they would allow me to get the car back on its feet.
The top suspension arms didn’t have any play in them and looked to be well greased. On stripping them down I found the O/S shaft and bearings perfect and only required cleaning and greasing but the N/S bearings were seized. Mini spares do a repair kit for this item so one was purchased and fitted. Again everything was thoroughly cleaned and painted ready for
reassembly. I ordered a pair of 1.5º negative camber bottom arms from Mini Sport but they were waiting for stock to come in. This was no problem as I would put the subframe to one side for assembly after I had prepared and painted the underbonnet area.
I was given an electric fan assembly from a Honda motorcycle from my work colleague Paul Rogers which was surplus to his requirements, so this was cleaned up and painted ready to be fitted to the inner wing to assist with cooling when the car is stationary, as 1275 minis do tend to struggle to keep cool after a long hard run. This will simply be switched on and off from inside the car when necessary, (if I remember to look at the temperature gauge). I drilled the inner wing and made up some sleeves ready to fit later.
Attention was now turned to the underbonnet area and the inner wings. I had previously painted the bulkhead area and the inner wings with red oxide, so all that was left was to clean and prepare the lower half of the bulkhead. Once this was given a coat of red oxide I applied a coat of ‘Stone Chip’ to the underside of the wings and the inner wings. The whole area
could then be painted with two coats of white paint.
I had a perfectly good spare steering rack that came with the car, so this was inspected cleaned, greased and re-painted. It was the first part that I refitted to the car, and in a small way I felt that once again progress was being made. The new brake and clutch master cylinders were fitted and I joked with my friends that suddenly the value of the car had been
doubled.
I re-assembled the front subframe assembly and while building up the suspension I took the opportunity to raise the suspension slightly by placing a washer between the suspension cone and knuckle. Again it would have been better to fit Hi-Lo suspension trumpets to allow me to raise and lower the suspension in situ, but budget required a compromise. It would not end up so high that it would resemble a crop sprayer.
The negative camber lower arms arrived from Mini sport, and even though they were new I gave them an extra coat of paint for protection. These were assembled using poly bushes. The completed frame was now put to one side ready for fitting back in place.
I turned my attention next to the rear wheel arches, which were cleaned of the old underseal before being given the red oxide treatment. Before applying the stone chip and painting this area I wanted to clean the complete under boot floor area, ready for the re-fitting of the rear subframe assembly. This would have to wait for a while as while the late summer weather
was kind to me I needed to repair and prepare both front doors.
One of the parts that I had acquired along with the engine was a drivers door in very good condition, which had already had the window winder assembly and inner door metal removed, making it very light compared to the standard door. It needed a little tidying up where the inner metal had been cut out, but otherwise it was in excellent condition. The original drivers door was also in excellent condition and was sold on to raise a few pounds to go towards other items.
The passengers door was sadly not as good, being a little fragile along the bottom edge. It was not beyond repair though and I could not justify the expense of a new door skin, so out with the welder and tin shears. I lightened it along the same lines as the drivers door, and then applied the filler where required to make it look pretty. It always gives you a sense of achievement when something is brought back to the point where it is ready for re-fitting (and Painting).
I crawled back under the car once more and started to scrape off the underseal and 25 years of grime from under the boot floor. Some repairs had previously been carried out on the this area and would need to be tidied up before painting. I then came to removing the rear valance which needed replacing, and to my horror both the rear corners of the boot floor fell
through. Although I had looked at these some time ago and deemed them to be sound, it seemed that the welding quality left a little to be desired and was heavily disguised as seam sealer. I felt a little disappointed when I saw this, but after a cup of tea to calm me I said to myself, ‘just get on and sort it out. It’s not the end of the world’.
After cutting out the rusted metal from the corners, templates were made to form the new plates. Maybe something good has come out of this as I was now able to take the opportunity of making plates significantly larger which would cover the previous welding, and also strengthen the rear subframe mounting points. A couple of days with the welder soon sorted out the mess, and after a trip to m-machine to purchase a new rear valance and Mini Spares for the two fabrications that close off the rear corners, these were welded in place and it was out with the paint to tidy it all up.
It was now time to set about preparing the rest of the body for painting. The condition of which was surprisingly good. Other than a couple of marks made by Dave and I whilst fitting the cage, there was only one small dent in the body, and no filler was found in the usual areas at the front of the rear wheel arches. The roof is a slightly different story as between my seeing the car and it being delivered to me, one of the mechanics at Rudgate Motors decided to sit on it, which dented it in a couple of places. Nothing serious but annoying never the less. As the car was still up on stands I would leave the roof till later. It will be a contrasting colour anyway so would be painted separately.
Choosing the colour for the car was a difficult task, being torn by the desire to paint it Red and White (I know, here we go again), or paint it in some other livery that I remembered from the past. I did sketches of the different schemes that I had in mind and showed them to family and friends. As usual everyone liked a different scheme and in the end I chose something that I thought was simple but functional. Potentially I have two people interested in sponsoring the car, if only in a small way. My Co Driver Dave recently set up his own handyman
business, and My friend Barry has run his own Painting and Decorating business for many years. Dave has already contributed by buying some parts for the car, and Barry has agreed to help finance the venture when we are ready, so the colour scheme needs to compliment their business logo’s. You will have to waitto see what the final outcome was.
I Spent a few days filling and sanding around the wing seams and A panels, and also on the small dents in the panel work. Rubbing the whole lot down ready for primer reminded me how much hard work was involved in painting a car. Armed with my spraygun and mask I primered the shell and applied the stopper where required, then left to dry whilst I primered the bonnet, boot and doors. Over the next week the stopper was rubbed down and the panels all re-primered ready for the top coat.
In the past I have only used 2 pack paint very occasionally, having been brought up on cellulose paint, and this has now been outlawed except for very limited classic car restoration, so I ordered some 2 pack paint and listened to the advice of my supplier. If it is applied correctly, then it is shine out of a tin. I still feel there is something special about building up a good finish using cellulose (and the addictive smell), but I guess I must move with the times. I must admit I was getting quite excited about seeing the car painted. All I had to do now was pray that the weather would be reasonably warm for the weekend of the big event.
The big day cometh, and as usual, disappointment was to bring me down to earth. The paint didn’t arrive! I was a bit annoyed, but on reflection it wasn’t such a bad thing. I took a step back and looked at what I could get on with instead of painting. It is then that you realise that there were many small things that needed attention before painting took place, rather
than doing them later. I remembered that I had never actually tried the drivers door on the car as it was from the autograss car. Luckily it fitted ok. I did a trial fit of the passengers door which was the original, and it was a little tight against the A panel. I had changed the hinges but not put back the thin spacers that were fitted between the hinge and pillar. Everything else seemed ok with the exception of the fibreglass boot lid. When offered up to the car there was not enough curve on it to fit against the rubber seal tightly. There was nothing I could do about the moulding, other than make sure that it would flex enough when fastened with the body pins, which it did I refurbished the boot hinges and drilled the boot lid accordingly to ensure it fitted as well as it could do. I then made up brackets to mount the quick release pins in the top corners of the boot, and to the bottom corners of the engine bay, having already welded plates to the top corners of the engine bay when I fittedthe wings.
A couple of days later the paint arrived, at the same time as the coldest spell of weather that we had endured for a long time. I would struggle to get the garage warm enough to paint the car on an evening.
During this particular week, sadly I had to attend the funeral of a dear old friend, Ken Buckley, who loved his classic cars. I would see if I could use the opportunity after his funeral to paint the car. I’m sure he would approve.
It was mid afternoon when I returned from the funeral, so I turned on a fan heater that I had, and an old convection heater, along with a couple of halogen lights to build up as much heat as I could in the garage. After about 30 minutes I was surprised how warm it was. Time to take the plunge. I mixed the paint as instructed, set the nozzle on the gun and off I went. I had been advised to put on a fairly ‘wet’ first coat without putting so much on to cause runs, then leave it for 10 mins to let it go slightly tacky before spraying the top coat, so after applying the first coat I popped into the house for a quick cuppa, and whilst there I heard this horrific bang from the garage. On inspection I found the new (heavy duty 300PSI) airline I had purchased had split about 2ft from the compressor coupling. What a time for this to happen. I looked around for some way of repairing it, and ended up using the connection from the blow gun, fitted to the compressor and then cutting the hose beyond the hole and fitting to the compressor with a jubilee clip that I found in my tool box. Panic over. The second coat of paint went on without incident, and I looked to have achieved a nice finish. Time to shut the doors and let it dry. It would be touch dry in a couple of hours and fully hardened overnight.
Later that evening I couldn’t help myself and went to inspect my efforts. The car looked really nice, and was touch dry. I was happy that no dust had settled on the paintwork before it dried. The only disappointment was on one of the wings where the spray gun had spluttered slightly and deposited a drop of water. It was best to leave this alone and assess the problem when the paint was dry. I smiled to myself as I locked the garage for the night.
The following day whilst on my lunchbreak I opened up the garage door to look at the car in the cold light of day. It looked as good in daylight as it had the night before. I took a couple of photos, and returned to work a happy man.
After work I removed all of the masking paper and what appeared was a car that looked as if it belonged to someone. Surprisingly little dust had ingressed inside the car, and no overspray to clean off. Now it was time for the feelgood factor, so I searched for the box with the rear lights in and refitted those, quickly followed by the fuel tank. I had also made a dummy right hand filler neck from an old tank I was given. So this was bolted to the shell. Time for a pint, armed with some photos for my friends to see. I’m sure up to this point some of them didn’t believe I even had a mini.
The next day was Saturday, and my own car was booked in first thing for its MOT, which unbelievably it failed (I know, mechanics cars). I had to run around for parts to repair this, so I lost a couple of hours mini time. I had arranged to go somewhere in the afternoon, so I only managed an hour or so working on the car. I refitted the No plate light unit, Badge and Boot handle, then the boot lid seal, and offered up the boot lid to the car. When tightened up this fitted remarkably well, requiring only the fitting of body pins to bring the top corners into line. Mini with Cooper S Badge and twin tanks! Result.
The following day was time for some inspiration as we were out marshalling on the Malton Forest Rally. I love forest rallies and would love to compete on some, but after travelling the eight miles or so of Langdale in Dave’s Honda CR-V, after two passings of 60 or so rally cars, I realised that it was no place for a mini. Modern 4 wheel drive rally cars leave unbelievably deep ruts that I am sure the mini would never negotiate. The cost of competing on forest events is also inhibitive, as the entry fee for this event was around £450 for less than 50 miles of rallying. The organising clubs try to keep costs to a minimum, but forestry commission charges and event insurance are quite high these days.
Over the next few days I tidied up the interior paintwork where it had been damaged or had traces of overspray on it, and fitted some protection to the exposed edges around the inside of the doors where the metal had been cut away. The last thing we need are unnecessary cuts and grazes caused by catching ourselves whilst simply sat in the car.
Next operation was to run the Battery and fuel lines down the inside of the car. These were routed along the sides of the tunnel away from where they could be damaged accidentally by the cars occupants, and fastened down securely with ‘P’ clips. I then made up a bracket to mount the brake bias valve on top of the tunnel to the rear of the handbrake. To make sure that this could be reached easily whilst sat in the car I loosely put in the drivers seat and had a sit in. I must have looked like a child sat in his parents car playing with the steering wheel. I closed my eyes and imagined driving down a stage at full belt.
Time for reality and back to work. I measured up, drilled and fitted the wheel arch extensions, having to trim them slightly to fit the contours of the ill fitting front wings. I must admit I got a shock when I looked at the price of new chrome side trims. Good old health and safety has outlawed the use on foil strip on plastic, so the price of any existing stock of these trims has gone through the roof (about £50 each). Thankfully some companies are manufacturing them in a very bright silver, which to all intents and purposes looks like the originals, unfortunately these are a nightmare to fit. I will purchase these closer to finishing the car.
Now it was time to start hanging on the suspension. I offered up the rear subframe into place, and was confident that it would fit reasonably easy, being the one that came out of the car. I had though welded up the boot floor and strengthened the front mounting points, so I was not surprised that it was a tight fit. A little relieving of the holes in the boot floor solved this problem, and soon it was bolted in place. I re-fitted the suspension cones and the trumpets, then offered up the n/s radius arm to the frame. Everything fitted ok and once the shock absorber was fitted it became the first corner that was capable of carrying a wheel once more. The following night was the turn of the drivers side, and after fitting the Goodridge brake
hoses I was now in a position where I could put the rear end on the ground.
Now for the front end. The subframe was raised into place, and simply bolted to the mountings. The fitment was fine as the subframe had previously been fitted to line up the front panel. I then proceeded to fasten on the hubs, driveshafts and brakes etc. All this work was made easier by pre-assembling everything after refurbishment. Within a couple of hours I was in a position to fit the front wheels and take the car off the stands and lower it to the floor. This was the first time in over 2½ years that the car had sat on four wheels.
It was a bright but cold Saturday morning when I carried out this work, and was a great feeling to push the car out of the garage and into the sunshine to take some photos.
Over the next few days I fitted the body pins to secure the boot lid, and refitted the door handles and locks, everything fitted very nicely. I drilled the floor to fit the drivers seat in place, but will need a bit of fine tuning to be comfortable when driving. Sadly the mini was never designed to take the ‘big wing’ FIA seats and the ideal position means that it is very close to the door pillar (maybe if I was a little taller it would help). Thankfully the co-drivers seat is not a problem as it can be placed behind the door pillar.
Once again the weather intervened. Despite having a garage, it was bitterly cold on an evening, so things slowed down a little. The other problem was the ‘Credit Crunch’ was beginning to bite (pun not intended) and it was fast approaching Christmas, (this was late 2008) so the drains on the wallet were high, not leaving much spare money for car restoration, so I
did the little things I could till after the festivities were over, and I could see where I stood.
Come the New Year things at work were looking a little grim. With the downturn in the economy and the building trade in particular, the recession was beginning to make its presence felt, it seemed that redundancies at work may be on the cards. I was however lucky to escape, when our company needed to tighten its belt a little. The upshot of this was that I would be working a few less hours a week. This was a double edged sword of course as it meant that I could spare a few more hours working on the car, but I was also loosing a few hours pay. I would not realistically be able to continue buying parts for the car and had to make a decision on what path the build would take. I decided for the near future that I would have to work only on jobs that I could do without spending any money. This would slow things down considerably and the fear was that the car would not be finished in the foreseeable future.
The car was once again lifted into the air and put on stands so work could commence on scraping the underseal from the underside of the floor pans so it could be finished to the same high standard as the boot floor and bulkhead. You don’t realise just how large this area is until you start scraping with a blade little more that an inch wide.
At the same time as refurbishing the underside, as a break from scraping, I commenced making up new brake pipes for the car, using ‘Kunifer’ piping, which although not as flexible as copper piping, (but better than steel) would be less vulnerable to stones and rocks where it was exposed. Due to the fusion of old type UNF and later Metric brake components the brake
unions would unavoidably be a mixture of both, which is something that I will need to be aware of, should any of the brake parts or pipes require replacing. The last time I made the costly mistake of fitting the wrong union was a very long time ago, and doubtless the wrath of my foreman Ian would have taught me not to make the same mistake twice.
Like the fuel line and the battery lead, these pipes were routed through the bulkheads and the inside of the car to avoid damage whilst traversing rough ground., again held in place with ‘P’ Clips.
Preparations also began for the fitting of the wiring loom. As I had fitted an air box to the bulkhead and repositioned the instruments within the car it would be necessary to route the wires differently to the standard car. Whilst designing the dashboard and switchgear I endeavoured to place them, where the standard wiring would reach without having to make too many alterations. To this end the wires that would normally have run along the top of the bulkhead under the scuttle panel would run in a similar position inside the car, thus connecting with the rear wiring loom, and windscreen wiper motor etc without modification. Standard switchgear was retained for the ignition switch, indicators and wipers etc and these were all
connected with the standard multiplugs. The ignition switch/steering lock assembly was retained but the steering lock was disabled as required in the rulebook, by removing the pin/locking mechanism. This was very fiddly to put back together as the ball and spring that tension the key must be retained.
As I would be fitting an old style speedo to my dash the wiring for this would have to be modified, but fortunately Mini spares manufacture a conversion kit to facilitate this. One to put on the needed list., along with a longer speedo cable which they also supply.
Whilst all this was happening I received a call from a friend who was rebuilding another mini, which he had bought on e-bay a year or so earlier. The car was a bit of a mess when he got it home, but he gallantly set about it, welder in hand. After many hours work I think he lost the will to live, and therefore decided that the car had to go. He asked me if I wanted the
car, and I said that it would be great for spares, but I couldn’t afford to buy it off him, to which he replied ‘I don’t want anything for it, if you take it away then it’s yours.’
I went to see him a few days later to assess it and see what arrangements I would need to make to get it home. Indeed the car was in a very poor state. He had welded in a new inner wing, fitted floor panels, but then had found that the bulkhead/Scuttle panel was falling apart. I think it was at this point that he threw in the towel. The car was a 1992 Studio2, and I
have never seen a mini shell as bad as this for many years.
Many useful parts could be salvaged from it though, particularly the smaller parts that I would need to put mine back on the road. Mirrors, bumper, Wipers etc. There was also a set of 7x13 Alloy wheels and tyres which although not the right size for my needs, could be sold or swapped for a set more suitable. I’m sure also that someone could make use of the shell, trim, seats etc.
Although only 998cc I would keep the engine and gearbox as a spare for my car. Indeed it may be fitted to the car to get it up and running whilst I rebuild my own. The car also sported the correct alternator, and a battery that I would need.
A week or so later I rented a trailer for the day. Dave and I along with a couple of rallying friends went to pick up Mini 2. A couple of hours later it was sat on my drive. I hate to think what the neighbours thought when they saw another mini arrive! Over the next few days I set about taking off the parts that I wanted and deciding what I was to do with the rest
of the car. Most of the parts came off easily, which was a blessing. The battery was almost new, front indicators were not rusted as they usually are. Interior and exterior mirrors were in good condition, and also the engine steady bar was useable, as mine was slightly bent.
I also managed to salvage the clutch slave cylinder etc as the engine from this car had the later ‘Verto’ clutch, and my engine was fitted with the earlier (superior in my opinion) type. So if I do fit this engine I would need this.
In the meantime my car was not deserted and I spent an hour or so on an evening with a scraper and a rag cleaning off the under floor. Once all the underseal was removed from the floorpan, I found it to be in remarkably clean condition. I did use a little filler to smooth the areas where it had been welded, but otherwise all that it needed was a little seam sealer applying to the joints in the panelwork.
I fitted the door and interior mirrors from the other car, along with sun visors etc. It’s surprising how fitting such small items as this make the car look more complete.
Easter was now upon us and this meant that I could spend quite a lot of time on the car. First priority was to get the underside of the floor painted. As usual this was given a coat of stonechip and a couple of coats of white. This was certainly an improvement on the oil softened underseal that was there previously. The car must be feeling like a Yo-yo now as I took it off the stands and once again put it on the floor.
After a few phone calls around the local area I found an unusual supplier for the Perspex I would use for the windows. The local timber yard of all places. Typically the timber yard has not crept into the 21st century and moved on to metric measures. I had calculated that I could get all four side windows and the rear window out of a single sheet 2mx1m, but they sold sheets 6’x3’, which meant I would have to purchase a second sheet for the rear window. At least this would allow me to make an odd mistake, (which I did) having never cut Perspex before.Over the Easter weekend, Dave helped with cutting out and installing the rear side and door windows. Once fitted loosely we could mark out where to make the cut outs for the opening slides. I devised a method of securing the door windows without resorting to riveting them in place. I used offcuts of Perspex located in the window channels and secured these with a nut and bolt, making it much easier to remove and replace the windows if required, and also allowing the fitting of the standard chrome trims/seals that run along the top of the door panel. I made up Driver and Navigators stickers for the rear quarters, along with the patriotic Union Jack’s, and told Dave that thiswas the closest he would get to having his name in lights.
Once I had the side windows fitted I made up the sliding part of the front windows. To allow the windows to move smoothly I spaced the retaining guides with clear acetate sheet bought from the local stationers (a whole 35p!). I had used this in the past to make windows for a dolls house and thought it would be the right thickness for my needs. In the end I had to double up on thickness to give enough clearance. I did however have to travel a few miles around the local DIY shops before I found one the stocked 3mm machine screws to fix the guides in place. In the past you could go to the local garage and they would have extensive stocks of nuts, bolts, screws etc in virtually any size you would ever need. It’s a sign of the times that now the young man (or woman) at the stores counter looks at you blank when asked if they keep these in stock. (if you can find a local garage).
Time to fit the front and rear screens. Eventually I want to fit a Perspex rear screen to the car, but in the meantime I fitted the standard glass item. Once the front screen was in place I fitted the wiper motor and rack, after making sure the wheelboxes were not worn and repacked them with grease. A quick wipe with the polishing cloth and the wiper arms and blades could be refitted. This would be the first time since I bought the car that the inside was weatherproof. I likened this to the topping out ceremony that takes place when the roof is fitted to a house, so I duly put the kettle on and toasted the car with a cup of tea.
With a little trepidation I took the drill out to the scuttle panel and fitted the pull cable for the battery cut off switch complete with mandatory sticker to identify it. The car really was now starting to look the part.
As I commented earlier, the drivers seat was not the best fit in the world and slightly fouled the drivers door pillar, so I decided to sort this out. The cure came from some brackets that came with the seat removed from the Autograss car. With these brackets I was able to reverse the side fittings which allowed the seat to move about 1cm nearer the centre of the car.
Bingo, the seat just cleared the pillar. Amazingly the brackets fitted to the holes that I had already drilled in the floor. Another advantage of using these brackets was that I was able to have the seat a little higher than before, which greatly improved the driving position for me. Next I drilled and fitted the passenger seat. Dave had already tried this in place and wanted to sit quite low in the car. He certainly got his wish as I could hardly see over the dash rail.
When I painted the car I never painted the bonnet, due to a lack of room in the garage to work around the car and the bonnet at the same time, so one nice warm evening I gave this a couple of coats of paint. The following day I had booked off work, so I fitted the bonnet using the quick release pins that I had bought for this. The car certainly looks a lot better with the bonnet fitted.
The car now looked complete (when the bonnet was on at least) and ready for an engine. I didn’t have the funds to rebuild my 1275 engine at this time, and rather than refit it without bringing it up to the specification that I wanted I decided to utilise the 998 engine from Mini 2, having been assured that it ran ok before being removed from the car (Fingers crossed again). I stripped all the ancillaries from the block, and set about cleaning the ten years of accumulated grime ready for painting. Once clean the complete engine/gearbox was given a coat of green engine paint. Not the correct olive green that the 1275 will get, but at least something to make it look presentable. Brackets were cleaned anpainted black, and the ancillaries cleaned ready for refitting.
When cleaning the clutch cover ready for painting I noticed that there was a lot of play in the operating lever and the release bearing carrier. After stripping this down I found all the operating parts needed replacing. I wondered how on earth the clutch had ever worked. This engine was fitted with a Verto clutch and parts for these are quite expensive, but I did have a complete earlier type flywheel/clutch assembly from an older car and as long as you change all the components they are interchangeable, so I got away without having to spend any money rectifying this problem, other than a new slave cylinder and flexible hose being required. The added bonus was that my 1275 engine used this type of clutch also.
With a little help from Dave one evening, we set about bleeding the braking system using Millers Racing fluid as recommended by Motoscope in Northallerton. I was warned a long time ago from other competitors that competition mini brakes get very hot and need a high specification fluid. Even with all my experience with mini brakes, I have only ever ‘lost’ the brakes once, and that was on my very first mini whilst it was still running on single leading shoe front brakes. Still, no point taking chances.
Eventually all the air was removed from the system and the result was a fantastically solid brake pedal with virtually no travel. I put this down to the Goodridge hoses not allowing any expansion in the system. The following day I fitted the new handbrake cable etc. Now I wouldn’t have to rush to put the blocks behind the wheels every time I moved the car around.
With the paint now dry on the engine I re-fitted all of the ancillaries. Now at last I had an engine ready to fit to the car.
Once the wiring loom was fitted roughly where itneeded to go, I had a re-think on the dash layout. The fuse box could be sited in the centre above the battery isolator switch, so that it was easily accessible from either side of the car, and the lights/rear fog and hazard light switches fitted to the right of this in a place where I could reach them when belted in, and also where the wires would reach without modification. Initially I was going to put a rev counter alongside the Speedo directly in front of me with the oil pressure and water temperature gauges to the right of these, but I already had a pod mounted rev counter so I fitted this to the dash top where it could easily be seen (saved me about £100 too). I could now fit the Speedo and other instruments a little more easily as I had more space to play with. One thing I never considered when I first thought about the dash was how I could remove it with the roll cage in place. The only solution I could come up with was to cut the dash into three sections making the cuts in line with the cage uprights. Allowing the centre section to be removed, whilst theend pieces remained permanently fitted to the car.
Saturday 9th May 2009 was a momentous day. My friend Paul from work had borrowed an engine hoist for me and delivered it the previous evening. With the engine ready to be fitted to the car I checked and repacked the inner ‘pot’ joints with grease and fitted these to the drive shafts and also fitted new seals to the output shafts. I was now ready to fit the engine. It was lined up in front of the car, and a rope ‘slung’ round it. I raised it up and pulled the car underneath it. Slowly and carefully it was lowered into position until it sat on the subframe. Off with the rope and take a photograph. I had never seen the car with an engine in so I felt quite happy.
With a little repositioning I was able to bolt the engine mountings to the frame. Next was the engine steady bar, to which I had already fitted new poly bushes. On with the clutch cylinder and pipe, the engine wiring and the heater hoses. Once this was done the car was raised in the air, the drive shafts fitted and the gear linkage connected. I touched up the paintwork on the underside of the engine, and also the subframe where it had chipped off. My friend Robin donated a 5litre can of engine oil and in this went.
The first thing I had bought for the car three years ago was a long centre branch exhaust manifold from Mini Sport, so on this went along with the exhaust system and the 1½” SU carb fitted to an alloy manifold. Amazingly everything fitted and lined up perfectly, so I guess I must have done something right.
I had initially intended mounting the fuel pump in the boot, but looking at the engine bay there was enough room to fit this to the bulkhead next to the wiper motor. I couldn’t find anything in the regulations that would not allow this, and an advantage would be easier access to the pump and a little more room in the boot. With the pipes already in place it was a
simple job of connecting everything (and put some petrol in the tank of course!). All I had to do now was connect up the battery leads and it should be a runner. Well maybe not quite as simple as that.
Wednesday 13th May became another milestone in the rebuild. After checking the wiring loom for any exposed wires not being used that would become live when the ignition was switched on, I made sure the isolator switch was in the off position and connected up the battery. Then inside the car I gingerly turned on the power. No smoke or crackles Phew!! Time to turn the starter. Nothing! I traced the problem to the wires for the inhibitor switch fitted to automatic models. These should of course be connected together when there is no switch and not ignored as I had done. The engine would now turn over. I turned on the fuel pump and filled the carb with petrol. Disaster, the fuel pipe in the boot was leaking. I rummaged round in the garage for a new clip and once this was fitted it was time to try and start the engine.
When the engine was turning over it was obvious that I had got the timing way out as it was ‘kicking back’. Experience told me that it would be the distributor drive that was not fitted correctly. Whilst painting the engine, the drive had fallen out, and I thought I had refitted it in the correct position but evidently not. I turned it a tooth and refitted the distributor, and ‘hey presto’ the engine started straight away. It ran for a few minutes then ran out of petrol. Still, at least I knew it was a runner. Another first.
The following morning on my way to work, it was straight to the filling station for a gallon of petrol. I asked Dave if he would call round that evening and help bleed the clutch. Once this was done we put in the petrol and started the car once more. Dave was impressed that it started quite easily. I sat inside, pressed the clutch and tried the gears. No problems were encountered, so into 1st gear, release the clutch slowly and the car edged forward. It had moved for the first time under its own steam. It may have only been a few feet, but it moved.
We sat in the car to see how noisy it was and both of us had a smile on our faces. We did though notice that there was a horrible intermittent knocking noise coming from under the bonnet, not from the engine fortunately, but coming from the fuel pump of all things. I would have to investigate this, but still it worked. I would also need to check the heater and/or hoses asthere was a slight water leak into the car from that area. Time to call it a night and put the car away. It was very satisfying to be able to reverse the car into the garage and not push it. As I was closing the garage door I noticed a few drops of oil on the floor. The oil pressure warning light switch was leaking. I had a spare which I fitted, but it does make you wonder how this switch, which was not leaking when the engine was removed from Mini 2 now decided to give up the ghost. Perhaps it didn’t like being awakened after hibernating for a year.
Knowing that most of the electrics were now working I once again removed the dash from the car. Hopefully for the last time. I stripped everything from it and covered the surface with mock leathercloth vinyl, then carefully refitted all the switches, gauges etc. I refitted the dash to the car connecting up light switches etc for the first time. I pressed the horn and it worked as did the windscreen washers. There were a few anomalies with the wiring, as I was trying to mate three different versions of electrics to a 1982 loom. I managed to sort most of these out with the aid of a Haynes manual and its wiring diagrams.
I initially fitted an old twin box RC40 exhaust system that had come from the original white mini, but this looked a little scruffy. I took a trip to P&L Minis and bought an intermediate pipe and a new rear silencer. I carefully measured up, cut the front pipe to fit to the exhaust manifold, then fitted the silencer to the car. I made sure that this was fitted correctly as I have seen so many minis fitted with this system that hang far too low and catch on the slightest bump in the road. When this exhaust is fitted correctly the centre pipe runs neatly down the tunnel and the silencer tucks into the subframe, more or less out of harms way. The system I fitted exited in the standard position as I have always preferred this to the centre exit exhaust that Peter and I always dubbed ‘for boy racers’.
The following weekend I drove the car out of the garage and off my drive into the cul-de-sac where I live. A few of my neighbours came out to have a look and all were impressed with the car. What let it down now was the roof. As luck would have it a friend of mine asked if I would do a small body repair on his car which was the same colour as I was intending to paint the roof. I offered to ‘go half’s’ with the cost of the paint for his car and he agreed. I would now shortly be able to finish off the bodywork.
Once the car was out of the drive I couldn’t resist driving it up and down the street. Fortunately I live on a private road so was able to do this. The car was quite noisy to drive but everything seemed to work ok. For the first time ever the car got into second gear.
I put the car back in the garage and decided to write a list of all the things that still needed to be done to complete the build. I stopped at the bottom of the second sheet, but realised that the list mostly consisted of minor tasks, and fitting of auxiliary equipment, not necessarily needed to put the car on the road.
With a view to getting the car on the road a little sooner, I cleaned and painted the front shock absorbers from Mini 2. Although they are standard spec they seemed in fairly good condition. Again, this is something that can be uprated very quickly when required and when funds allow.
I made up some templates for the rear mudflaps, and then cut them out of sheet material purchased from Motoscope at Northallerton. I didn’t have enough material to make the front mudflaps aswell out of the same sheet, so it was a good excuse to have another trip out.
After finishing the body repair on my friends car I set about the repairs to the roof. A couple of coats of filler and much elbow grease soon had the roof looking much less like a skateboard park and more like it should do. Once primered and rubbed down I could give the roof its nice shiny new coat. Transformation complete!
To let off a little steam, I took everything useful or salvageable off Mini 2, and then took the grinder with a cutting wheel attached, and my big chisel and attacked the remains of the car. It really was a rusty wreck, and fit only for the scrapman.
What was needed now was to wire up and check all the lights etc, set the wheel alignment, check every nut and bolt on the car and fit some full harness seat belts.
With the ignition timing and carburettor set up correctly it was time to take it for a health check, (sorry MOT test). Fingers crossed and she was ready to roll.
Chapter 6, The death of Mini 2
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