Another option (maybe) if you do not have the inner fender shroud is to use a Clubman upper and lower mount with the wide spacer, lots of clearance with this set up. You will also need the Clubman upper radiator hose if you are running a small bore. This would only be for engines with the breather on the timing cover as the rear tappet cover breathers do not interfere.

The breather on the back of the DSN cover is a PITA, and I will be removing it upon rebuild of Bettys engine. (You get a choice of a breahter pipe or a blanking cover with the kit).

I've had many long discussions with Dave at DSN about the breather take off positioning (it was an afterthought).  Empirically, unless your breathers are 100% clean & clear, you end up with wet oil coming up the pipe as the outlet is in the splash zone of the lower gear and there is no oil separator.  On the way back from the IMM in May I ended up with over half a litre of oil in a catchcan...

It is also very difficult to attach a breather tube without fouling the exhaust manifold and running the risk of melting it. 

And be careful about 'seeming' to have clearance with the engine stopped!  Happens often that it barely clears until the engine revs, then the fan flexes and shatters on the breather, taking the new radiator with it!  No doubt a tight fit!  I use a combination of ball-peen hammer to flatten some clearance to the upper half of the breather, a 3/16ths fan spacer,  and a custom upper radiator bracket that lets me finesse the exact position of the radiator.  My aluminum radiator is still so close to the fan that the belt doesn't fit through unless I undo the top mount!

A+ engines that came in Minis (vs the common Metro donated ones) have the breather pressed flat and look like the ones Coopertune modifies.  That sounds like a great solution, but I wonder if the labor involved begins to make these a viable option. These RetroSport covers are very trick, eliminate the heavy steel "front plate", and have an out-of-the-way breather on the BACK side!

//www.minimania.com/part/ENG3302-S/Timing-Cover-Kit---Retrosport-Billet-Aluminum

This is what your breather should look like.  Be careful with too many/too thick spacers as the fan and/or fan mounting bolts will get into the radiator.

Do you have a 1275 A+ ??? This is the subject of the post after all. As most of us know you don't as you have a 998 A. It has a tappet cover breather on the rear of the engine not a timing chain cover breather on the front as the 1275 A+'s do due to the fact they don't have tappet covers and that is why you have clearance. Consider it like the space between your ears some have plenty of room others are full.
It's all in the Haynes manual "special" boy.

This discussion is referring to A+ 1275 engines (some from MG Metros etc.) which have the canister attached to the front of the timing chain cover. Compare this photo to yours. The smaller hose closest to the rocker cover comes up from the breather. Notice the hose is in front of the rad hose.  The canister is about 3 or 4 times the diameter of the hose, which means it is out VERY close to the fan. Without a spacer, the fan inteferes... unless it is on backwards! (Which explains why so many cars with transplants end up with the fan on backwards.)

When I made a spacer for mine (about 1/4" thick if I recall correctly) so i could put the fan on right way round, the spacer also put the fan partially into the round opening in the rad shroud, improving efficiency quite a bit... I can use the Mini to blow dead leaves out of the garage! Before that, the fan was farther away and not as effective.

The distance between the canister breather and the fan blade is  a whopping 1.5inches... How can the blade touch the canister?????? Im like scratching my head now.

I remove the round style breather timing covers mark them and saw 1/2 inch off the face side, this gives a real chance of getting it clean inside. Then I shear a correct size plate and have it tig welded to the can. Looks better than the hammer approach. Steve (CTR)

Many years ago a friend cured the problem of his fan hitting by using a sharp screwdiver to machine out enough clearance by poking it into the fan with the engine running.

Not long after, he offered to do the same thing for a different friend suffering from the same lack of clearance problem.

Extolling the virtues of his quick-n-easy method, Dave confidently stuck his screwdriver into the spinning fan blades and expertly removed every single one of them !

Moral - if you're daft enough to try this, make damn sure the plastic fan is hot !!

No, it's a round can... must be the issue.  I'll order a spacer.

Does it have the flat sided breather can?   On mine I just used spacers to get clearance from the can. 

Finally getting some time on the mini... anyway I have some sort of A+ engine (1275) not sure of the vintage.  I installed an 11 blade plastic fan and it seems to interfere on the engine side with what I believe is an oil breather can.  I installed the spacer that came in the pile of !#@$ that came with the car.  I could install a second spacer to get this to work... is that my only option?   I'm thinking yes, but thought I would check in.

Almost forgot, the fan is on with the rounded side facing the engine (it says engine side on the plastic hub)...