Bought an '05 Mini Convertible Base over the winter and am getting around to all the basics at 84,000 miles.

I switched to Castrol Full Synthetic 5W40 Euro Oil along with a new oil filter.

Replaced the cabin air filter and all the spark plugs. The spark plugs were oily, so I'm learning to replace a valve cover gasket when that comes in along with a new air filter.

New brake pads and fluid tomorrow.

 

My top doesn't go down so hopefully I'll be back one week to report I was able to afford and decipher replacing those unholy levers and locking mechanisms...

well I cranked and drive my rover cabrio mini today and also my mini pick up..  and drove my  beige petrol moke about an hour today.. and cranked my other Seven proper petrol  mokes yesterday..

Just putting the finishing touches to the 1969 Austin Mini pickup truck. Should have been in a local car show next week but a detached retina (mine, not the Mini's) slowed things down a tad.

Driver's side door seals, tidying up some wiring in the engine bay and wheels then it's done.

682 ENX is the registration number of the vehicle I passed my driving test in in 1969.

I traced the VIN back to Gaydon RAF airdrome in Wellsbourne, Warwickshire, England (close to where I lived), hence the RAF roundel on the front. The actual AA badge is mine from England and the serial number of it reflects my membership of the AA.

More pics next week.

I thought about it. The roads were bare and dry and the road salt and most of the snow was gone. I thought about putting the insurance on, waking it up from a 2 year sleep and getting it going.

It snowed again last night, and freezing rain promised for today,

SIGH!

Hi All.

My name is Mark and I am from the UK originally but now live in the Southern Interior of B.C

Just bought a 1998 Japanese market Mini. Has been restored and converted to LHD with 4 speed Manual transmission. I drove it home then washed all the muck of it and now it is wrapped up waiting for spring. 

I had a 1981 Mini 1000 back in 1994/95 which I used to drive an hour or so back and forth to college. Loved driving it and left it with someone who I thought was a friend.

I have been wanting another Mini for a while now and I finally have one. it only has 1220KM on the rebuilt engine. There about 14 Guys in this small town who have classic cars, Domestic of course, so I will be the only one with a Mini. They have a cruise every Friday night and there is a big event in september called the Route 99 Cruise in. All welcome.

Getting the moke ready for 3 days of Georgia backroads. Decided to put on the Cosmic wheels for a change. I have always liked these wheels.

Same here cut out my battery box and JB Welded the new one in worked nicely.

I did this a few months ago. Cut out the old battery box. Got a new replacement one from Mini Spares. Went in with only a little hammering. the flanges required some adjusting to match the trunk floor. Instead of welding, I just used JB weld and glued it in. 

 

While everything was out.....I blasted the entire trunk, took both tanks out, epoxy primer on everything, new spare tire with the wheel repainted too. Painted the lot. Now I have a concours level boot! I also did the interior of the boot lid, installed the boot lid liner. New board, batter box topper, battery hold down. Looks nice. The boot looks much better than the rest of the car now!

 

 

 

 

Just started work on my late fathers 1968 Mini Cooper S, major mechanical restoration was done by Automotive Restorations about 5 years ago.  Interior and exterior need alot of love.  The car was parked in a shed for the past winter and became a mouse house.  This week I pulled all the interior panels, the carpets, the seats and the stock heater.  These pieces smell so much of urine I dont think there is any hope for them and I will most likely replace.  The head liner is still in and I am going to attempt to clean it but it may also need to be replaced.  I ordered the custom heater to replace the old one which was rusted out and full of mouse debris.  I also pulled out this insulation type material from wells directly in front of the rear tires, this was soaked with water and urine and smelled awful.  My next steps are to clean and pressure wash the interior, wirebrush the floor and spray rust convertor.

New windshield.   The windshield had a crack at eye level from one end to the other.   All good now.

postponed working on the engine/trans until the rest of the car was mostly done.  Previous rebuilder did some good work, some not so good.  4-synchro bellhousing on 3-synchro gbox, would have been real lucky if that had worked.  When you do that, generally you have to redrill the dowel holes in the bh to get on the gearbox dowel centers.  This was not done, the bh/trans dowel alignment was never checked, so it ate the idler bearing, tore up the gbox and bh. So now I am sorting through spares to find good ones. 

 

 

While I do that and wait for parts to arrive, I can jump over to my remaining bodywork/chassis/electrical punchlist.

 

For example, the Morris grille had some gross mung attached to the back of every grille bar, and the steel plates that the bars are riveted to had a lot of rust.  So I drilled out all the rivets, cleaned the bars, blasted the plates clean and painted them.

 

 

Its a sliding window MK1, so no dash eyeball vents.  But I do like having extra ventilation,  I might eventually add that to this car. Its not a show car, maybe I will make some stealth vents under the dash, tbd.  Anyway before riveting the grille back together,  I went ahead and cut vent openings in the grille plates and marked out the vent inlet locations. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we had a major snow storm moving in, I had to jack up the back end of the Mini and move it over in order to make room for my FIAT 500. I also had to move the front end of the Renault Alliance Convertible over to make room for the FIAT as well.

Took out the battery, the tray looks like Swiss cheese. Didn’t look so bad, the paint was put on thick and was hangin on but once I started poking at it found it was an illusion, the metal is seriously rusted and it needs the to be replaced. I knew this was coming and had one on hand but seems like the time has come. Came here to see how others have accomplished this project, I’m still looking…. Now where’s my angle grinder….

I have replaced the harmonic balancer on my r52, accessory belt, and I am currently modifying the air filter housing to take a cone filter for a cold air intake.

lots of little assembly or fab/fix stuff done every day on the 66 S, scratching items off my to-do list but not much worth taking a pic and posting here.  Got boxes from Newton Commercial and started the reupholstery.  Pacing items are the headliner and rear side panels and side storage pocket liners, after that can jump over to making and installing the roll bar.



I considered just buying a roll bar and then convinced myself I could make one.  Got two 24ft sticks of A513 C1020, which is 1 3/4" DOM tubing, 0.120" wall thickness.  Tried a test bend on my modified pipe bender, didnt like the bend quality, borrowed some time on a Hossfeld to make pretty bends.

Test bend: pipe bender flattens the tube, Hossfeld makes smooth bend.






Set in the car and mocked up the downtubes with PVC pipe.




Made foot plates for the downtubes to mount on the inner fenders inside the rear pockets, clamped it all down and used the MIG to tack the downtubes with everything in the car, then pulled the roll bar out and TIGed the whole thing together.  Primed with etching primer and then painted Almond Green.  I used tube socks to keep it from scratching the door frame during installation.



Set it in place, drilled the holes, bolted with underside backup plates.  Pretty happy with the fit. 







Have enough tube left over if I ever decide to do angled door bars, tbd, that is way down the list.  I spent about $300 on tubing, someone who didn't need to practice their tube bending could have done this with a single 24 ft stick, about $150 around here if you know a friendly weld shop to get it for you from their big suppliers.  I had scrap steel plate I cut for floor plates and corner braces, but if you consider the argon, welding rod, steel plate consumables, I would guess about another 50 bucks in materials. 

I had the oil changed and chassis lubed on my 1996 Mini Cooper this week. I would have done the job myself, but I much dislike working with the cannister type filter. It would be nice if someone could design and manufacture a spin on oil filter adaptor for the automatic transmission classic Minis. Mark

Replaced the rubber SportPac flares with ABS ones. Put some reinforcing on the front quarter panels as well and cleaned up the jagged arches that the previous owner left. No more shredded tires! Also re-sprayed the license plate lamp shroud on the boot. And cut myself up trying to get the gas tank in place after replacing the rear flare on that side of the car.

hey Roger, I cant seem to stop being a Mini parts hoarder, apparently through the years I acquired a number of MK1 indicators needing repair, and one which was not MK1, must have been from a junkyard scrounging run,  maybe an ADO16?.  When I finally needed one, I decided to try fixing as many of these broken ones as I could.  To replace the long-gone bulb sockets tips, I bought a foot long piece of nylon rod from McMaster and turned "new" plastic tips on my lathe, but I dont see why a creative person couldn't do it on a drill press.  I was lucky that I had one arm with a still-usable plastic tip that I could copy, even so I still messed up the first 3 tries, finally figured out a workable sequence of steps. Is the chrome still all pitted and old-looking, yes.  Which is OK with me, I dont intend to win any prizes, and yeah I am a cheapskate. So I have one original, which I will set aside, and 3 repaired, to pick one for use on the car..  If I wanted a new arm I could have got a new 2A6215 from one of the usual vendors.

My car is a companion of yours - 1966 Austin Cooper S - Almond Green,OEW - LHD / WET

OK, so not this week, these photos from earlier this month.  The final flip and dismount.  This is the 66 Morris S I bought from Smurf many years ago, had Hugh drag it across country to me in Florida.  Another of my long-delayed projects that had to wait for me to retire and find time for it.