Originally an English car, I bought it down in Clare. It was quite rough when I first got it, running rough and needed a service and a few new bits and pieces. We brought it back up to Dublin on a trailer just be safe..
Since then, it's joined our family of Minis and I've had great fun with it.
A short video that my brother and I made of the Minis in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UNbiE421T4
I've had lots of help from the forum and it's members and through working on it and constantly fixing it myself, I'm confident I'm ready for a restoration.
So, after making some space in the garage, I began stripping it.
Seeing as I'll be taking the subframes out either way, I decided to try lifting the body off method.. Worked out well!
With the engine out, I found several large cracks in the front subframe.. Probably what was causing my chronic engine rock problem. Will try and weld the cracks and see what happens.
I built a crude engine transporter for getting it out of the garage and cleaned.. Ended up with an A-series go kart!
The engine had what looks like 23 years worth of oil and dirt built up on it.. Found that the rear cover plates had been leaking badly, so new gaskets needed for them. Made good use of some Gunk and gave the engine a clean.
Next up is to clean and paint the front subframe.
The overall plan is to rebuild the engine (125,000 miles....
) and get the gearbox sorted, synchros are gone.. There is rust to be dealt with too, although not nearly as much as I had initially thought. Main areas are the front floors and sills. In terms of upgrades, I have a 12G295 head to go on and planning on putting in a SW5 cam. The engine currently has a Minispeed alloy inlet manifold, LCB and stainless RC40 system behind that, rebuilt HIF38 carb and a K&N filter. An upgraded suspension system is on my shopping list as well, currently I have new cones, HiLos and KYB Gas adjust shocks. I'd like to have new fully adjustable suspension and get it set up right.
I'm working on this most of the time so I will hopefully be able to update fairly often. Thanks for reading!
Rich
