Irish Mini Owners Club

colinf1 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:18 pm Great work, planning on attempting mine this weekend, both need the bottom repair panels.

Same process as the bootskin? There's a few spot welds to drill out too?

Yes there are a few spot welds. One behind the handle, a few around the edges plus the seam weld on both sides at the top.
Don’t use the spot weld cutter, just use the flap disk and grind down the surface of the outer skin until you can see heavy heat discolouration around the spot weld. It should peel off easily. I can post a picture tomorrow of the spot weld locations.

The old outer skin panels will come in handy for some patch panels to repair the inner frames.

ctwomey wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:00 pm The old outer skin panels will come in handy for some patch panels to repair the inner frames.

Thinking the same myself, lots of good flat material in the door skins once you trim off the rot from the bottom edge. I've a repair to do to the rear subframe and should be able to make card template that will fit nicely on the door skin.

Working through the painful task of removing the seam sealer.

I know blasting will get rid of most of the light stuff but I wanted to remove it myself to see what lies beneath.
Heat gun and 1/2 inch chisel seems to be the best, followed up by the twisted wire wheel.
Rotating the shell on its side makes the work position so much easier.
Just the boot, upper engine bay and rear bins left to strip of the seam sealer.

Seam sealer from bins done on both sides. Metal not too bad for 40 years old.
Small hole on passenger side that was caused by the removal of the outer sill. I will need to weld it up.

Being busy arranging to get the shell vapour blasted and primed. Finally, it's getting done next weekend.

I tried to rent a 5ft wide trailer, but very difficult to source one locally. Back up plan was to adapt my 4ft unbraked trailer to take the shell. I removed the side railings and welded up a steel frame to hold the shell and retain the trailer rigidity that was lost as a result of the railings been removed.

The shell is sitting on the pallet with castors that I use in the garage. All locked in place. Getting it on the trailer was easy enough, the trailer was able to slide sideways under the shell while it was on the rotisserie and then it just involved rotating the shell around once the trailer was carrying its weight.

Who did you go with for the blasting?

It will be good to see it blasted and primed, hopefully you don't get any surprises!

colinf1 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 12:51 pm Who did you go with for the blasting?

It will be good to see it blasted and primed, hopefully you don't get any surprises!

Chris in Classic Car Welding Dubin in Newcastle. It's a quick smooth drive up the motorway from here in Laois.

Yea, looking forward to seeing it after the process. We are going to use a bodywork primer (from Novol) instead of epoxy because I have a fair bit of bodywork to do. Chris said epoxy is better to use after the metalwork is all completed.

Yeah epoxy is ment to be very hard to get off if you have to do welding, so better to use as a final sealer.

Remember to take measurements of where the side stripes go if your planning on putting them back on...

Dropped the shell off to the blasters on Friday evening.
Cleaned up some parts with my small blasting cabinet over the weekend.
Used glass bead for the aluminum and garnet for the steel parts.

Pulling the bearings out of the rear radius arms was easier than I thought.

Below is the procedure I used which doesn't require a tool.

1. Find a M12 washer, dimensions shown below:
2. Grind off both sides so it just fits in the bearing
3. Rotate the washer on the other side of the bearing so that you can insert the old shaft through it
4. Put a washer and nut on the other end. The washer is to protect the bush and the nut is to protect the threads on the shaft
5. Apply some heat to the arm just to give it a helping hand
6. Tap away on the nut and the bearing will come out easily without any damage.
Enjoy!

Don't forget the plastic sleeve when rebuilding the radius arm as it's hard to remove a new bearing without damaging it in the process with the washer technique.

Parts look great coming fresh out of the blasting cabinet. I have the use of one at work, its just a pity some doughnut damaged the perspex screen - using it without screen protector. Also the noise of the dust extractor can get annoying.

What finish will you go for on the trumpets?

colinf1 wrote: ↑Sun May 09, 2021 7:38 pm Don't forget the plastic sleeve when rebuilding the radius arm as it's hard to remove a new bearing without damaging it in the process with the washer technique.

Yes, the existing ones had split and there is a ton of LM grease inside the arms. Cleaning it out is the messiest job I have ever done. Old bushes are in really good condition. With only 36K on the clock, the non-worn parts of the old shafts are a very good fit. So new shafts and bearings will see them good.

Don't know on finishes yet. Subframes will be powder coated but to get the other pieces powder-coated too I want to get a load of parts together for that to make it worthwhile.

Some photos of the car during blasting. Hopefully will pick it up tomorrow. The red primer is Novol's Bodywork Primer. These photos are relatively low res. I will post some high res closeups at the weekend.

Feedback is that the car is completely original and that only the bonnet was ever repainted.

Looks good

Well it's not a sieve anyway

Looks great, no sign of any dings or bumps on any of the panels. Even the rear subframe looks new

Ok, have the shell back and I have had a chance to fully examine the work to be done. Most of it is straightforward, but the roof will be tricky, so any advice on the roof would be greatly appreciated.

Back on the home made rotisserie
Drivers side quarter panel window
Passenger side quarter panel window
Drivers side door sill - I have a replacement that goes up the full length and up the A pillar
Some holes on the inner wings
Inside the boot on both sides

Cont...

Some photos of the tail of the boot floor from underneath
Driver and passenger floor area
Some additional areas of the floor that need repairing

How for the roof ... argh! this is going to be really tricky to repair Any ideas?

I don't know if the drip rail from minispares etc is the same profile as the roof lip, if it was,you could possibly use that.

Or you could fabricate a strip yourself using some 6mm rod welded to some 3mm flat to make a tool for forming the upwards curve.

Don't think you want to go down the route of a full roof replacement?

colinf1 wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 12:36 pm Don't think you want to go down the route of a full roof replacement?

Hopefully not, but it would make it easier to repair the external gutters.

Anyway, it will be the very last thing that I do, plenty of work to keep me busy over the coming weeks. I will start small i.e. rear valance and boot floor and work my way forward to the front of the car.

The drip rail is not the gutter, it sits below the gutter on '70s cars. Personally the holes in the roof I would fill with weld as they will be covered with seam sealer. If your fitting the plastic trim on the gutter that will also cover anything you do.

woody wrote: ↑Mon May 17, 2021 4:21 pm The drip rail is not the gutter, it sits below the gutter on '70s cars. Personally the holes in the roof I would fill with weld as they will be covered with seam sealer. If your fitting the plastic trim on the gutter that will also cover anything you do.

Has anyone tried lead loading instead of using a seam sealer along the gutters?

Being a couple of weeks since I have had some time to spend on the garage.

Managed to repair the rear subframe which included replacing two captive nuts and a small section that after blasting had lots of rust damage
I used a washer and a nut first welded on the bench and then the washer welded to the frame after verifying alignment.

Started to tackle the drivers side of the boot floor. Really need an air saw to cut some of the lines. 4 inch angle grinder is too rough.