Irish Mini Owners Club

Well its time to start getting on with this project of mine.
I have the pickup about 10 years now (8 years in dry storage) and I think its time I did a full restoration on it.

Here it is stripped and loaded on a trailer ready for a long trip to the blasters.

Will keep updating as progress is made but it will be slow as i'm in Dublin, the blaster is in Sligo and the restoration will be taking place in Cork. (Please don't ask as its a long story)

Good luck with the project, hopefully the blasting won't reveal anything too dramatic.

There used to be a fantastic Dutch site which was connected to Mini Centre Hussen that had a very detailed picture restoration of a Mini Pick-up among others. Unfortunately it is no longer on the web

Well the blasting is done and i'm happy to say its not coming back to me in 2 Dunne's Stores bags.

There is the usual rust on the sills and the bottom of the side panels and the rear load bed has 2 small holes but other than that the blaster said its in pretty good nick for a 35 year old pickup.

I'll get photo's up of the shell as soon as i get it back but again could be a while as the Passat in the photos was the only thing i had with a towbar and i sold it 2 weeks ago but the mini is in the parents place in a nice warm garage.

Great stuff.

How come you have to go around the country for all the work, could you not get it done in Dublin ?

I had a garage at the side of my parents house but I ended up building a house on it and there was no place for the mini to go except my brother-in-laws place in Cork. It works out well as he is a mechanic and his next door neighbour is a body man and sprayer and there is no shortage of dry storage.
As for the blaster, he is a mate of my uncle but they live in Sligo and apart from another bead blaster in Donegal they were the only 2 in Ireland that I could find that bead/media blast. There is no shortage of people to sand blast but the sand blasting is too severe on body panels thus creating alot of heat and warping the panels.

I thought sand blasting was a no no at this stage because of all the silica that is released into the air during the proscess.

Longford Shot Blasting is here in Newtownforbes, I had a pair of subframes done by them a few months ago, not a bad price and the job was done in 2 days.

Well had a few minutes today and got to work on the sub-frames.
Cleaned the joints and fully mig welded them.
Soon they will be going off to be sand blasted and then power coated.

Love the retro 088 number on the side.Thats a blast from the past.Keep up the good work,every little helps.

Good to see that pickup again

The reg is UNI

i use to own it back in the 1980s last time i seen it it was in ballymun in the late 90s.

Good luck with the project

In the second picture from the top, it 'looks' like the back arch is flared out. - not bad looking. I have been at several IMMs and actually don't recall seen a pickup with the back arches flared. Maybe worth considering , but don't tell 'time wrap Billy'.

zakgt wrote:In the second picture from the top, it 'looks' like the back arch is flared out. - not bad looking. I have been at several IMMs and actually don't recall seen a pickup with the back arches flared. Maybe worth considering , but don't tell 'time wrap Billy'.

A. have you been on the happy sauce ????

[quote="jocelynn"]Good to see that pickup again

The reg is UNI

i use to own it back in the 1980s last time i seen it it was in ballymun in the late 90s.

Good luck with the project[/quote]

Thats the one.
I bought it off that lad must be 10 -11 years now and 2 days before i bought it a
coal truck backed into it and wrote-off the front n/s wing and the stamped front grill.
Good to know someone has a little history on it.

BTW was it yellow or red when you had it ???

That's originally a Wicklow reg. I know of someone near Wicklow Town who owned a pickup years ago. Did you get the log book with it

Was in Wicklow earlier and was asking my father in law about the pickup he used to borrow. It was red and owned by someone from Glenealy, he reckoned it could have been a 72 pickup. If yours was originally red it could be the same one

It was originally red and used to be owned by a J. Ryan in Rathdrum.

Well I finally picked up the pickup last week-end and it not all that bad.

3 more

I think the sills were replaced before I bought it as they are in near perfect condition which is more than I can say for the pickup bed which looks like a tea strainer.

Still a lot of surface rust there, did they not primer it straight away ?

Lets just say that I wont be recommending the lad that did the blasting job, think he was at one end of the shed and the pickup was at the other when he was spraying it. As you can see from the photos he left a bit of filler here and there aswell, his excuse been that he didn't want to warp the panels even though the drivers side rear panel would make you sea-sick if you could walk on it.

I wonder if there is anywhere in the country that does soda-blasting ?

New little helper acquired. For some reason I can't keep him out. I think he is hoping the pickup will be left to him.

Rear subby stripped, primed and painted

Small hands are great for some jobs,