Irish Mini Owners Club

Hello,

First posting here, I have had a mini for the year or two, and for the last 6 months I have been out of the country, I am living in spain and am thiking about taking the car over here in a couple of months.

The car is a 99 black/anthracite cooper sportsback that I left at home as a friend wanted to use it for a wedding. The wedding was last week and now I am free to take the car with me.

I am not massively mechanically minded, I bought the car because I always liked them and before I had to leave for work reasons I drove it every day to work.

When I bought it, the lower engine steady had been broken at the point that connects to the engine so I went to a lad who looks at minis and he reckoned there was no harm in removing it.

The car has 58k miles on the clock and is in pretty good condition. What I am looking for is advice, I will point out one or two of the problems and if you could let me know if these are a big issue or not that would be great.

- A panel on drivers side is rusted, I have a new spare panel from Rover, how much does it cost to have this fitted and sprayed.

- On the inside of the windscreen on the lower left - at the passenger side - there is rust, there is also paint bubbling on the outside so i guess it is properly rusted. How expensive would it be to replace the patch around this.

That covers all the rust areas,

- Engine has a leak from the bolthole where the lower engine steady was, it is not a big leak but would it be expensive to get this part of the engine removed and the sheered off part of the bolt removed and the lower engine steady reattached.

- In second gear there is a tendency for it to pop out of gear, I have searched this on the internet and this seems common, is this expensive to get fixed.

- The car has a full length electric sun roof, is it possible to get a new cover for this style of roof as the one that is on it has sort of shrinke very slight and occasionally lets water in. Does anyone know if it is possible to get a replacement for this?

Thats about all that is wrong with the car.

Other than that - have any of you ever driven a mini from Ireland to spain and do you reckon the cars are up for it?

Thanks very much for your help
Craig

Welcome Craig.

all the symptoms you mention are common enough to the mini. I'm sure many here will offer good advice.

I'd just like to mention long trips:
yes the cars are well able for them, a good service beforehand, bring some useful spares and a friend as its a looong way!

If you can, avoid motorways. They are safe, fast expensive and very boring; allow some time and plan some sight-seeing, turn the journey into and adventure.

you might also want to consider travel insurance, (AA?) in case you break down and need towing/repairs.

last May a few of us drove to near Munich & back.

in 1983 a friend and i drove a 1lt mini from Liverpool to just outside Madrid. *but* we cheated and took a ferry from Southampton to Bilbao.

when are you thinking of going?

Thanks very much for your reply, I am over in Madrid at the moment and the car is parked up, I was thinking I would plan it all out and get the car fully serviced, breaks checked and ask someone who looks at minis to take a look at the second gear problem, as I wouldnt like anything to go wrong with that on the way.

My plan was ireland england ferry, drive from (probably fishguard) through sout of england over to dover, eurotunnel to france, drive to paris, stick it on the autorail (cost is about 150 euro) to the south of france and then drive it from marseille to madrid.

Allowing myself about a week or so all in to take the entire journey.

Glad to hear the car would be up for it. Having been on a few longer drives, What sort of useful spares do you recommend, when things have tended to go wrong in Ireland I usually just dropped the car off to get it fixed.

Thanks again
Craig

spares: 2 fanbelts, spare bulbs (probably mandatory in france/spain? also emergency triangle? - check with AA) spark-plugs, oil filter, some sort of radiator leak fixer, head-gasket, water pump. - bring also about 500ml 20w50 oil to top up and a 1.5lt bottle of water, roll of electrical tape, some gaffa tape too, a wire coat-hanger, spare fuses.
tools: 7/16 1/2 9/16 11/16 ring & open spanners, vise-grips, pliers, philips & flat-head screwdrivers (big & small), feeler gauge, small multi-meter, paper map, torch.
learn how to use the wheelbrace & jack. spare set of keys, inc. key for wheelnuts if fitted.

i see that Portsmouth to Santander by ferry is euro 255 @ mid February.

great trip btw.

thanks vm for your advice so far! I have all the manuals I;ll just need to figure out what to put where if anything goes wrong!

More feedback welcome on any of the prices re fixing teh gears and replacing, spraying an A panel welcome.

Cheers

Hi Craig
A few years ago we drove two Minis to the IMM in Salou . Roselare to France and down the west coast ,nice trip over 3 days.
The A panel is easy enough to fix but by the sound of it you need a new scuttle panel which is common on MPi Minis and is a big job.
Your biggest problem however is the gearbox which give more trouble on MPi's then other models.It could be just the syncro on second but I would suspect the main bearing is going. Anytime you work on an MPi gearbox which is an engine out job it is best to upgrade the diff which tend to fail on most MPi sooner or later.

Thanks for the reply woody, what do you reckon the costs of getting this scuttle panel replaced and spread. the two rust spots are only about the size of a two euro coin and there is no hole through from what i can see.

also would you have any idea what the cost of the engine out gearbox/ differential upgrade would be ?

Thanks
Craig

The extent of damage to the scuttle is really only visable with the windscreen removed and is usally worse then frist appears( lookup some MPi's in project section).
I don't have an MPi but many here have had both jobs done and can better advise.

Thanks Woody, would you have a ballpark figure on what replacement can cost ?

thank you

The A panel is a quick replacement job and any body shop should do this for a couple of hundred but the scuttle repair is a more tricky repair and once the screen is out you will probably find the windscreen lip has rusted as well and will require repair to get the screen to seal up again and I would not be one bit surprised if once the screen is out more rust is found as the later seal used by Rover promoted rust in this area.After the areas are repaired to finish the job a whole front end respray would be needed so unless an experienced bodyshop in Minis has seen the Mini then it is hard to give a final price on the whole job.

crl wrote:Hello,


- Engine has a leak from the bolthole where the lower engine steady was, it is not a big leak but would it be expensive to get this part of the engine removed and the sheered off part of the bolt removed and the lower engine steady reattached.


Craig

I had this problem before, managed to get the bolts out without taking the engine/gearbox out, was tricky but they could also be drilled out and the holes be retaped,

Best of luck with the road trip sounds savage

Hi Craig,

I'm probably a bit far up the country for your car, but here goes..

The jumping out of second gear is usually down to a worn main bearing, but more commonly a worn second gear were it would mesh with the hub. As said above, Engine out to fix, and probably more items will need attention once out, again, as said the MPI is sorer on the diff pin than any other mini due to its low ratio final drive. To remove engine & box, repair gearbox and refit on an MPI you'd be looking about €5-600. (less for non injection car as easier to remove and replace engine)

As for the bodywork, "A" panel itself is fairly straight forward, but don't expect it to be a matter of removal of the old one and replacing the new.... Never that simple. Also the scuttle dash rail and probably upper bulkhead area rust, certainly fixable, but would be down to just how long it would take to do the job, but I'm sure there would be €200 in labour alone by the time the area was stripped down and the bodywork welded.... Just need to paint it then... wouldn't quote without viewing....

The sun roof cover is replaceable and available, but pricy at €260.00

Thank you all very much for your replies so far.

If any of you can recommend a good place that looks after repairs in south dublin or wicklow area let me know.

Cheers

Im based in Greystones co wicklow if its any good to you,i do all mechanical mini stuff and have a guy i use for body work , Bert 0858445677

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