1983 Mini City

[colinf1]

Fair play. You've some serious work put into this Mini and it's great that it's not a trailer queen and that you're getting out and about with it. Looking forward to seeing it in the flesh in the future.

Cheers Billy, yeah it's great to be out and about in it, just a pity there's not many mini runs or shows in North East Region...

Made up an aluminium bottle/cup holder from some off cuts. Bolted onto seat bracket, I've another one for passenger side, just need to drill and tap the main body of it, then that should be ready to be installed...

[colinf1]

Tightened up the bottom radiator bolt, then done a tightness check on all bolts on front subframe, all good.

Had a rattle in the interior of the car, passenger side rear door bin area, emptied it out and run my hand around to look for anything loose, got my finger jagged by a piece of welding wire that I missed on the clean up!

Refitted grille with an extra bolt on passenger side as it was a bit rattly.

Took it out for a spin this morning after a night of intense rain and wind, rattle seems to be sorted now...

[colinf1]

Baby #2 arrived on the 21st of August, so chances of getting out near the mini have been few and far between....

Got a spin this afternoon to go get the wheel alignment done. It was out by a fair bit, but not too bad considering it was done with a string line.

Also got the lights focused, some of the small screws on the inner rim had worked loose, so they were tightened up and eliminated some rattles...

Cars and coffee this Sunday, then a local vintage show Sunday week will probably be the last few outings of the year...

[colinf1]

Good day out at Knockbridge Vintage Show today, thankfully it wasn't as warm as it's been and rain held off. It was our first outing as a quartet in the mini, who says its not a suitable family car!?!



OK, it's a tad tight lol....

A fair few minis in attendance, here are a few that I got photos of. Plenty of good feedback on my own mini too!









Might get out for another few spins before moving it to the shed for some minor fixes over the winter....

[Billy]

Congrats on baby #2. My lad did MTM2000 at 6 months old. Start them young.

[ctwomey]

You are certainly getting maximum value out of your Mini before she gets locked up for the Winter. Did it not scare you having the entire family in the Mini? I have no seatbelts in the back of mine and I might leave it like that. My youngest is 12 years old so wasn't really planning on using the back seats.

[colinf1]

Congrats on baby #2. My lad did MTM2000 at 6 months old. Start them young.

Thanks Billy, that's a fair spin for a 6 month old, it was hard enough getting ready for the 5km trip to Knockbridge lol

[colinf1]

You are certainly getting maximum value out of your Mini before she gets locked up for the Winter. Did it not scare you having the entire family in the Mini? I have no seatbelts in the back of mine and I might leave it like that. My youngest is 12 years old so wasn't really planning on using the back seats.

Slightly apprehensive about the baby in it, but once I got car seat securely fastened I wasnt as worried, just had to keep an eye out for other idiots on the road and give them plenty of notice for braking.

On that note, I'm working on adding a high level brake light, but wanted it fairly unnoticeable until its illuminated, nearly done so pictures coming soon.

[colinf1]

Been working on another mini lately, but a bit smaller....1/16 burago Mini, was a green Mini Cooper model but had to do some modifications, naturally...

Blue ended up a bit darker than I had hoped, but tried to get everything looking as close as possible to my own one. Black seats with red piping, red carpet and door cards, 998 A+ engine and RHD.



Interior


Engine bay


And it's own 1:16 model on parcel shelf, so that's 1:256 scale to the real mini...



3d printed, then details added bybwith painting with a dart tip...

[The Marcos Graveyard]

Very nice.

[woody]

love it

[colinf1]

Odometer clicked over to 81000 yesterday, took ages for all the numbers to click over, the 9 looked like it had got stuck but eventually clicked over.

Then had my first non start, stuck in a retail car park, felt like it had run out of petrol, but had half a tank, fuel in float so moved onto checking for spark, seemed a bit weak, checked wiring from fuse box to coil, cleaning connections and eventually it fired up. Got home without any other issues.

Today decided to get it ready for winter hibernation, had lots of cow dung and mud splattered everywhere, so needed to get that off before moving it to shed..



Went the whole hog and removed the wheels and arches, then snow foamed and power washed it all off. Was a fair amount of dirt building up behind the arches, but all paintwork looking good and clean. Not too much tar to clean off either.

Hopefully it's dry tomorrow to get it fully dried and back in the shed.

[colinf1]

And it's in....



Much easier to move around now thanks to the 4 dollys I bought from Vevor. Left the cover off for now, let it dry off as much as possible then get it covered. Will put it on axle stands too, just to save any flat spots forming on tyres.

Small update to the mini mini on the parcel shelf, it now has a mini mini mini on the dashboard to match the actual mini. That would be 1:512 scale!

[colinf1]

Drained out the petrol today, about 15 litres. Its E10 so didn't want to leave it in tank all winter.

Started it up to run the rest of it out of the float bowl, fired up straight away after sitting for the past few weeks. Used the wet/dry vac tube to take the fumes out of the shed. Ran for a minute or so then stalled, restarted and it ran for a few seconds then stalled again, so that should be all of the fuel out of the system now.

There is a bit sitting below the pickup in the tank, so I'll try to syphon that out too.

[colinf1]

Made a start on the first of the winter projects, removed the drivers door card to fix the window stiffness when winding it up. Trying to get the weather strips off will be interesting as I have glued these on rather than using the rust inducing clips.



The window support channel is too far back, so it's partially catching the rubber, but the glass has to come fully out as its not budging by levering it..

[colinf1]

Got the glass removed today without needing to take off the weather strips, just had to wedge open the frame/door skin opening a bit.

Have it sitting now soaked in plus gas and used a scalpel to slowly work it from the glass. Will leave it overnight and see if it moves tomorrow.



Marked it with masking tape to know how much I need to move it.

[colinf1]

No chance of it moving by tapping it, it was well stuck! Had to keep working it with a scalpel, soaking it with plus gas then managed to pry it off by stand on a pry bar locate in the channel, will protecting the other end with a wooden chopping board, then pulling the glass upwards and pivoting on the front channel.

Inside was a bit crusty, probably why it was gripping so much, but should clean up fine. I'll have to find the correct distance in from edge of the glass, front is around 25mm.



Just testing the camera on my new phone...

[colinf1]

Channel cleaned, wire brushed and zinc painted. Came in about 25mmm from the edge of the glass and got it back into the door, refitting was much easier than the removal. Have to put a dab of glue on a small piece of the inside weather strip, just came away from the chrome trim about 2 inches.



Next up is to replace the bonnet trim with a better one. I had tried to polish it from stepping up in grades of wet dry, all the way up to 6000 but could never get it to go to a mirror finish with the polishing compound. The newish one just needs a clean and buff it up.

[colinf1]

Decided to part with a bit more money with the minispares black friday sale....

Got a RC40, maniflow extractors and alloy inlet to match the AAU needle and K&N filter that I already have on the car, so this will complete the stage one kit.

Also got a Smiths 80mm tacho, not risking using the RVI 100mm tacho if its not working when bench testing it.

Got silicone rocker cover gasket, hopefully that will stop the constant weeping through the cork gasket. New water pump and temp sender as I'm not happy that it's getting too warm at times, the water pump was a new one at the time, that I got in a joblot of spares, but had a smaller impeller and no bypass.

[woody]

I replaced my leaking water pump with one from a local motor factors but that started overheating only on motorway runs. Replaced that with a Minispares Evo pump and problem solved. The RC40 is a nice system.

[colinf1]

Got my minispares parcel today, very well packaged as usual, recycle bin is full now lol

RC40 looks very nice, much bigger bore than the standard 850/998, and a nice polished tip too.

Looking forward to getting it all onto the car now, need to get some extra wire for installation of the tachometer too.

[colinf1]

Started to remove the standard exhaust, getting ready for the RC40.
Out with the old... not even any surface rust on it...



Cleaned up the back side of engine block, it had a good misting of oil from the leaky cork rocker cover gasket. Removed the studs from cast manifold before removing it from engine, save struggling with it on the floor. Added some heat reflective material to the bulkhead and tunnel, to just past the gear stick housing. I don't know how effective will it be, it was a pig to get on as it doesn't like going over uneven surfaces...

[colinf1]

Started fitting the RC40, it would be great if some parts came with actual fitting instructions rather than leaving you to figure it out. Thankfully I had bookmarked a few threads with guides.

Not sure on the front bracket, it seems to fit directly to the diff bracket without the need to use the flat piece with 2 holes...?



Swapped over the studs to the alloy inlet manifold, cleaned up threads on the exhaust studs, then new gaskets and all in place loosely for now.



Bought the fitting kit, but seems to be 2 x nuts and spring washers missing, for the rubber cotton reels, so there is nuts to secure to the subframe but nothing for the bracket to the reels.

Glad to get back into it, but it was too cold to be lying on the concrete floor trying to fit it, so I'll leave it for now til I get some cardboard or something warmer....

[colinf1]

Also noticed a bit of peeling on the rear subframe, just where the vent pipe from the fuel tank comes down, the top coat (2k rattle can) must not be fuel resistant as the zinc primer underneath is fine. I'll clean it off and give it a quick touch up.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2pstN7m]

Pic of LCB attached to diff bracket and the extra bracket...

[colinf1]

It's been a while since I got near the car, building a lean-to / pergola and side entrance cover, so it's been collecting lots of dust...

A few more weekends should have pergola finished and garden stuff moved out of shed, ready to get the mini sorted for the better weather.... hopefully....