mmmini

Hey @tortron nah I really wanna keep it the original colour “Surf blue”. The local paint shop were able to match it in their system using the original 1960’s paint code. The sills, floorpans inside the car, the boot, and all of the underside of the car is still in the original colour. The underside paint has been preserved pretty well by a couple of costs of British racing green but it peels off pretty easy so I’m going to strip all that back to original at some point. So hoping to just respray above the sill-line in new paint and keep the rest original.

@kws it has actually been a fair few rattle cans so far so hasn’t worked out as cheap as I thought it would. I’ve used 6 cans of base and 3 clear and I’m only halfway through. Base coat cans are about $30 each and the clears are around $40each. I won’t be doing the roof at this stage so that at least cuts down on a fair bit of paint. It looked pretty bad with a bit of crazing going on, and wouldn’t cut and polish up very well. However i gave it a rub down with a couple of different grades of scotchbrite pads and has come up looking a lot better.

Cheers @Nominal yeah she looks good in the pics, but I could definitely do with getting the base a bit smoother. Hopefully it’s only temporary, or at the most a year or two, and I can find the time and money to do a proper job on it.

Front wing resprayed here

They have a very small offset so I had to fit widened drums and longer wheel studs all round.

I’ve decided to respray her with rattlecans and drive her like that until I can afford a proper paint job. That will stop everyone from asking me when I’m going to paint her but also as I don’t want her to become a big pile of rust while I’m saving up some cash. Time is a precious resource at the moment so to fit it all in around everything else I’m spraying her in stages. So far I’ve managed to do the drivers side and rear end. I really wanted to do it in a single stage paint as I think that looks more of a 1960’s finish. My local paint shop could only colour match it into aerosols by doing it as base coat so I’m having to clear coat it. She looks pretty good from a distance but up close and personal she’s not so flash. Oddly enough I shelled out a fair few dollars in some flash new wheels. I’d been pining after these for a few years and had never quite convinced myself I should buy them as they are a little bit on the pricey side. I bit the bullet a few months ago so she’s now fitted with a set of some rather lovely Minispares rose petals. They’re definitely my favourite style of wheel for classic Minis and IMO fits the “no arches” look the best.

She still had her original radiator from 1964 which had developed a bit of a leak around the neck so I’ve fitted a new 3 core radiator and water pump. I’m going to keep the old radiator as the original radiators are a little bit rare now so best to keep it in case a future owner wants to take her back to original.

I’ve bought a few things that have been on my wish list for a while so have started fitting those. Bought a new cooper style grille and Moustache as the chrome work was looking a bit shabby (yes I understand the paint is shite but bling is still important), and fitted some Downton style wing mirrors on polished aluminium mounts from Swiftune. I also picked up a couple of Mini “souvenirs” when I was in Japan recently from a classic Mini specialist called Mini Maruyama - retro style flip petrol cap and fuel bib, as well as some cool stickers and a Speedwell engine plate - just need a speedwell tuned engine to go with it now.

Have got 95% of the paint back to the OG surf blue. Had a local car show last weekend so fast tracked things a bit and put her bs k together. Managed to get a WOF two days before the show. It had been 18months since her last warrant so I was a bit concerned something would fail but she passed - with a clean sheet which was a bit of a surprise.

Started come off quite easily then proved pretty stubborn

Here’s a few early shots showing the several layers of paint.

So been a wee while since my last post. In that time I’ve built myself a pretty sweet man cave to house my toys- a 7x6m garage with a 5x6m carport on the front of it. With all that nice clean space to work in I’ve spent the last 6 months trying to get back to the OG Surf Blue. Under the guards and floorpan are proving pretty easy to strip back as they were just painted without sanding and priming. the inside of the boot lid was pretty easy to strip back too. Unfortunately the rest of the body has two to three different British Racing greens to get through, plus a few coats of primer including some pretty thick dark blue/grey stuff which must be some sort of filler primer. Plus she’s also been resprayed in.a slightly darker surf blue. She’s still got all of her original panels however turns out she has had a fair bit of plastic surgery over the past 59 years. Have found quite a few repair patches so am ending up with a fair few bare patches. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and the purists are going to hate it, but I’m going to go with the patina/rat look. I’ve still got a. It if work to do to strip off a few more layers in places however here’s a few areas where I’m just about finished.

Cheers @cletus, yeah wanted to stay away from flares for this, trying for the cafe racer look which is a bit cleaner.