ProZac

Awesome, the world needs more clubmans

Sweet ride, should tidy up nice with a bit of welding and painting. Good motor too. Whats with it being a 63, but having internal door hinges? Had a re-shell at some stage?

First day of the mid-semester break from uni today.... It was so nice and sunny out I decided to do some stuff on my mini rather than head into uni to work on projects. I've been popping out for an hour or two whan I can to continue cleaning off the under side, man it takes ages! its 90% done now though. The only two areas I wont worry about are the back side of the rear valence, and in behind the front of the guards by the headlights, as I just cant get to them. Phew, that took ages! Will pop into the spray paint store and grab some seam sealer and some decent stone chip that I can paint over in the next couple of days. This got me thinking, I'm actually pretty close to getting it back on it's wheels! That ofcourse means I need to get the rear brakes back together, and the rear subframe painted. Looking good. The shoes looked pretty much brand new, so they've been re-used, but I did pop new cylinders in. Even managed to get the circlips on without scratching the paint off the backing plate! (mostly ). I had the rear frame blasted, and asked them not to paint it afterwards, but the message must have been lost, as they gave it a coat of epoxy primer. I suppose it can't hurt, but the black paint I'm using is really only meant to go on bare metal. Still, I mixed some up and gave it a coat... I'm getting a bit better and faster at this now, for this coat I thinned the paint a bit more than I have before, and the results were even better! Really good coverage and no runs. Will turn it over and do the other side once it's cured overnight. I just got a pretty decent tax return, so that'll hopefully pay for all the seam sealer and stone chip to do the underside. I've popped out most of the dents under there, and there are a couple of tears I need to weld up from when it fell over in the feburary earthquake, but all in all its looking pretty good . Cheers for looking! Hopefully next update will show a nicely sealed, stone chiped and body-colour painted underside

That HSR bonnet looks so damn awesome on there man Congrats, looks bloody ace!

Any chance of another? I need one aswell

Dude, your pretty lucky you didnt lose the whole car/garage/house by the look of it... We can fix it though, will take you up on that offer of a beverage one night

I'd say that its just plain not a challenge for Bart, he's been wearing high-heels for ages

Do anglias run a really long coil power wire, that acts as a ballast itself? Chevettes do that.

Whats your 63 out of? If its a wideblock model, then, no, it wont bolt to your lancer 5 speed. If its a narrowblock, then yes, your all good. Narrowblocks are way more common, so you'll probably be okay. And DJ, lol clutch lol.

Repco has plastic fuel safe fittings, with different sizes either end. Not for high pressure however, but on the low pressure side they're all good.

Not all repco branches carry them in stock, but they're easy to find in the narva catalog, and any branch can order them in for you. Shouldn't be to expensive from memory...

A faulty battery can cause all your described symptoms by itself... This would be the first thing I'd change.

Right, time for an update methinks. First things first, clean up that garage! Only one mini part casuality due to earthquakes, and it was a part im replacing anyway... I finally decided on a design for the switch panel. I used some cad software to finalise the design, and whist doing that I made a construction guidline also. This was then printed it onto overhead projector screen, makes getting the holes in the right place much easier without heaps of measurement. I'm making the actual switch panel itself out of 3mm clear arcyrlic, as its what I happened to have sitting under the bench. You can use a sharp scribe to poke through the construction guide leaving a mark where the holes need to be. Once that was done I printed a reversed copy of the panel design onto an OHP sheet, and a normal orientation copy onto some plain paper. This is just a test, I'll get them professionally printed sometime in the next week. The aim is to spray the inner faces of these with adhesive, and then get them perfectly lined up and stuck together. The side of the OHP sheet with ink goes inwards, being glued to the paper. This means the printing cannot get scratched off. Will be sure to get multiple copies on each printed sheet, as I'm bound to mess it up a couple of times! I've made some gauges faces like this before, and it works pretty well. Final result should look something like this, but with 5 switches and some nice stainless button-cap head screws. I've also devised a plan to have the writing back-lit when the head lights are on, but havent started building it yet, as I'm not sure it will be worth the time. The current plan is to build a wee circuit that will provide a PWM signal to the LED rings in the switches when the headlights are on, so the rings are visible, but not bright. The ring would then be given full power when the relevant device was activated (either by pressing the switch, or otherwise). Can't decide whether to do it with a couple of 555 timers, or go fancy and use a microprocessor... Hey that electrical engineering degree im studying towards better come in handy somewhere, right? This took up a couple of eveninigs, but during the days I've been tackling the underside. My mini was undersealed from the factory, and this stuff is THICK! I wanted to remove it so I could straighten out the floor and replace it with newer technology stuff. I really want to keep this car for a while, so I'd like for it to not rust away on me. Initially I was going at it with a hammer and chisel. This method worked, but was very labour (and fingertip) intensive. I tried a cup-brush on an angle grind for about three seconds and it made such a mess it was clearly not the answer. Since then I've been weilding an air powered chisel with great results. I turned the air pressure down to around 40psi to keep things a litte more gentle, and it does the job pretty well. Still have to be careful not to cause any damage however. All in all its look quite good under there. Only one minorly scabby seam in the drivers footwell that will need attention, and some usual scrapes and dents to knock out.

No more updates till wheels fitted.

FYI, Nolathane is a brand, not the substance the bushes are made out of, they're made out of urethane. There are a whole swag of brands out there, alot of them are made in the same factory, with just a different dye added into the mix to differentiate them. +1 for greasing comments. Ive not had any issues with urethane bushes aslong as they're installed with plenty of grease, and may nee to be re-greased every couple of years. Ofourse, your mileage may vary.

Chronic insomnia has just allowed me to catch up on your build thread man. Holy moly, what an emotional ride! Typically, I read so many damn car build threads I just skip through pages untill I see pictures, then stop and have a read/geeze. Not the story with yours however, read every single post. Dismayed at the bad luck you've had, engine problems and then family tradgedy. I'm sure, however, that it'll all be behind you now, and back on track. Was really good to read that your father is doing fine, and your cylinder leakage problem was tracked down. Soon to be a real ripper I bet! .

2nd Pro Elec for me. Studying stupid management shit at the moment, yay. Chur Seedy Al

What you studying bro? Luckily 2 of my test have been and gone, 2 more this week.... I'm just going to assume it's all still on.

Chur bro, it'll be alright, will only take a couple of hours I reckon. Ditto on the uni front though.... Where do I study now? Uni is closed, my house is a tip.... hmmmm. Better just get on with the cleanup I suppose.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU earthquakes. Let the cleanup begin yet again. Apparently rotisseries are the win for earthquake protecting your mini. This shit stinks, like actual shit . [edit]Fixed image links[/edit]

Had a quick play with the switch panel tonight. Changing to these push button switches,they have a ring around them that lights up. Will make a new mounting plate for them, and a mask that goes over the front for the text. Should be able to have it back-lit aswell which would be cool.

Pffffft, there is always time for cuddling cats! Give us a bell if youve got any spare time when your down.

Oh, and my braided cable sleeving from Vehicle Wiring Products came in, this stuff is so cool! Makes super neat and tidy looking looms. Going to do the entire car like this.

Took another couple of hours break from study to have a wee play. Got some bits i'd media blasted a few months back painted. Sprayed them with the same POR15 i used on the front subframe. Didn't go quite aswell this time, owing to the paint being a bit past it's used by date really, was quite thick, and I didnt have enough of the thinners it requires to really get it right. Went ahead anyway and got some coverage on though, turned out okay, not fantastic, but she'll be right First step was to get totally wired... Er, that is, hang all my bits and bobs from bits of wire, from the piece of pipe that will someday be my front subframe... About now is the time I start hoping for no earthquakes. A couple of bumper mounts swinging in the wind for DJZ's mean 280 there aswell. Gave it all a good blast, got overspray EVERYWHERE, but not on anything that matters (that I've found yet) . Any little bits i missed I went back over after it had all dried with an airbrush... way easier to clean up that way. Results of spraying the pedalbox, after reassembly. Can anyone confirm I've got the spring in the right place? seemed like the only way it could go round. It turned out pretty well, and this paint is HARD, like really bloody hard. Should take the knocks from footwell duties quite nicely. I want to get some nicer pedals however to replace the rubbers. nothing too racey, but some sort of alloy option would be nice. Does anyone have any suggestions? Sprayed my demister vents aswell. These had to look pretty nice because they'll be visible all the time. Turned out okay. I also found if i swapped the side they came out of around I could get them a little closer to the firewall. The air pipes will run inboard of the humps in the firewall now, should hopefully be a little tidier. I chucked a couple of these air vent trims in with my last minispares order... I'm not totally sold on them. Might etch them and paint them semi gloss black and see how they look then. Popped the steering column back together also now it has been painted. The upper nylon and lower felt bushes were in top condition so they've been lubricated and re used. I took the switchgear apart to its component, errr, components... every last piece. Ive found that most mini's Ive driven don't auto cancel the indicators, and the highbeam flasher doesn't work anymore. I reshaped the contacts on this set so it all works like it should, gave it a good clean and regrease, all works properly good now. Then I tackled the shroud. The inboard side was top notch, didnt need anything bar a coat of satty-b. The drivers side was a bit cack around the screw holes however. I mixed up some epoxy glue and reinforced these areas as much as I could. Will just have to be careful with it when i screw them on. I also modified the part where the ignition key sticks out, as the plastic bush that goes around the end of my ignition barrel was stuffed. The hole here is now the right size for the ignition barrel to poke through nicely, without the bush on the end of it. Im really looking forward to next week, after thursday. Thats my last mid term exam, and after that its three weeks off with minimal assignments, woohoo! time to get some real work done on the mini, as opposed to all these little jobs!

Not sure if you could buy one pre-made, but the signals down your 3.5mm ended cable are the same as that going down a set of RCA cables, so splicing one in thats meant for a set of RCA's would do the same job... Failing that, You telly probably has RCA outs on the back aswell ad the headphone jack on the front? could use those RCA outs, to the GLI, then to the aux in on the headunit via an RCA - 3.5mm cable. Congrats man, it really does look bloody awesome, quite jelous! If your down ChCh way anytime in the next couple of weeks swing me a text, I'd really love to have a geeze .