Adoom

STUFF!!! I won't need this stuff for quite a while, but I thought I'd better get it now because I was thinking prices might go up with the looming recession, or whatever. I got all this, including the GST and freight from UK for about the same price as buying only the shocks and rubber "cones" locally. So the adjusta-ride and new knuckes were basically free. Still quite a bit of money. Apparently the rubber cones are supposed to be replaced after about 6 years! I'd bet not many people did that. For those not in the know, the rubber cones are the 'springs' in mini suspension.

Be sure to store your CDs in the dark. Had some dropped on my desk at work that must have been kept in the sun or something, they were totally fucked and turning weird colours. Straight in the bin.

Is the yellow also 2k? Or is it 1k and you painted over the top with a 2k clear? Looking good!

Painted the front panel after filing down the razor sharp panel edges. Still cut myself on it. This is so I can get paint in the places it will be hard to do with a gun when the panel is mounted. Not sure If I got the mix ratio correct for such a small amount. Where it pooled in the low spots it took several days to cure. I think I will use digital scales next time, rather than the mixing cup markings. When I drilled out the spot welds for the original panel, I drilled all the way through, then I overlaid that panel onto the replacement panel and made dots on the headlight ring so I could line it up with the holes in the wing. It was still a wrestling match, as you can see the front of the wing is a bit beat up and out of shape. Then I thought, I'd better put the front panel on too, for additional alignment guide. So I went to bolt the front subframe mounts to the front panel.... and found I needed to file the locating pin holes so I could actually get the bolts in to the captive nut. With the mounts now on the front panel, I went to bolt it to the two holes in the front of the subframe.... And they were off by about 10mm and forcing it on made one of the old mounts partially delaminate. Well, I may as well make some solid mounts, since I plan to do that eventually anyway. One mount. Two mounts. I didn't have alloy thick enough, so I did them in two parts. I'll keep telling myself I'll tig them together later. I threaded the pin holes and used cut down bolts for pins. You can buy solid mounts like these... but they are about $60! Only took me about an hour. Found that the correct distance between the two bolt holes in the front of the subframe is 660.4mm. Measured the subframe and that's correct. With my new mounts on the panel, I only had 655mm, so more filing of the pin holes in the panel. MOAR wrestling and I got the front panel aligned enough that I was happy to weld the headlight panel in. I have already pre drilled the seams on the new panel for plug welds. I will rotate the car belly up, so I can weld down from the top... The seam lip on the old panels is pretty thin now.... so the plug welding is going to be 'fun'.

Finished processing the parts mini and cut out the panel bits I need. It's a real bastard trying to cut out the 'companion bins' either side of the back seat, without damaging them. I used the engine crane to put it on the trailer. It was only some light drizzle when I left for the metal recyclers. 500m from the metal recycler, the heavens opened.... and ALL OF THE RAIN fell out. I got totally soaked just removing the tie downs. Fortunately the guys used the forklift to unload it. Got $30 for the shell and some random scrap, so it will cover a trip to the transfer station with the hideous honda seats that were in it. I'll have to find some other junk to make the trip worthwhile. I also tried some ExOff degreaser. Mitre10 was ~$70! Repco had it for ~$40 but the local was out of stock.... so I asked Mitre10 if they would do their 15% price promise, and they did, so $35!! Worked well, I didn't think of taking a before photo. These bits were totally encased in old grease, mud and tar. I soaked them overnight then went over them with the wire brush and steel wool, some scraping with the screwdriver was required on the stubborn bits but they cleaned up really well.

Clamp/press a block of copper hard against the back of the join when you are butt welding, especially with the large gaps you have there. The copper absorbs the heat and makes it much harder to blow holes. The weld doesn't stick to the copper. Also real good for welding up small holes. I use a bit of flattened 15mm copper pipe. I think you might also be able to use aluminium, but I have never tried.

After putting an extra scissor jack under the engine so the car doesn't tip forward. I dropped the rear subframe. It has a towbar.... WTF do you tow with an 850 mini? It's still pretty solid, just covered in piles of mud and crap. And it has the handbrake cable guide that was cut off my other one.(apparently because intentions of using a hydraulic handbrake).

Does that mean I'm not allowed to take a thousand years to finish?

nah. I mean like this. Looking along the shaft, do the top two holes line up with the bottom two holes(all red), or are they different(red+blue)? I need to drill holes for the arm on mine and I don't know what angle it should be compared to the fork at the bottom. My plan was to do a best guess, I suspect they will be pretty close to all being in the same line. But since you have the pivot shaft with both sets of holes in it already..... maybe you remember....

Do you recall if the roll pin holes in the shaft for the top lever and the lower fork line up, or are they at a different angle? I haven't had a go at figuring it out yet.... I've just been stripping the parts car so I can get rid of the rusty shell and get some floor space back. Did manage to get the 850 running, it didn't seem to smoke at all! Dad reckons someone has swapped a 1.5" SU from a 1275 onto it, so it'll have even less power than normal. I assume no one is going to want a rusty, oily 850.

My trap was right at the compressor, but it didn't work so well. I think the air needs a chance to cool so the water condenses into droplets large enough for the filter to get them. I'll try it closer to the gun. My pipes do already go up to the roof and down now, since I got one of those self retracting reels.

It will cool down too fast I think. I'm not staying up all night to keep it going. I suppose if I can make a system to automatically light it.... using an arduino and a temperature sensor and one of those piezo lighter I do have an old pot belly, but it's super fucked, the door fell off and the chimney hole broke and it's kinda too small I think. But then.... I could make a steel spacer sleeve to make it much taller. And it would look like a okay garden feature.

I'm thinking of building an outside brick fire because I've got a whole pallet of bricks left over from the house. It's primary use will be the heat source for a water pipe loop that will run along 15m of grape trellis wire, and back to the fire to hopefully radiate enough heat to stave off the late season frosts that keep fucking up the early shoots. I'd want it to have a bunch of thermal mass, so I only want to keep the fire going for a few hours and the residual heat would keep the water thermosyphoning for hours more. It would be a fire with a door. So... can I just use normal cement mixed with builders sand? Or do I need to use refractory cement? If I do, do I need to use it for the whole thing, or just the layer of bricks exposed to the fire.

Do I need to use one of those paint filter things when filling the gun when spraying epotec? I have mixing cups. And I've ordered an iwata gun with 1.3 and 1.8mm nozzle. And 5L of 2k 'normal' thinners. I assume I use the same thinners for cleaning the gun. I've still got to get one of those inline water traps that goes just before the gun. What have I forgotten?

I'm gonna need a picture.

I finally found this. https://sunsetpatios.com.au/beam-deflection-calculator.php If I double up the RHS on the 3.6m side, and call the static load 100kg, I can load it up with 400kg it should bend about 3mm.

Does anyone know stuff and things about how much I can load a beam? So I want to make a mezzanine... erm I mean "A shelf" in the shed. It would be 3.8X2.8M Here is a quick scribble that is not to scale. Red is the existing steel frame posts and walls. I'm thinking that I can just bolt to those existing posts, and maybe bolt some 50X100 framing to the steel posts to give the perimeter of the mezzanine something to sit on. I'd like to have only the one blue post in the corner. I could add an extra post on the short side that's against the wall if it's needed. The 'floor' of the mezzanine would be 150X50 joists at 450 spacing on top of the perimeter frame, then 19mm ply on top of the joists. But I'm not sure about the perimeter frame, especially the two unsupported sides. I initially thought about using 300X50 framing.... then I found out how much it costs. But I do have some 100X50X3mm steel RHS. What if I made the perimeter frame out of that? Would it be strong enough? Do I need to double up the RHS so it's two high? I'll do this if it needs it, but if not, I don't want to 'waste' the steel. How much weight could my "shelf" support? I'm not thinking of putting heavy stuff like engine blocks up there, but lots of light things will add up....

Buried under about 6mm of filler, there was a perfectly good panel to replace my mangled rusty one! You can't get this panel separately, you have to buy a whole wing for about $300. FYI: using a 5mm center drill, meant for the lathe, is great at making a tiny hole just big enough for the guide pin on the little holesaws for removing spot welds! It's really short and stiff so you don't even need to center punch first. It makes using those holesaws so much easier.

I've been using mineral turpentine to remove spray on underseal and old contact adhesive. It's the most effective and cheap solvent I have found that does the job, doesn't evaporate super fast but when it does evaporate, it doesn't seem to leave a residue. Can I paint epotec 408 where I have cleaned up with the turpentine? Or do I need to also use a wax a grease remover?

MK3 has solid mounted front subframe using 4 small bolts in the towers. MK4 is rubber mounted with 2 giant bolts in the top of the tower. They are not interchangeable. Not sure about the rear subframe. I do already have MK4 subframes. MK3 has a single control stalk for indicators/wipers/lights/etc... MK4 has two stalks and larger longer shroud on the column. MK3 has no reverse lights. AFAIK the the MK4/MK3 lights both bolt in the same hole, you just need to sort the wiring. It's the MK1 that has the tiny rear lights. I think the brake pedal has a different pivot ratio. I think those are the major differences. Stuff I need from it is the loom, steering column, wiper assembly, clutch master(unless it's fucked) and all the bits to mount it. Assorted fasteners. Dashboard pads, bonnet hinges. headlights.... I need to cut out the rear seat storage pockets and the front lip of the back seat and weld them into mine because a previous owner removed them to do racecar.... and the interior handles and levers and stuff for the doors....uuuh probably some other stuff.

Finally found mini suitable for parts that was close enough to economically fetch. Had to borrow the older brother's Prado. And hire a trailer that was far larger and heavier than needed. But I could not find a braked trailer that was not enormous. I had to do some expert level tetris to squeeze it in the shed. Starlet is right up to the door, I can just barely get past it. Someone has picked it up using a steel cable through the door holes and crushed the roof gutter. It has some hideous red/brown velour seats from, I think, a honda. It's a MK3 and mine is a MK4, but there is still a lot of stuff there that I need. One thing I found a bit strange, it's a MK3(<1976) but it has the gauges behind the steering wheel, which AFAIK were only in the MK3 clubman, they didn't put them in the round nose mini until the 80's.

I was planning on using a mini master, seemed simpler since it's made to go there. I was crossing my fingers that the bore ratio would work out. I'll be interested to see how it goes for you.

AvE to the rescue.

nah, it's not the alignment. The rollers are still in the same plane but the drive wheel can move up on its mounts so when you try do up the tension, you run out of adjustment before it's tight enough.