Thminimans 1977 Leyland Mini

[thminiman]

Discussion - //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38275-thminimans-1977-leyland-mini/#entry1077598

 

 

 

 

Body is a 1977 mini Leyland LE, it was originally purchased from the daughter of a deceased elderly lady, who’d purchased it brand new, when she bought it, she had the shell completely fisholened, to prevent rust, which was a fantastic thing for me as when I purchased it, the only rust was the bonnet and door skins, this was easily fixed and the paint job went on without a problem. It was used as a daily car until I decided I wanted a bit more go to do the fun handling some justice.

Brakes:

The original drum brakes where hardly up to the task of stopping the car, even with the relatively slow standard 1000cc engine, so I had always planned on upgrading the brakes when I upgraded the engine. So, after a fair amount of research into conversions, and weighing up cost’s, I had decided on what I wanted until something popped up for a price very near to what I would have spent on a much lesser quality and condition set I’d have to build up myself, So I grabbed them.

-alloy billet four pot calipers
-grooved/vented rotors
-EBC green pads
-1275GT brake hubs,
-ball joints
-CV's
-braided lines
-all brand new

Only due to the 8.4” disc diameter, and the calliper over the top, they don’t fit under 10” wheels, which I was never all that worried about as im using 12” wheels. Some revolution 4 spokes in Black. Cool

 

 

Suspension:

The suspension is fully adjustable, from camber, to ride height, to dampening, to castor.

The height is easily adjusted with the use of the high-low replacement cone’s available:

The dampening is adjustable thanks to Gaz shocks with 28 different points of adjustment, they are about 1” shorter than standard, this is to keep the high-lows captive at a lower point.

The front has all adjustable arms, the bottom arms are adjustable for camber, and the front tie rods are adjustable for adjusting the toe. The camber will be about 1.5 degree’s positive up the front, and somewhere between 0.5 and 1 degree at the back. The back is adjustable thanks to some tricky brackets that allow you to shift the angle of the rear arm.

 

 

Carb:
Is a 45 weber rebuilt by weberspecs and mounted on a 6” inlet manifold (all ported to size), with ram tubes and sock filters, there will be modifications done to the firewall, such as cutting section out, and building a stainless box to seal off, I will also be moving the speedo and other gauges to allow for the box, and will make up a custom dash to house them. The reason for the box, is because otherwise the carb will struggle to get air to it and it also takes pride of place in the cabin unless you seal it out.

Exhaust:

I then got into the mechanical parts, and purchased these very nice extractors, they are a 3-2-1 setup, with a 1 7/8”outlet that goes to a straight though exhaust with one coby muffler so it should sound extremely nice.

 

Gearbox:
fully rebuilt with new bearings and layshaft, best second hand synchro's we could find out of about 3 gearbox's and same with gears, diff is also rebuilt with new spider gears, hardened(competition) diff pin, new brass washer's for spider gears and fibre washers, meaning its nice and tight, not sloppy at all like the old one was. also has a shortshift changer kit.

 

Cooling:

Radiator is a brand new four core, i also have a 13 row mocal oil cooler but I'm not sure if that will have a place just yet.

 

Engine:

Head:
head has enlarged exhaust valves, mainly due to the fact the origional seats where well worn, I am also running enlarged inlet valves (sizes I cant remember) all the ports are very well enlarged and are ground to flow a whole lot better, it’s fairly hard to explain, but there has been ALOT of metal taken out, around the valve seats, in the ports, and around the stem seals. I will be using brand new double valve springs, with a special locator washer, to stop the inner spring from rubbing on the valve stem, also original mini cast rockers will be used but they are slightly modified to stand up to hp/revs.

 

Headgasket:
(I think) most, if not all of the mini guys in the racing scene in New Zealand use A+ mini/metro engine's, meaning that, even when they bore the cylinder's out, they can still use a standard (ish) mini metro turbo headgasket, the only mod is a brass insert around the water jackets as there is not much space between that and the cylinders.

BUT, mines different, mainly because I don’t have an A+ engine, which in this part of the rebuild sucks, because the space between the cylinder's is fairly thin, meaning the aforementioned metro turbo head gasket has some slight overlap into the cylinder, this, in some, or most case might have been sweet, which means, we are going down the path of a custom made head gasket, which is basically a thin copper sheet/shim type thing, completely copper, to be honest, I’m not completely sure the principles of how it seals around the cylinders and water lines, but I’m presuming it’s simply to do with the malleability of the copper.

Block/pistons:
bored to 1380, with triumph spitfire pistons. The pistons will be modified: the skirt needs about 10mm taken off, the pistons are also very top heavy, meaning some effort will be put into reducing the weight above the gudgeon pin, some may be taken off the top to reduce the compression, but this will not be known until we have a head gasket and have calculated the capacity in each cylinder. The rods will be slightly lightened and shot peened etc.

Cam:
Usually, Cam is a weird little man that lives in Fielding. In this car, it's a tried and tested profile, used in all the works mini's that race at Bathurst, exact duration specs I cant remember, but I think it might actually be a little less than some others, somewhere around the 282 degree mark I think.

misc:
new oil pump, new water pump, new clutch

Crank:
lightened 1300 crank. It’s about 20 thou under from memory, will obviously be matched with new bearings and so on

Compression ratio:
The compression ratio is estimated to be in the high 10's, somewhere between 10.5: and 10.8:1.

 

Discussion can be attended here:

 

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38275-thminimans-1977-leyland-mini/

[thminiman]

Fast forward three years

 

oh hey b®oes.

 

long time, no speak.

 

so long story. I had some jobs, they made me exceptionally uninterested in cars. Mini basically sat in a shed for some time (3Years) after the engine build, only to be turned over/started up occasionally.

 

I quit working at the start of this year to become a student. 

Now I like cars.

 

I got the car out of the shed, convinced the flatties to let me use the double garage to get this bitch on the road.

 

I used to work in engineering, had all the equipments at my disposal to finish this with great ease.

Now I'm not working, access is difficult.

 

Lesson: Hindsight's a bitch.

 

Anyway, its close as,  

 

New master cylinder and Adjustable bias valves arrived from the UK.

Needs some new brake lines

Tidy up some Minor body work (bulkhead paint wrecked by brake fluid)

Sort out the carb-riding-Shotgun Scenario by fitting a box to the firewall (already made just needs fine-tuning)

Fit seats properly

Suss dash properly around that box

Fit epic d1spec catch cans

 

Fail cert.

Fix stuff

Pass cert

 

Win at everything else

 

Dorts

 

anyway. Pics will flow because we all know Pics or it didn't happen/Doesn't exist

 

 

PS. Dont tell G-man or he'll seduce your mother.

[thminiman]

So, weird story.

I took the inlet off to tidy up bulkhead and cut hole out more etc.

Was cleaning the paint off and accidentally pulled rag out of the port I'd put in there to keep it clean. Amongst the chaos a few nuts sitting on the scuttle thing under the windscreen fell down. I thought just onto the floor but I gave the inlets a cheeky finger and look to double check.

Low and behold there's a nut chillin like a villain in one of the inlets....

Sweet as... No harm, no foul, right?

Not so much because for the life of me I cannot find a place for that size nut and I am seriously beginning to suspect its been in there for a while. Including some decent running time. Basically since the engine build/tune.

Maybe it's just been big enough to not cause any harm. It's definitely never stuck open in the time I've had it running. Fuck knows. Its got me diddled. So I guess I need to pull the head off and see If its damaged anything. My Main concern is damage to the valve stem will equate to a sloppy guide in no time.

Going backwards already. Balls.

[thminiman]

Updated first post with some actual car Info's.

 

Painted the bulkhead in some etch primer last night. Just gonna hit it with some black chassis paint by brush because I'm over it and it will look good enough. Want to get on with the real bidness ASAP. 

 

 

[thminiman]

So I went to mitre-10 and found this on special

 

 

 

So i went to the supermarket to buy some cardboard for a template.

 

 

 

Made the template, made sure its all symetrical and shit using origami.

 

 

Traced that shit and the big slice is to come.

[thminiman]

I am a cool uni student now, which meant I just had an unreasonably long holiday.

 

I did a bit.

 

I hacked up the firewall as previously planned. 

 

Pulled head off, checked all the seats, valves etc for damage, It was all good so back together it went. Had to anneal the copper head gasket so it was soft malleable copper again. That was interesting.

 

 

 

 

Put carb back on, installed a sick D1SpEc oil breather modified to pit a bunch of stainless steel wool courtesy of countdown Home Brands.

(both Items were cheap, bite me)

 

I got an oldschool rocker cover with breather built in because fuck you.

 

That spelt the end of the major work, until I was putting the exhaust back in and spotted a bunch of rust on the rear subframe. Decided the warrant man/Cert man would not like so a few minutes later I was all like

 

 

So that shit, along with a bunch of parts like radius arms and backing plates will get the powdercoat treatment. 

 

Decided I'm a loser and dropped a hole other stack of nuts, bolts and small bracketry parts to get zinc dipped. Will update with results.

 

Purchased another silly bunch of things from minispares.uk. accompanied by the few things I actually needed such as new subframe bushes. Will hopefully scrape away a few more Kg's worth of road grime and shit before the re-assembly begins next week before this sememester at uni gets too busy.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner. It really is taking shape.

[thminiman]

SO with the subframe out I decidedI'd look into how shit they are made, a lot of the welding is pretty rapidly done So I decided it I'd seam weld it and maybe gussets a few corners.

 

I made a workbench first.

 

Then made a bunch of little gussets out of a shelving bracket. (Galvanised not ally) Sweet, getting the subframe Sandblasted as we speak, then will beg someone to weld it for me/let me use their welder. Then powder coat along with all the other arms and shit.

 

I dont actually know where people normally do anything with gussets or shit on them, I just saw some inherent weakness on the rear cross bar so wanted to brace that a bit better, and also the triangular bits are for the front part to strengthen up where the radius arm's forces go in a hard corner. #Bullshit #Imagination #Hashtag 

 

This is my last easy week at uni before It gets into rape season, so would be keen to put back together in the weekend featuring Zinc coated parts being picked up tonight, hope they didn't lose any.

 

Get in.

[thminiman]

$30bucks

 

WIN!

[thminiman]

Like I said, I got carried away

 

[thminiman]

So, I have a few mins, Will try and throw a small update here. Things progressed quite well over summer with the pressure of moving house in early april I had to get shit done!

 

I threw the rear end back together, as i was doing that, I decided that the floor looked silly with the rear all painted up, So I stripped the body deadener off that, and painted that up. Then when that was done, I decided that the small patch at the back of the engine looked silly. 

 

So next minute the engine was out, As was steering rack etc and painted that bit up. At least its done now. Although, I just coated it in a thick load of chassis black, I couldn't really decide on what to do with body deadener etc, So i'll have to revisit it one day.

 

While the engine was out, my stupidity took over and with the dollar being good, I spent another couple of hundred bucks and bought stuff to rebuild the front subframe. So that was painted up, new shock mounts, competition cones, lower arm bushes and a couple of other things I would have forgotten fitted.

 

As mentioned, carried away on the intranets, ended up with a quick rack, this time.

 

Chucked that in, reinstalled engine, got it all running, bled brakes and took it to the New house, happy days.

 

The competition cones are a little thicker than Standard ones, the adjustable cones are at full low and the front is still sitting high by a few inches, So that needs attending too. Anyway, got it to the new house, chucked it in the corner and have since been getting raped at the university. so come break time I will get back into it.

 

Assorted pics to come:

 

 

 

I bought a lot of plastic bags

 

 

 

Subframe off engine for painting, sorry for such poor quality pics

 

 

These are the parts i got powder coated for the rear end, also included the radius arms.

 

 

The finished rear wheel wells

 

[thminiman]

The Neighbours kittens helped where they could.

 

 

[thminiman]

sick

 

Yearly update time.

 

So I got it all back together in a mad rush because I moved house.

Painted the fire wall, front Subframe and so on, put all the suspension back in with new pivot bushes and shit so its all hunky dory then drove to my new place and parked it in the back of the garage.

 

Fitted a Rad overflow

 

and a catch can

 

 

 

Then did this... finally, basically shifted all the gauges, added a smiths 8k tach, made a stainless thing the same shape as the old dash. made a new dash, swore a lot, covered it in leather, swore some more while putting all in, drank a lot of beer.

 

[thminiman]

Oh and those keen to go disco biscuits can do so here:

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38275-thminimans-1977-leyland-mini/#entry1077598

[thminiman]

Finished up the interior lately and took the old girl out for a spin around the hood this morning to get the late sleepers up and out of bed,

 

Took a wee bit of convincing to get it started and idling right but once it was warmed up it was fine, think the mix of old/new gas was the cause of that.

 

So yea, took it for a burn, it has many torque steers and accidentally left some 11's as i pulled out of the drive. Went well, is a bit of a hand full to drive with all the torque steer, double clutching and very bumpy ride, I certainly need to soften up the shocks a bit.

 

Pulled back into the drive and had one of the neighbours come up to me, here we go I thought to myself. Turns out he's some bloke from The Auckland Mini club and had heard the racket, ran out of the house and was grinning from ear to ear. 

 

Even gave it a wash.

 

 

 

 

It is pretty much ready for its cert check, It mightn't pass on everything but I'm keen for a finite list of things to do. Sad news is that it won't be until November due to Uni/work/travel.

[thminiman]

I did a thing last week with my new friend Clint.

 

 

I have since spent all my monies on more parts, when they arrive I will put them in and try not to drink too much beer.

 

Then I will beg Clint to see me again.

 

you may talk about how useless I am here:

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/38275-thminimans-1977-leyland-mini/#entry1077598

[thminiman]

I received my goods featuring completely the wrong wheel nuts.

 

I also purchased a wilwood proportional thing cos I dbf dealing with the mini-spares one after it leaked brand new. To fit that I had to buy some adaptor things because America.

 

 

Yay, I'm even more broke

 

 

[thminiman]

I sent a kind worded and understanding email to the supplier of the incorrect wheel nuts, to their credit they immediately admitted fault and dispatched the correct ones, which arrived in record time:

 

 

I sent an email to the seperate supplier of the brake hoses to follow up where they might be. Turns out they use the snail mail, so I gave up hope that they would arrive any time soon and pulled my chainsaw to a bazillion pieces. 

 

In true Murphy fashion, the brake hoses turned up the next day (today even)

 

 

But now I'm grumpy because my bench space is fucked and I should probably put the chainsaw back together before I start putting the mini back together so I don't end up with wheel nuts on the chainsaw and a 50cc 2 stroke induction charging system on the Mini. 

 

/Thank the baby cheeses all the parts even arrived and my bank account is beginning to recover

 

You may tell me how to fix my pictures showing up horizontally here:

http://oldschool.co....i/#entry1077598

[thminiman]

Cert recheck occurred the other day and while I had originally been waiting to have the plate and attempted Warrant sheet etc to make this update. I am conveniently sitting in front of the tele with a cool drink and the cricket on.

 

I have been doing a thing lately where if I come onto old school and Sheepers has made a post about progress on any of his cars, I force myself to go and do something in my garage. While this has helped me to achieve physical progress, it is detrimental to my forum presence and particularly my ability to post updates. 

 

I fitted the above parts without huge drama, I had a mare of a time bleeding the brakes up, mostly because the pedal seemed to not be improving. I had left the bias valve wide open to remove any restriction in the bleeding process and when I wound that in, the brakes were great. I basically knew that if i could lock the wheels up, It could pass the test. (it couldn't even do that before, now it can. Happy days) I think it could still do with some tweaking because it's still gets a little tail happy under heavy breaking. Also of interesting note, this is a comparison of the rear Suspension cones, new and old and how much they sag

 

 

 

I made some heat shields, the first one was a simple affair with a couple of holes, a couple of folds and took me about 15 minutes. This is easy I thought... many swearwords and about 5 hours later the second was completed.

 

 

In true fashion I left most of the rest of the stuff to the last few days, Panic ensued with the steering rack and I eventually managed to figure out a plan of attack as the suppliers were absolutely useless in bringing any help to the table. My plan involved purchasing an identical rack and taking it with me so it could be inspected and I wouldn't need to a) pull the current rack out and forfeit my standing re-check booking.

 

I took the car to get a wheel alignment. Left it with the crowd after specifically asking whether they could accommodate the small 12" wheels. By the end of the day they rang me to then confirm that they couldn't. Day wasted. Drove across town the next day to somewhere less useless. Thanks Grey Lynn Tyreworks. Clutch was less than perfect at this stage.

 

On the night before re-check I pulled the carb apart to clean the Jets, that went well but by the time I got it all together it was too late to start it up. Also bled the clutch up in the hope of a temporary fix to get me through

 

Morning-of came around and the idle was high as because I didn't put it back together right. Got it there and Clint assisted in adjusting it down. Good news was that it was running smoother on the primary needles. Happy days. 

 

The test drive went well, excluding the fact the clutch slave cylinder had more or less shat itself by this stage. 

Remainder of re-check also went well. 

 

I have since replaced the Slave cylinder in expectation of cert plate, That way I can attempt a WOF and if necessary place an online parts order following that for any remaining parts. 

 

So to summarise, THMINI will hopefully be road legal in the foreseeable future. Who would have thought I'd ever actually finish this.

it doesn't actually feel any where near finished, after driving it a little over the cert process, theres a growing list of small niggly expensive things to fix. 

 

Pic churrrrrs to come