998cc Kelvinators Mini

[kws]

It's somewhat amazing that its taken me this long, but I finally added a classic Mini to the stable.

Its funny. I'm kinda impulsive, but not.... I know what I want, when I see it.

I have been keeping an eye on Trademe for a new project, since I'm basically wrapping the Vitesse up as it's about as good as it needs to be now. Trademe is a dangerous place to hang out, the people are generally horrible, and the prices are the worst, but sometimes something even worse happens.... I see a car and it "clicks", and I know that's what I want.

That happened the other day, when I spotted a nice little '76 MK3 Mini 1000 on there. It had current Rego and WOF, and apparently it drove well and the rust was "nothing that would affect warrants, yet". It also had an interior that was "showing signs of age but is original and complete". For a road legal classic Mini, it was decently priced too.

Naturally I arranged to view the car, and had a look the other day. Well... I didn't end up taking it home. It looked OK in photos. A bit patchy, with obvious paint differences, but no glaringly obvious rust holes. The interior was worn out with a mismatched drivers seat, but didn't look bad.
 

I get there to view the car, and "oh, the battery is dead so it needs a jump". Well ok, not the first time I have seen this, and not a deal breaker. He jumps the car, starts it up and it idles rough as anything, but is idling. No big plumes of smoke or anything, so its promising. One thing I noticed when I was checking out the car before he started it, was that the radiator and engine were hot, so obviously it had been running already that day. We'll come back to this fact.

Whilst he was faffing about jump starting the car I had a good look around, and wow, she was rough! The reason you can't see any rust in the photos? It had been quickly and badly painted over. Every single panel had bubbling paint/rust to some degree. The interior was falling to bits, with missing trim, no carpets, mismatched and torn seats, and a general sense of decay and neglect.

Since I was there, and I was looking for a project, I thought I may as well take it for a drive and see how it goes. Who knows, if it runs like a mighty stallion, I might just take the project on anyway. Having a stuffed battery, I was told I could test drive it, but only up and down the road within eyeshot of the seller just in case I stall it and it needs to be jump started again. So I jump in the hot seat, click it into gear and off I go.

"Hows it running" the guy said when I returned. "Like a bag of Sh*t" I quickly whipped back. And it was. It was bucking, surging, backfiring and misfiring badly. "oh, it must need warming up with the choke. Jump in the passenger's seat and I'll take it for a drive". Needless to say the choke made no difference since the engine was already well and truly up to temperature, and even with his magical abilities, it ran like rubbish. "Must be the flat battery then", so he hooks up the jumper leads again, but even with this amazing technology, it ran badly. Nope. Even if I wanted to drive it home, the suburb it was in had one road in and out, which was over a steep hill. There was no way this car would make it over that hill.

I told him to let me know if he gets it running properly, and wished him a good day. Good luck to him.

So with that disappointment, I headed home. Later that evening I checked Trademe, and low and behold another round nose classic Mini had just been listed locally. This time it was advertised as "rust free, runs and drives well". The photos looked good, showing decent paint (in green too!) and interior. It had some massive 13x7 alloys on it, but no flares. The downside? It was deregistered due to the previous owner forgetting to put the rego on hold a few years ago.


 

This isn't a huge issue on older cars, so I teed up a time to view the car anyway.

I get there and once again the car isn't ready. "It just needs the brakes bled, it was meant to be done" the seller states. Ok, no worries. I have a look around the car anyway. For once the seller was right, the body was damn tidy with minimal rust, and no obvious bubbling. Compared to the red one, this car was factory fresh. The one thing that was pointed out was that the wide wheels don't clear the standard arches, and you can't turn full lock.

The seller attempted to bleed the brakes for over an hour, but they just couldn't get a good pedal. We gave up for the day, and I left them to trying to bleed it more.

The next day I get a call about lunch time, saying that the brakes were bled and it was ready to go. I head on down there, jump in the car and attempt to take it for a test drive. I get stopped straight away; the engine is pouring out oil! It turned out that the feed for the mechanical oil pressure gauge was leaking, so the seller crimped off the pipe, and the leak stopped. The brakes still don't work. Eventually I worked out that if you double pump the brakes at least one of the front brakes would work, but you had to be damn careful not to lock the wheel. I managed to get it down the road and around the block, and although the clutch pedal engages on the floor and is soft, the car drove pretty well. Gearbox was smooth, and the suspension did its thing. I did note that the speedo wasn't working, but that's not an issue (turns out its not connected).

I get back to the workshop again and advise that the brakes still aren't working properly, so they try to bleed them again. Still no pedal. No worries, I said i don't care how it gets to my house, but if you can get it there I'll buy it. We settled on a price, without the wide wheels (he had the standard wheels with near new tires), and he said he would get a trailer and deliver it.

About 10 minutes after I get home I hear this odd, very British sounding ruckus heading up the street. Oh hey, its my Mini, and the sellers other Mini. It turns out he just chose to drive it the 20 mins to my place, despite having little to no brakes, and no reg/wof. It made it here OK though.

 

So what do I have?

It's a MK4 1980 NZ built Leyland Mini 1000. The reason the brakes needed to be bled is that there was an issue with the original 998cc engine, so the seller swapped in the 998cc from his earlier MK3 Mini, which necessitated dropping the front subframe. There are a few small changes, but generally the engines are basically the same between the two cars.

It hasn't had a warrant in a few years

There are a few issues, other than the speedo and brakes not working. So far this is what I have found in my travels:

Electrical gremlins aplenty (One headlight works, no tail lights, intermittent dash lights, no temp gauge, no indicators or hazards, no brake check or rear window de-mister lights, The starter solenoid tried to melt two of its wires, no wipers, no blower fan). I suspect most of them must be linked, there will be something unplugged somewhere.
The front LH brake cylinders are leaking and have nuked the shoes.
The front seats have almost no padding left in them. Someone has stuffed some foam into them to try to help, but they aren't too good.
No choke, the cable is too long? and isn't connected
No heater control, the valve is wrong and doesn't match the cable.
An oil leak from either the rocker cover gasket or oil cap
Uninsulated spark plug leads
Oil leak from shifter rod
LH outer CV boot torn
A smell of fuel from the fuel tank area
No radio despite wires running all over the show
Battery isn't secured and is missing its cover
Boot floor cover missing

So that's the bad stuff. The good stuff is that the body is solid, the engine and gearbox seem to work well, it handles OK, and the interior is mostly there. It has a sweet vinyl roof. Oh, and its very similar green to my old Marina.

My plan is to get it drivable, and then take it for a re-registration check to see what it needs, or if it will pass and be back on the road. I want to drive the heck out of this car, so need to get it legal.

I also plan on tidying the interior and exterior up, maybe look for some better wheels (to fit uncut arches), change the exhaust and then enjoy it.

For now, here's some photos.

Oh yeah, it's called Snicket. After Lemony Snicket, due to the Mini LE decal on the side.... "Le Mini"

[kws]

 

[kws]

Like all the cars I obtain, I don't mess around, so today I tore into the brakes to replace the leaky cylinders.

What we had was a braking system that had no pedal feel, and wouldn't actually stop the car unless you pump the pedal, and then it would brake hard on one front wheel and pull to the right. This was after many attempts to bleed the system.

Yesterday I took the drums off (it has 4 wheel drums, woo technology) and inspected the shoes and cylinders. The front left was showing clear signs of a serious fluid leak, with everything wet, and the shoes had soaked up fluid and were badly contaminated. All the others at the time appeared to be dry.
 

 

This morning I shot to Repco and picked up a pair of left hand cylinders. Unfortunately they had no stock of the shoes, but BNT in Lower Hutt did, so I drove in and grabbed a set of them.

To start, I clamped off the brake hose, so I didn't end up draining the system completely

And then removing the shoes was as simple as just lifting the top shoe off the cylinders on each end, doing the same to the lower shoe, unhooking the springs (whilst taking care to note how they are attached), and then removing the lot.
 

 

The shoes were well stuffed and had transferred material to the drum
 

Just a quick side note whilst we have it apart, this is how the adjusters work for the front. There are two squares on the rear of the drum backing plate which are the adjusters. They requires a 5/16" open spanner to turn.

This is what the adjusters look like on the inside of the drum with the shoes removed. The red arrow is the top shoe adjuster, and the green arrow is pointing to about where the lower adjuster is, behind the flange.

You can see the adjuster is an offset pin that rotates, pushing the shoes closer to the drum. If we start with the adjuster wound right back, it doesn't touch the shoe at all

And if you put a spanner on it, and rotate the direction of the tire (anti clockwise in this instance) it will contact the shoe and push it out towards the drum. The lower adjuster works in exactly the same way.

So, with that little interlude, lets continue. Heres the split CV boot (replacement ordered)

And then I removed the wheel cylinders. First you remove the bridging pipe from the back, that links the two cylinders. Then remove the bleed valve from the rear cylinder. Next crack off the main brake hose nut, but do not try to undo it completely as the hose cannot spin.

Before you can remove that hose you need to remove the two bolts in the rear of the cylinder and pull the cylinder forward with the hose. Since the hose was cracked off, you should be able to spin the cylinder off the hose and then remove it.

Heres the two old cylinders and link pipe

It was pretty grotty in there

I hosed it down with brake cleaner, and scrubbed it. I wire brushed where the cylinders sit, and put a thin coat of copper grease on the backing plate so the cylinders don't rust to the backing plate like the old ones did

 

On went the new cylinders
 

 

Now, before moving further, change of gloves was needed so as not to contaminate the new shoes

Refitting the new shoes was the reverse of removal. Gently place the shoes into place, hook the springs on, and pull the shoes onto the cylinders. Done

Back on went the drum (after a thorough cleaning, and removal of all the stuck material), and then I adjusted the shoes. Back the adjusters off so the drum spins freely. Doing one adjuster at a time, slowly turn the adjuster until the drum stops spinning freely. When you hit this point, slowly back the adjuster off until the drum just spins freely. Then move onto the other adjuster.

I hadn't touched the front adjusters since I got the car, but they were way out of adjustment. No wonder the pedal feel was bad.

Moving onto the other side, since shoes come as a pair I was going to replace the other side too. I pulled the drum off, and damn....

I'm sure this wasn't leaking when I checked yesterday, but it's bucketing out now. The rubber boot is full of fluid. Oh well, guess I need the RH cylinders too.

By this time it was too late, the shop was closed, so I'll have to get the cylinders tomorrow. In the mean time I whipped off the shoes. They have no signs of liquid contact, so I'll save them as spares.

Since I couldn't do any more work on the brakes today, I moved onto checking some wiring. I had a lot of things that didn't work, and I was sure most of them were linked. I picked up a cheap test light when I was out, and went onto probing the fuse block.

I had continuity across all fuses except one. I triple checked, and nothing. I wiggled the connectors and removed and reseated the fuse, and bam, the test light lit up. I had power.

So now I have working wipers (they're so small and cute, but also more powerful than the SD1 wipers; go figure), a brake switch thing that lights up

A demister switch that lights up when held (the switch doesn't latch properly, will have to disassemble and inspect)

Dash cluster lights, and the blower fan works now. Yay!

I still don't have indicators or hazards though. I can't test the brake lights due to having the brakes apart too.

I tracked down the flasher relay, and it didn't look good.

BADLY corroded terminals on both the relay, and the holder

I tried cleaning up the terminals, but still couldn't get it to work. Will need to remove the holder and maybe replace the terminals. Also need to track down another flasher relay.

I also found this random relay floating around above the wiper motor. Has two wires going to it, doesn't look standard, and two more wires terminated near it. Will have a look in the wiring diagram and see what it is. Maybe hazard relay?
 

I also need to find where the speedo cable connects to on the gearbox. I had a good look around but haven't spotted it yet.

I'm hopeful that if I can sort all these issues, I might be able to take it for its registration check in the next couple of weeks.

[kws]

Another big day working on the Mini today, but not everything went to plan.

I left off yesterday with the RH front brake cylinders also needing to be replaced, so this morning I shot to Repco and grabbed a pair of RH cylinders so I could finally get the brakes back together.

Replacing the cylinders and shoes was the same as the other side, and it all went together rather quickly since I knew what I was doing now. I also straightened out the dents in the backing plate with vice grips.
 

 

Then it was a matter of adjusting all the brakes correctly, and bleeding them. I started by gravity bleeding all four corners, just to make sure fluid was flowing through, and then moved onto the actual bleeding process (and what a process it is!)
 

The standard bleeding process on a car is to start with the wheel furtherest away from the master cylinder and work your way forward. This follows that procedure but with a couple of little quirks.

Because this is a late split circuit system, you can't just pump away at the pedal (which would have also caused issues with the seller when they tried to bleed the system in such a way) or the pressure reducing valve can shut off the rear brakes.

To bleed it correctly, you need to follow the pattern in the manual (there are four different patterns depending on your exact setup), and in this case with the bleed valve open, the pedal is quickly pushed to the floor and held for 3 seconds. The pedal is then slowly raised to its stop, and a minimum of 15 seconds must pass before the next push of the brake pedal. Do this until clear fluid with no bubbles comes out, and you're done. Move onto the next brake in the list.

I went around and did this, but so far the pedal feel isn't too different. I'll need to drive the car to see how it actually feels and operates.

Before starting the car up again I wanted to do a quick oil change as I had no idea how old the oil in the engine is, or what it is. I whipped the grille off for easy access. It was missing most of its screws, so this was pretty easy.

You can see the oil filter is right there in the front, nice and easy to access. Just in front of the oil filter is that random wire. Turns out this is the coolant temp sensor wire, which had been missing. Looks like they probably forgot to disconnect it when they dropped the subframe and tore the connector off. I stripped the wire and crimped a new connector on and connected it up. Cant test it yet, hopefully the sensor is good.
 

With that sorted I set about draining the oil. The sump plug is on the RH side, and is a huge 15/16" hex (same as the Rover drain plug). When undoing this I noticed it was very tight but was coming out slowly. When it came out, I wasn't impressed.

Its had sealant smeared all over it to seal it. Why? Well, because the threads in the gearbox are buggered of course. I tried to reinstall the plug but it wouldn't tighten, and this is what I fished out of the hole

Well that's a bugger.

Since I was stuck with a sump plug that was now useless, I moved onto replacing the filter. The older filter was date stamped 2015, so I'm guessing that's the last time this engine was used before it was put in this car. I pre-filled the filter, and spun it on.

I have looked into options for the sump plug, and it looks like I have three. Order a tapered self threading plug from Minispares, but they are a very bodge solution. I could get it Helicoiled, but it's very expensive to buy the kit and do it myself and obviously I cant drive it anywhere. The last, and likely best option for me, is to buy an M20 bolt, an 18.5mm drill bit and M20 tap. Drill the hole out, thread it and use the M20 bolt as a new sump plug. Apparently the magnet can be moved from the old plug to the bolt, which I'll try to do.

Next on the list of things that failed was the rocker cover gasket. I picked up a new gasket from Supercheap
 
 

The reason I needed to do this was that the old cover was leaking like a sieve. There was lots of nice grey sealant oozing out.

Removal is easy, just the two large bolts on top and then it pulls of to reveal the horrors
 

Even the bolt seals are stuffed and had been smothered in sealant

I cleaned all the old sealant off. There was actually a cork gasket somewhere in that mess, but it was hard as a rock. I used a thin smear of sealant on both sides of the gasket and refitted the rocker cover. This is where I found out that the rocker cover is bowed in the middle and may not seal even with the new gasket. FML. I shone a bright torch into the oil filter hole and couldn't see any light coming through, but I'll need to look for a new rocker cover.

This is about where most normal people would give up in a rage, and probably set the car on fire. I didn't let it get me down though, so moved onto looking at the electrics.

With the brakes back together I confirmed I had no brake lights, and also had no indicators (front or rear) or reverse lights. The number plate lights were working though! Yay!

I wanted to check for voltage at the rear bulb holders, so I removed the lenses.
 

Wait, what?! No bulbs?! Well I guess that explains the lack of light....

The gaskets on both sides are beyond reusing, so I'll order some more. I also gave the reflectors a quick clean whilst there as they were filthy.

Half/half

And all clean

So, do I have voltage here with the park lights turned on?

Test light says yes. Exciting. What happens if I put a bulb in there? I went fishing in my container of old bulbs and found a suitable dual filament bulb

We have light! We even have a brake light now!

I wonder if an LED would work?

Yes, and here's the difference.

Bulb

LED

The LED is brighter, and lights up far more of the lens.  I will run the LED for now, and see how it looks on the car in the dark before completely deciding. I also fitted an LED bulb to in the rear indicators.

This amused me though. I thought it was a connector.... well, it kind is, if by connector you mean a holder for a bunch of spade terminals.
 

So do I have power at the front park lights?

I removed the lenses to check. Well, at least I actually had bulbs here.

The answer was no. No power. The bulb looked manky, so I swapped for a better bulb and then went digging whilst the park lights were turned to ON. Whilst probing the bundle of wires that runs behind the grille I noticed the park light flashed on. I narrowed it down to a loose connection in the power feed joiner in that bundle of wires. I don't know why they have weird joiners there, but they don't seem very reliable. I cleaned what I could, and this was the result

The other side was a blown bulb

Well that's a great success. Now, what about indicators? I still had nothing at all, so whilst casually browsing the wiring diagrams I made a list of places to check for voltage. I had nothing up to the hazard switch (which the indicator power feed goes through). I removed the switch and noted some corrosion on the terminals. I cleaned the terminals, refitted the switch and heard a faint "click" "click" "click". It turns out this was happening.

Indicators!!!!

I don't have hazards because the wires are cut, but I'll try getting another flasher and seeing if I can get that working too. The rear indicators are working now too, along with the dash indicator.

Very happy with that. I haven't got reverse lights, but hopefully I can get through the inspection without them.

You may also note that the headlight trim is missing on one of the lights. That light works on high beam but not low beam, so obviously its blown. I didn't notice the little words on the bottom of the light, so I removed it to see if it was a sealed beam or not. It is, which means no easy bulb replacement (sealed beam means that the whole light is basically the bulb and gets replaced).

I have ordered a replacement pair of semi-sealed beam lights, with replaceable H4 bulbs and will fit them. I do need to take note to not exceed the standard wattage of the sealed beam bulbs as the wiring wont handle more without adding relays.

Another electrical item I cleaned up was the starter solenoid. The seller advised that two of the wires were getting hot, and looking at the wiring diagram the only option for grounding the unit was against the inner guard via the mounting bolts. Having a look around I noticed that the whole lot was covered in oil and grease, and the mounting bolts were tiny with no washers or anything to spread the contact patch.

I removed the solenoid and hosed the lot down with brake clean

I wire brushed the mounting holes front and back, and found some star washers to put under the nuts

And then I refitted the whole lot. Woo.

The last thing I did today was to fix and refit the wing mirror. The mirror had come off the mount. I removed the mount, disassembled the mirror and reassembled the mirror on the mount.
 

I know it's not everyone's favourite style of mirror, but it'll suffice for the registration test.

So that was today. Lots of ups and downs, but overall I'm slowly getting there.

[kws]

People have asked why I do what I do; buying broken cars and fixing them. It's because despite all the blood, sweat and swears, it's fun and nothing beats the satisfaction of that first drive.

Yesterday was like Christmas, but better. It was parts day.

I had ordered a bunch of critical parts from local, NZ, suppliers (and a whole heap of less critical parts from Minispares in the UK, but they are in transit still) because they can do overnight shipping.

The first part that came in was a pair of H4 halogen semi-sealed beam headlights. Genuine Lucas no less. Trust them.

Swapping them out is plug and play. Remove the chrome ring (single screw in underside), remove light retainer (three screws) and then unplug the old light.

 

It turns out the old lights were different brands, with different patterns in the glass. I guess they are alright, but not my cup of tea.

The new lights have a standard clip in the back for a bulb

Installation is reverse of disassembly. Heres a comparison. H4 on the right, old Sealed beam on the left. It's hard to see but the H4 is brighter and whiter.

The supplied bulbs are the same wattage as the seal beam

Both went in easily, and now I have high and low beam on both sides. Success.

The other things that arrived that I have no photos of, was a new choke cable as the old one was stuffed. This went in nice and easy, but getting the stud for the switch surround back through the hole took longer than it should. The other new part was a speedo cable. The old one was damaged and wouldn't plug into the gearbox. This is a prick of a job to do, but I did it by reaching in over the passenger's side axle. You can see the socket for the cable if you look through the bodywork where the axle goes through. I finally got it connected to the gearbox, and before connecting to the speedo I spun the wheel and the cable turned, so we had a good gear in the gearbox.

The last of yesterdays jobs was the big one. Drilling and tapping the gearbox for a new sump plug.

I ordered an M20x1.5 tap and 18.5mm drill bit, at great cost, and set about fixing it. Interestingly, Subaru uses an M20x1.5 sump plug, so I ordered an aftermarket Subaru sump plug with a magnet.

The drill bit was filled with grease, to catch as many metal shavings as possible.

This is what I was working with. No threads at all

To get the drill in there straight, I needed to remove my RH tie rod.

And then I took some concrete pills and got drilling. Point of no return long gone.

 

And a complete 18.5mm hole. You do need to take care not to drill too deep as the oil strainer is close to the drain hole

And then I smothered the tap in grease, and carefully tapped the thread. Unfortunately the damn tap, despite my best efforts, went in slightly crooked. This isn't a good thing, because sump plugs seal with the washer under the head, so if it goes in on an angle it may not seal properly.

I screwed in the sump plug, and tightened. Knowing it wasnt completely straight I used some thread sealing compound on the threads.

I guess it was a success in that the oil doesn't pour out of the box, but it was a failure in that it is weeping oil. I'll probably dump this fresh oil again soon (use it as a flush oil considering how horrible the old oil was that came out), and either try thread tape on the plug, or maybe get one of those "revolutionary super sealing" sump plugs with an O-Ring half way up the threads from Supercheap and see what happens. Worst case I'll get an M20x1.5 bolt, cut it shorter, drill and tap it for 5/8" UNC, loctite it into the gearbox and use that as an adaptor for the original sump plug. There are options.

I ran the engine up to make sure it didn't start to piss oil out, and it seemed OK. I did notice that the temperature gauge worked though, yay!

The next day there was a couple of drops of oil on the ground under the sump plug, so I'll monitor and deal with it another time.

Late last night the the courier arrived (at quarter to 9 at night!) and dropped off more parts. I had noticed that both tie rods were bent, so I got a pair of good second-hand ones, and the bonnet prop rod was missing (hence the block of wood you can spot in some photos). Thanks MiniBitz

First job today was to fit the bonnet prop. Unfortunately I didn't realise it needs a special clip to secure it into the pivot tab on the bonnet, so I had to make do with a washer and a zip tie to keep it in place. It all works well though

These are the old tie rods against the replacement, in the middle. Cant have been good for the alignment.

Replacement arms are in now, but with the old worn out bushes. I have replacement uprated bushes on the way, but will need to swap them out when they arrive.

You can get uprated, heavy duty arms but they are all adjustable, so technically need a certification to be legal. I didn't want that hassle when trying to get the car back on the road, so went with standard arms.

With all that done, the next thing to do was refit the grille

And readjust the brakes, again. I had been watching Youtube videos about Minis and came across a video by Stevestonmotorco, about how to service and adjust the rear drum brakes on a classic Mini. It's a great video, with lots of good info.

The one thing I took away from it, was that I had incorrectly adjusted my drums. He mentions in the video that you want them to be adjusted "too tight", so that there is significant resistance when turning the drum by hand. I had mine backed off so that there was minimal drag by the shoes. I readjusted all my drums, front and rear, bled them again (and got some more air out of the fronts) and bam, I have a solid pedal.

The only thing left was to pop the wheels on and drop it to the ground

And then this happened....

 

 

The brakes work very well, good pedal feel, it brakes nice and evenly and feels stable. The engine is unfortunately misfiring at times (quite badly when cold, despite choke) under load, but it idles OK and drives well. No obvious signs of smoke, and temperature was good. The clutch pedal bites a little low, but is progressive and easy to use, and the gearbox is smooth with no grinding or crunching. There is an exhaust leak from the manifold join, so I'll need to sort that.

When my parts from the UK arrive I have some new ignition leads to go on, and I'll check and gap the plugs, points and check the distributor cap and rotor. Timing will also be checked (another video from the Stevestonmotorco shows how to do that), and I might clean the carb out too. Hopefully that will sort the misfire.

Other than that though, damn its fun to drive. It's a peppy little thing, making all the right noises. It's so retro and mechanical.
 

This is why I do this, that first drive left me grinning like an idiot. Driving a classic Mini is so fun it shouldn't be legal.

[kws]

The first thing to check in order to fix the misfire, was the ignition system.

The obvious place to start was the ignition leads. I have replacements on the way, but in the mean time I needed to try to insulate the existing ones. Electricity/Spark has a great habit of taking the path of least resistance, so if it is easier for the spark to go anywhere BUT the spark plug, that's where it will go.

The previous owner kindly left three of the four boots on the dash, so I greased them up and slipped the boots on. The lead that I didn't have a boot for I tried to insulate with insulation tape. These leads are only temporary.

I also checked the spark plugs. They don't look too bad, but the gap was massive. They were all over 1.1mm, so I gapped them down to the commonly used 0.8mm (manual calls for 0.6mm but that is crazy small). Plugs One, Two and Four were all the same colour as below, but plug three was dark and a little sooty.


 
After refitting the gapped plugs I checked the cap and rotor. The rotor was looking a bit average, and strangely had over spray on it

I gave it a quick touch up with some fine sandpaper to clean the tip and the center contact point

The cap though, is well past it. There were a lot of deposits on the terminals, and the terminals are badly pitted. I cleaned as much as I could off the terminals, but they aren't going to be helping anything.

I'll order a distributor service kit, to replace the cap, rotor, condenser and points.

I took it for a test drive after this little service, and already there is a noticeable difference. The misfiring has lessened a lot, and it runs smoother. It still isn't idling perfectly, and the misfire is still there, so I still have some work to do. The exhaust leak wont be helping and I bet the carb is filthy.

[kws]

Well, I'm not kidding, I'm all over the place with the Mini at the moment.

Most of the work I'm doing now is waiting on parts, so I start a job, get to needing parts and then move onto the next job. Rinse and repeat.

I was about to say "but wait, there was one job I completed!" but then I realised I didn't. Sad face. This job was the first one I did yesterday; greasing my nipples.

I started with the best of intentions, having purchased a fancy new "brand name" grease gun and watching some YouTube videos on the task. There are four grease points per side, three in the front, one at the rear. I started with the rear one as it's really easy to get to. I gave it a quick clean

On went the grease hose, and after a few pumps I spotted grease coming out the other end of the arm (this is good, it's your indicator to stop)


 
Unfortunately this is about where the fancy pants grease gun gave up and I had to go exchange it for a "store brand" gun, which by the way, worked perfect.

The front ones require the car to be jacked up at the front, but you don't need to remove the wheels. These are the grease nipples, handily pointed at by the nozzle of my brake clean can

 

 
Much more obvious after a clean


 
Once again, pump in grease until you can start to see it coming out. Here it is coming out of the lower joint boot

Unfortunately as you can notice in the above photos, the top ball joint grease nipple on both sides of damaged, and just leaks grease. I'll order new nipples and fit them. So that was the first job that is half done.

Moving on, the next thing on the list was to redo the sump plug, which was leaking a fairly significant amount of oil since I replaced it. I knew this was a risk, but its kinda my own fault for using the original copper washer and liquid thread sealer when the thread wasn't perfectly clean. Argh.

I drained the oil again. There goes $60 of oil with less than 5KM on it.

This time I used proper thread tape, and a genuine Rover copper crush washer. This type of washer is standard for what is used on my SD1, it's a copper washer but is designed to crush and seal when tightened. This type of washer can account for slight variations in the surface (ie: tapping the thread on an angle >_< ). I also made sure that the threads in the gearbox were 100% clean and dry before fitting

I don't have much spare oil, so used the left over 400ML I had. So far there has been no sign of any weeping. I left it overnight with a white rag under it, and it was still clean the next day.

I can't fill the engine with oil until I have done the selector oil seal, which is currently leaking. The parts are on the way for that.

Next on the hit list was another serious oil leak that I had noticed. It was from the back of the engine, so either fuel pump gaskets or timing chest gaskets. Both of these gaskets are on order, but in the mean time I needed to gain access to the back of the engine. Access is blocked from the underside by the diff, and blocked by the manifold/exhaust/carb on the top. I needed to remove the manifold and carb as the exhaust was leaking and the carb needed a clean, so off it came.

The carb is easy to remove, just two nuts and various hoses and cables

Whilst there I couldn't help but pull as much of that matting out from behind the master cylinders. It had soaked up various fluids and gone really gross

The manifold it self comes out as one unit. The clamp from the manifold to downpipe was a real pain to get off. For some reason it was seized on one side and required a lot of BFH percussive persuasion.
 

Plenty of space down the back now.

The carb was dirty but didn't appear too bad. I wanted to strip it down and inspect/clean just to know what I had.

I don't know what oil was in the dashpot, but jeez it was hard to raise the piston by hand. It was super thick.

The breather inlet on the carb was blocked, but the hose clamp was loose. Wouldn't be helping. I'll be reinstating the proper breather setup upon reassembly.

I removed the dashpot and piston. There was a bit of filth inside the carb and on the piston. Not much wear though



  
The float bowl had some muck in the bottom, but the fuel in it was clean

I gave the carb a thorough clean inside and out. The needle came out to check what needle was fitted, ADE, and give it and its fittings a good clean. Someone had been here before, and overtightened the screw that holds the needle in place and cracked the holder. It's OK for now, but will try to source a replacement when I uprate the needle.

Whilst poking around and cleaning the body of the carb I found the piston lift pin. This is what you use to lift the piston and check the mixture

Piston UP and DOWN


 
I started to reassemble, and gave the dashpot cover a quick clean and polish. I don't want it too shiny but a rub down with a scuffing pad made it look OK


 
I had to stop there though as I need my float chamber gasket to arrive. Next on the bench was the manifold. I needed to clean the gasket goop off the flange and downpipe connection. Of note, there was no exhaust paste on the manifold or downpipe.


 
The gasket was well past its best, no wonder so much sealant was used

Some good scraping and wire brushing got the flange looking nice

It's so tiny! I look forward to fitting the much bigger Long Center Branch headers in the future

Now I need to wait for all my gaskets to arrive, and then I can fit all that back together.

In the mean time, I had a fiddle under the bonnet. I have an overhaul kit coming for the carb, with new cap, rotor, points and condenser, but in the mean time I wanted to see what the gap was like on the old points. The gap was a lot smaller than the required 0.30-0.40mm gap. I adjusted them to the correct gap just to test that I still remember how to do it, after so many years.

But hey, I'm not done there either! So, next was to move inside and the car and make a mess there.

I wanted to know what the random wires, and random button on the steering column was. So I went on the hunt.

A couple of screws, and here's what its connected to.

Nothing.

So where does the green wire hanging under the dash go?


 
Turns out its wired direct to the ignition switch. Switched live then I guess. That got removed.

I also removed a large speaker wire that runs from the boot to the front of the car, and connects to nothing. I think its connected to the reverse lights, so that might have something to do with my next weird find....

Lots of tape, a hose clamp, and a microswitch.

Not hooked up to anything mind you. I removed the shifter to remove all that rubbish, and also lubricated the moving parts.

Whilst in the interior, out came the seats

This wasn't just random. Both of the seats have busted diaphragms under them, so you fall through the passenger's seat and the driver's seat is reinforced with a couple of slabs of wood

I have new, updated sprung mesh diaphragms on their way from Minispares, so have to have the seats out for that. The other major issue I needed them out for was to weld the floor.

Weld the floor? No, not because of rust, because of someone using too much brute force on the hand brake.



  
I noticed this the other day because I need to adjust the hand brake, as it barely holds the car (and wouldn't pass inspection). Unfortunately someone had known this, so had been there and wound the adjuster full to its stop. After some more BFH work, and careful levering I had the mounts back roughly where they should be. You can see how far away the clevis under the mount is from the hole it should attach to

I placed the lever where it should sit and then wound out the adjuster. Well I guess I have my adjustment back!

Now I need to crack out my new welder and zap some metal back into the front mount to attach it to the floor.

Speaking of floor, look at that lovely untouched metal.

Since I couldn't be bothered getting the welder out at this very moment, I moved onto removing the dash gauges. I need access to the back of the oil pressure gauge, as I have a replacement oil supply hose on the way, since the old one leaked badly and the seller crimped it off. I needed to remove the badly warped dash cover first. Two screws got the whole lot out. Not sure what to do here, the old one is so warped I don't really want to fit it again. Will look at options.

I found these two gems stuck behind the dash cover. A card from the Canterbury Morris Minor Club, and an old ice scraper card.

The central gauges are easy to get out, with just a few screws to remove

Since the gauges were out, and I felt like I needed something else to do, I removed and cleaned the oil pressure gauge.


 
The same scuffing pad I used on the dashpot cover was used on the chrome ring with good results. I also thoroughly cleaned the glass


 
The temperature gauge had a weird hazing on the inside of the glass, around the edge

I chose to strip this gauge and clean the inside of the glass. Using some brute force I twisted the bezel to line up the tabs and allow it to be removed


 
A thorough polish and clean, and BAM, mint (well, kinda, this photo was before I polished the bezel)

The speedo was next in the hit list. Heres a half-half shot of polishing the chrome

and all reassembled. Blingin'

But wait, there's more!

I found a weird random wire chilling in the engine bay. Turns out it was the purple/orange wire I was looking for (I thought it was brown/orange, but couldn't find it on the wiring diagram). Its meant to connect to the inline fuse behind the gauge cluster (the black thing to the left of the wire)

Unfortunately there was no spare wire on the other side of the fuse holder for me to join to, so I chose to replace the holder with a more modern blade fuse holder. Not my neatest work, I may tidy it up later, but it should do the job.

Just a quick note, when replacing a glass fuse with a blade fuse the rule of thumb is to halve the rating of the glass fuse. It's a long story, but something to do with slow and fast blow.

So what does it do? Well, this!

Which I changed to a warm white LED

Oh, and this. Hazard lights!


 
Great success. I guess that's one job I actually finished. Nope, damn, I need a spare flasher relay.

So yeah, lots of unfinished jobs. Lots of bits everywhere. Lots of waiting on parts. Thankfully the parts will be here this week. I also need to weld the hand brake mount, so will get onto that soon.

Then jeez, I might almost be ready for the rego inspection. Maybe.

[kws]

Parts arrived! Woooo!

Theres nothing like a big box of parts, and it was certainly a big box

I do love getting new parts, but this also means I can finally start the reassembly of the Mini.

The first task was to finish reassembling the carb. The float bowl gasket went on first


 
and then I realised I forgot to order a gasket for the inlet of the carb. Oops. This is why I have a sheet of gasket paper though, so I traced the old gasket and made a new one. I fitted the gasket with a thin smear of sealant on each side, just to be sure it seals OK.



  
Now, before refitting the manifold and carb, I needed to deal with the two potential areas of oil leaks on the back of the engine. First was the tappet chest covers. These are both held on with a single bolt each, through the middle.

The gasket was VERY compressed, far more compressed than it should be for the tiny little torque required to fit them. The bolt sealing rubbers were both hard as plastic and shredded, so that wouldn't be helping.


 
The plate with the breather on it had a pinched and twisted gasket, and clear signs of oil leaking through the gasket



  
I thoroughly cleaned and flushed the breather out with brake clean until it ran clear, and then cleaned the covers and fitted new gaskets.



  
I wanted to make sure these were fitted at the correct torque, so that the gaskets didn't get crushed. I have a little digital torque wrench thing for jobs like this, so put it to good use. The Torque setting in the book is about 4.7NM, but I chose to round it up to a nice even 5NM.

And on they went

The next potential source of an oil leak was the mechanical fuel pump. Two nuts, and a hose clamp saw that removed. I dare say this may have been the cause of the main leak, as there was no gasket fitted between the spacer and the fuel pump, and the sealant really had not worked as expected.

 
I thoroughly cleaned the pump and spacer, and using a small smear of sealant fit a gasket to each side of the spacer


 
When refitting the outlet pipe though I noticed some worrying cracks in the hoses. I made a quick dash to Supercheap and got some new hose to replace these


 
With those sorted it was time to refit the cleaned up manifold. I slipped a new gasket on the studs

Smeared a small amount of exhaust sealant on the exhaust flanges (there was some slight pitting, so wanted to make sure the gasket had the best chance of sealing), slathered sealant on the downpipe flange


 
And carefully refitted the manifold, torquing the nuts correctly as I went. I'll tell you what though, refitting the downpipe to manifold clamp was a real pain.

On went the freshly cleaned carb, with its gasket sandwich and spacer. Also note the fuel filter, which was soon removed. I just couldn't get the fuel pipe to line up nicely with the filter on there, and the pipe kept contacting the exhaust, which is no good. I may fit it under the car on the tank outlet instead.

Here it is with the fuel plumbed back up normally, and the reinstated breather (using old and useless for fuel, fuel hose). I know the heater hose "adaptor" to the breather isn't the best, but hell, why does it step up so much from one end of the hose to the other? Silly BLMC.

With the inlet and exhaust sorted, I moved to the next little task to do. Refreshing the ignition system. I'm not a huge fan of points, but they will do the job for now. The old ones were showing signs of pitting, so they needed to go

I have new points, condenser, rotor and cap

Replacing the points and condenser is easy, it's literally two screws and then setting the points to the correct gap. I'm glad to see someone has greased and oiled the distributor somewhat recently too.


 
There it is, all ready for its new leads. They will need to wait a little though, as the spark plugs are currently out so that I can easily rotate the engine for other work.

With more new parts to fit, I kept cracking on. Next up was a new throttle cable, as the old yellow one that can be seen in some previous photos, was knackered. It still worked, but the outer sleeve was broken in multiple places. To replace the cable I unbolted the throttle pedal from the floor, as its only two bolts. Interestingly there was another random wire attached to one of the studs. This wire, like the rest, went nowhere.

 
I did find what I think are my actual reverse light wires though, tucked up under the dash behind the carpet. I'll need to test these, and hook them up again at some point. I'm getting pretty close to everything actually working on this little car. Pretty impressive considering a couple of weeks ago nothing worked... oh, and Lucas.

The new throttle cable was a piece of cake to fit. It made a nice difference to the engine bay visuals, not having that ugly yellow thing running across the engine. Spot the new cable.

The final job for the day was to remove the old, warped rocker cover, and check the valve clearances.

Stevestonmotorco on YouTube has a great video on how to set the valve clearances, using the Rule of Nines. The Rule of Nines means that you look at which valve is completely open, and then use what ever other valve combined with the open one equals nine. So for example, if valve 8 was completely open (the valve spring is fully compressed) then you would adjust valve number 1, as 8 + 1 = 9. 5 (Open) + 4 (Adjust) = 9 and so on.

Because you need to turn the engine over to open and close valves, you will need to remove the spark plugs to make it easier (not fighting compression). I also found that if you jack one side of the car up just enough to get a front wheel off the ground (I jacked up the LH front wheel), put the car in 4th gear, you can easily turn the engine over by hand by turning the wheel. Because of how small the Mini is, you can even turn the wheel whilst still sitting at the front of the car.

In the interests of knowing the car, and how well it hasn't been maintained, I took note of each valve clearance before I adjusted them. The results were... interesting.

Valve clearances should be set to "12 thou", or 0.012"/0.30mm. These are the results I obtained (ignore the missing zeros in the figures on paper)

Cylinders 1,2,5,7 and 8 were all about 0.009". Cylinder 3 was 0.007". Cylinders 4 and 6 were LESS THAN 0.006", but I didn't have a smaller feeler gauge than that.

Needless to say it wasn't good. I'm glad I checked them. Resetting the clearances is easy on these engines. Loosen off the locknut with a spanner, turn the screw to adjust the clearance with a screwdriver until the correct feeler gauge has a slight drag (with downwards pressure on the screwdriver applied), and then nip the nut back up tight again (whilst holding the screwdriver to stop the screw turning).


 
I went over all of the cylinders once, and then spun the engine over and then checked them all again. I did note a little more drag than expected from two cylinders, so adjusted them again and its all good. It will be interesting to see how the engine runs now, hopefully it makes a difference. Just need to fit my flash new rocker cover and we'll be sorted there.

I still have more work to do on the car, and should have another update in the next day or so. I'm hoping to get the welding on the hand brake out of the way tomorrow and then I can reassemble the interior.

[kws]

Time for a new page I feel

[kws]

Forumz PLZ

[kws]

Cmon dude

[kws]

Minis are great fun

[kws]

So small and easy to work on

[kws]

And very primitive 

[kws]

2/3 of my cars have pushrods. Aww yeah.

[kws]

Only one has a carb though. EFI fo lyf.

[kws]

No one likes either a saggy unsupportive seat, or one where you literally sit on wood. The Mini had both, and it was time to fix it.

The first, obvious step, is to remove the seats from the car. In a Mini this is super easy, with just two bolts at the front to remove.

Once out, I took the driver's seat into the house and began pulling it apart. This is what I started with. A very hard, unsupportive seat that was bodged with wood.

The diaphragm is the large black rubber part with the holes in it in the above photo. This is used kinda like a big sprung net that allows some support and spring for your bum when the seat is sat in, making the seat comfortable. To replace the diaphragm you need to strip the whole base down. This isn't too hard to do, as long as you're careful.

First you need to remove the vinyl cover. This is held to the frame with the black metal clips. These have two little tangs on the top side of them (the side you can't see) that dig into the material and hold them in place. I used a flat blade screwdriver to carefully pop them off. Some were a bit harder to remove, so I used needle nose pliers to gently wiggle the clips free of the material
 

I found this froggy rag stuffed inside the cover of the seat. Not sure if it was added to help bolster it, or just randomly stuffed in. Should make a good rag in the garage.

With the clips removed, gently peel the cover back. Take care that it might be slightly stuck to the pinky-red material wrapped around the base, so carefully peel the cover free
 

If the original diaphragm is as stuffed as mine, and no longer attached to the frame, the foam and diaphragm can be pulled out. If your diaphragm is still attached to the frame you will need to unhook the metal hooks from the frame. My diaphragm was stuck to the foam. I'm not sure if its meant to be stuck to the foam or not, but it was a pain to pull away without damaging the foam.
 

A random chunk of hard rubber was stuffed into the back of the cover. More bodged "fixes".

With the foam off the seat you have access to the top of the frame. This allows you to hook in your new diaphragm hooks or springs. In my case I'm using a newer style diaphragm with springs, and not the rubber. This should hopefully last another 38 years.

This came with instructions which were good to show how to attach the springs, which although isn't hard to do can be a pain the first couple of times. You don't want to get it wrong as the springs are fairly strong. They also have a different type of hook on each end of the spring, the less curved hook goes in the frame.

 

The new diaphragm fitted. One issue I noted was that the front and rear springs are too long for this seat and aren't under tension. They stay in place OK because of the foam, but they can fall out until the foam is in place properly (and it looks like one even fell out before this photo)

One thing I stuffed up first time, and it isn't mentioned in the instructions, is that I didn't slip the loop of vinyl through a spring before fitting to the diaphragm. This loop is at the back of the seat base

I had to strip the foam out again, and remove the two rear springs and slip them through the loop before reattaching.

And the completed diaphragm, with the clips reattached. Unfortunately one of the clips broke in half during assembly, so I'm short one.

The seat isn't back in the car yet, but already its 120% more comfortable. Like a good Mini seat, it has that slight suspension spring when you sit in it. I'll do the passenger's seat tomorrow. That one has no wood in it, so it was almost like sitting on the floor when you fall through the frame.

[kws]

As part of the recommissioning process, I chose to replace the bushes for the engine steadies with uprated poly bushes.

The Mini runs three steady rods, that run from either the subframe or the body to the engine. These restrict the rocking movement of the engine, and are fairly important to keep in good condition.

When I was under the car a while back I noted that one of the lower steadies had badly perished bushes. They run rubber bushes standard, which obviously doesn't play nice with oil leaks and time, both of which this car has had in bucket loads.

I ordered some uprated, harder poly bushes from Minispares, which arrived the other day.

Removal of the steadies is generally simple as anything, just a spanner and ratchet to remove them, remembering which steady went where (although they are different angles so couldn't be swapped anyway). I chose to only do two of the steadies and they seem to be the main ones people focus on, the top steady, and the lower LH steady.

The lower steady was first to get sorted. The bushes obviously weren't in the greatest shape

I don't know if its standard or these had been replaced, but they were a two piece bush. I pushed the center pin out with a screwdriver, and then the two halves of the bush just popped out with some leverage.

The new Minispares poly bushes are two piece too, so very easy to fit. No press needed. I used some rubber grease on the bushes to help slip them into the rod, and to in theory, help reduce any squeaking they might make during use.
 

And refitted to the car. Easy.

The upper mount has a couple more things to remove to get it free. The engine side has a mounting plate to remove, and the bolts for that were rather tight. I have heard of them shearing off, so take care, but otherwise it's easy to remove. The bushes on this were showing signs of softening and tearing
 

 

These too were two piece bushes, so just popped out and the replacements slipped back into their place

Refitting was a bit more of a pain though, as the engine was leaning slightly backwards (the soft old bushes obviously took this into account) and getting the body side bolt in was a juggling act. First I loosely assembled the engine side of the mount, and then whilst pulling forward on the rocker cover, I slipped the bolt through the body mount. Tightened it all up, and now it should be mint.

I'm expecting I will probably see some increase in vibration from the harder mounts, but heck, the Mini is hardly refined as it is. This should make the engine more responsive since it wont be flopping around when you come on and off the throttle. A nice little upgrade for little cost and an hour or so.

[kws]

This is just a quick little post regarding the timing marks on older Minis

There isn't a lot of information on exactly how to read the timing marks on these older engines, as unlike the newer engines they didn't have timing marks on the crank pulley or even a pointer at that end.

So how do you read the timing marks then? The flywheel.

On the clutch cover, or Wok as it's called, there is a little plate that when loosened swivels on one of the two bolts to reveal a hole in the Wok

This hole is for reading the timing marks on the flywheel. Inside the hole at the top there is a timing pointer. The marks can only be read using a mirror and light.

I turned the engine over by hand so I could find the marks, just so I knew what I was looking for. The 0 degree mark is actually identified by the 1|4 mark on the flywheel. I'm not sure why.

The other marks are standard, 5, 10, and 15 degrees (maybe 20? didn't check that high).

My flywheel has a coating of surface rust on it, so I needed to use a small piece of sandpaper to clean up around the numbers to make them more obvious. You can see in the above photo I also used a dab of white paint on the 10 mark to make it more obvious. The 5 mark already had an old white paint mark.

So that is how you read the timing marks. Sure, the normal crank pulley marks are a lot easier, but where is the fun in easy?

[kws]

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