Tiger Tamers 1964 Hillman Minx Project

[Tiger Tamer]

One side nearly done. I will just tack the top spring perch's in for now. I should have taken some photo's of the fish plates before welding them in. I will do so for the other side. There are 3mm plates each side and 3mm welded in to the under side of the original chassis rails. Boxed three sides I suppose. It would have been nice to have the holes in the plate welded in nice and pretty like some do with their tig welders, but it just wasn't going to happen with the mig.

I will make up the plates for the other side tomorrow and clean up the chassis rails ready to weld them in. I have plenty of wire, plenty of gas but a few aches and pains as well, lol.

[Tiger Tamer]

I made up the plates for the passenger side today and took some pic's. I made a start on welding in one of the plates. I will leave it there for today.

It will be interesting to see how it sits with the Avenger springs in. The minx is about 100kg heavier. I think I will need to get some shorter springs made to get it sitting where I want it.

[Tiger Tamer]

I cleaned up the other Avenger spring top spring perch and welded on the plates to attach it to the chassis.

I tacked it in place and lifted the diff back up into position and fitted the upper track arms and offered up the springs. I got one side in but trying to fit the other side the car became very unstable being only a shell and being up high. I decided to abandon that side before I wore the car, which is still quite heavy.

I think I will wait until the car is down a lot lower.

[Tiger Tamer]

Today I mounted the hand brake cable back onto the Avenger diff and brought it around to the Minx hand brake lever. I needed to make up a bracket to connect it but all else fitted up well. So that worked out well and now I have a working handbrake.

I also put the rear springs in and bolted the front X member back in with the springs but without any shocks yet. I wanted to see how it sat with the stock Avenger rear springs and 50mm cut from the Minx front springs. I threw in the seats a full fuel container a battery the intake, alternator etc to try and get it as close as I could to the weight it will be. Still needs fluids, bumpers and a few other smaller items.

So this is how it sits at the moment which is quite promising. I might drag it outside tomorrow and give it a bath and have a decent look. If I want it lower it would not be by much. Once I have decided I will get new front springs made and rear if I want it lower.

Back on it's wheels for the first time must call for a small celebratory refreshment I would think. Sort of like a roof shout.

[Tiger Tamer]

A comparison pic. Not the same angle but you can see the difference.

[Tiger Tamer]

All pulled apart again now. Happy enough with it's stance to carry on as is. It will settle a little.

I thought I would give the vinegar bath rust removal a go and it's cleaned the rust of the lower trailing arms nicely. You need to do a bit of scrubbing which I found scotch pad good for. Then a couple of coats of POR15 to keep them protected. It's bloody good stuff when done properly. Tuff as hell.

I know with POR15 you have to be real careful not get any in the rim when you put the lid back on, BUT this is a brand new can and the first time open and I only just got it off. Luckily the wife has gone back into town so she will get me some new lids from the paint shop I got the can from.

[Tiger Tamer]

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet, give yourself a good kick up the butt and redo something that just wasn't right let alone aesthetic.

The firewall bugged me and it could have been welded in better. I stuffed up and didn't drop the top piece down far enough and then added to it which didn't go that well. It all started to get a bit out of shape. Fugly really.

So today the start of a new year I made a start on a new firewall.

[Tiger Tamer]

I cut the rest of it out this morning so it will be mainly two pieces. It will be tidier and stronger, I think.

I made up a cardboard template which was a little oversize and then transferred it to 1.2mm panel steel and added another 30mm around it just to be sure I won't end up short anywhere. Already glad I did.

Slowly bent it into shape but I will need a few more fasteners to hold it in place before the final marking and trimming. Starting to look promising I think.

[Tiger Tamer]

Mainly done. I need to weld in a small piece to fill the hole you can see in the pic's. It's that shape to give a bit more clearance for the odd square corner of the Honda engine. Also, another piece to fill the tight corner up on the right. It will make a little shelf but will be ok.

I am pretty happy with the welding. I seem to have good penetration and not too much build in the main. I have taken a few high starting lumps off but it won't need much more. Some filler will be needed to smooth of top join (I suppose I am allowed to being sheet metal), but I still need to weld that from the inside as well.

I think it is coming along well. Far better than my first attempt which was not so good but still gave me a stepping stone to doing a much better job the second time.

[Tiger Tamer]

A small update. I did get it all welded in and I am pretty happy with it. Of course, I finished it off when the temp was hitting over 32deg which was not the best day to pick to finish it. You need all the protection you can get when doing overhead welding.

I had to repaint the firewall anyway as that is where I got some fish eyes. But I have changed my mind on the colour and have decided to go non metalic.

I found a pic of a Mini Copper but could never find the colour (which floats my boat) it was painted but I found this link to matching paint from a photo. I will depend greatly on where you select the area of the car you are trying to find the colour. I gave it a go with the Mini pic and this is the closest match I got. Looks pretty good to me. I will get some mixed and see how it looks. Anyway it's good fun having a play with it. https://www.resene.co.nz/swatches/colourmatch.php#:~:text=To get matching%2C either enter,to get your colour match.

Colour match was from the bonnet.

[Tiger Tamer]

I thought I better get myself some new shocks. Looks like the use by date is up for the original ones. They did give me the ability to work out what I needed to do and also gave me the top mounting bracket. I didn't want to carry on with the shock mounts until I new they were going to mount the same way.

Most replacement shocks for the Avenger are just the usual pin type mount. Gaz have made them as original, Cool.

So now I know they mount the same I made up the passenger side mount. Still needs to be test fitted and trimmed a little. The drivers side I have ready to weld in once the weld through primer dries. Well tomorrow really as all this cutty grindy weldy stuff makes you thirsty.

[Tiger Tamer]

I managed to get the driver side welded in. Man, that took some time. By the time I clamped it in place (the easy bit) then put the 4 bolts in to hold it to the boots sheet metal. Then used some metal screws in between the bolts to hold the sheet metal to the shock mount. Then welded the bracket to the boot floor and the chassis fish plate.

Once that was welded in I had to fit and weld the top plate which sandwiches the boot floor between the two. I made the top plate a little smaller in size so when I welded it, I was welding to the weld and bottom plate so I could use a bit more heat. Same procedure with bolts and screws and then welded it in. Welding went well really (well I think), though not that easy being folded in two inside the boot for some of it. Should have taken the pic before I sprayed on the weld through.

[Tiger Tamer]

Anyway. Slight F*#%$ up. I should have just tacked it in place and wrestled the diff back up in place and CHECKED the F*&%$#g thing. When I went to fit the shock in place it was in the wrong place. The diff must have moved on me when I was originally setting it up so what I thought was the correct place to weld it in was to far out to leave. It wasn't as bad to remove as I thought it would be.

[Tiger Tamer]

So I decided to make it one piece which I should have done the first time. It makes it much easier to get both sides the same. Pretty much the same design apart from that, with the boots sheet metal sandwiched between the two pieces. All just being tacked together for now until I am sure it is right.  Shouldn't need an additional brace between the two sides now.

[Tiger Tamer]

Some more boring old shock mount photo's. It's been a while as I ran out of gas and time but finally found the time and bought some gas so I was back into it.

I did make up another top piece, so it didn't have the added middle section. I drilled lots of holes and used bolts mainly and some clamps to sandwich it all together. Welded up the plug holes and then the bolt holes. I will weld around the edge as well both underneath and the top piece but I will only weld it in about 25mm sections 50mm apart should do.

I certainly think it is better being one piece going the width of the car. Certainly easier to get both sides the same.