Adoom's 1981 Mini 1000

[Adoom]

[Adoom]

Whittled the old front panel off.

Realised later I should have also removed those flanges on the front of the inner wings.... the new front panel already has them. But that will make it easier to flatten out the damage in the front of the drivers inner wing.

No photo, but I offered up the new panel. Bloody hell the edges are sharp. Cut my hand.

[Adoom]

The subframe has a bit of surface rust. And some oily greasy stuff that the water blaster didn't shift.

This is a bit of a no-effort experiment. I know the electrolysis will remove the rust and after a few days it may lift some of the paint(from previous experience). But I want to see if it will lift any of the oily stuff.

I could do with a deeper container...  but where can I get one that's as cheap as a $18 warehouse paddling pool?

An IBC tank with the top cut off would be good, but I can't find anything nearby and I also don't want to spend ~$100

[Adoom]

I ended up replacing my sacrificial anode with a sheet of steel. More surface area and easier to wipe the scum off.

Pretty much all the rust is gone, except for the bit in the middle due to the size of my container.

A lot of the paint came off too. I did no scrubbing, just shot it with the water blaster. 

Most of the grease came off(it turned white) but probably due to soaking for days in the washing soda that's used to make the electrolyte solution.

I got mine from Mitre10 ages ago but I can't find it anymore, it's this stuff.

https://www.countdown.co.nz/shop/productdetails?stockcode=276728&name=greenwood-washing-soda-crystals

[Adoom]

So the mini is a hydraulic clutch and the K11 gearbox is a cable clutch. I prefer to go for a hydraulic clutch because the lines can be tucked away.

I was thinking I was going to need to make a big bracket and stuff for a slave cylinder.

But then random PickAPart perusing of manual Nissans turned up an N16 Pulsar. The gearbox is very similar to the March, with a QG15 engine... but it has a hydraulic clutch!

The aluminium spacer seems like such an afterthought. But I have seen pictures of other N16 and they have the same spacer. I did find another later model N16 which had a cast spacer that does look like a factory part... I forgot to get it, ran out of time.

I CBF removing the whole gearbox in my lunchbreak to take the whole pivot shaft assembly, so I planned to knock out the roll pins and just take the lever arm and slave cylinder.

So lunch break day one. Got the slave cylinder off. But my pin punches are too long and there is no room to hit them with the hammer.

FINE THEN!!!!

 

They are nested roll pins, so need two sizes.

Lunch break day two.

Soooo I strongly suspect that the workshop manual for removal of this arm starts with "separate engine and gearbox and rotate clutch pivot shaft for clearance".

Shit, the bellhousing is in the way of knocking the pins out.

Que tool abuse and using my big screwdriver as a chisel to bash the shit out of the protruding part of the roll pin to flatten it, allowing me to bend it slightly, just enough so it rides up the bellhousing instead of driving directly into it.

45 minutes of bashing and swearing and I managed to get the pins out.

 

Next step, cut the welded arm off and machine it smooth in the lathe.

Ah... the shaft needs to be a bit longer. No biggie with the lathe, I'll just bore it out and press and weld and extension on.

Then I will use the mill to drill new and straight, roll pin holes in the shaft. After working out what angle to clock it at.

[Adoom]

And now it's longer!

I drilled a 10mm hole 20mm deep in the end, then machined an over sized extension that would press all the way down into that hole. I put a wide groove where the join was then mounted it in the lathe and turned the VFD down to about 3rpm. FULL SLOW captain! It was slow enough that I could just put the earth clamp on the shaft and use a block of wood to stop it spinning and the lathe reeling in the cable. And zap zap goes the MIG.

Machine down to final diameter. 

 

[Adoom]

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.

[Adoom]

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. 

[Adoom]

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).

[Adoom]

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.

[Adoom]

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'. 

 

[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.

[Adoom]

And the front panel is welded in! It definitely needed lots of convincing and about a million vise grips to get the panels to line up properly. There is a couple of spots where I will need to use some filler to get the levels closer. 

I added in some little bits of angle to stiffen the panel join, like there is between the wing and the a-panel.

 It feels pretty solid.

Still got a bunch of visible welds to grind down.

[Adoom]

The rest of the stuff I ordered. Teeny tiny little disc brakes.

These are the biggest brakes you can get that will fit in (most...some)10" wheels.

My options for brakes were:

Drum brakes. Most mini's had drums. It's not hard to out drive them. So, just no.

7.5" disc brakes. solid disc. fits 10" wheels. also needs disc brake hub and 7.5" specific drive flange. Only came on the early cooper S minis. Like hens teeth now.

8.4" disc brakes. solid disc. needs 12" wheels. also needs disc brake hub and 8.4" specific drive flange. Only came on 1275cc minis, so way less of them. Come up occasionally, but people want $$$ and they will still need rebuilding.

8.4" MG Metro disc brakes. vented disc. needs 12" wheels. The whole hub assembly will bolt straight on, but you will get positive camber. Only came on the MG Metro turbo. When is the last time you saw one of those.

You can get new 7.5" brake/hub assembly from minispares/minisport. But the 7.5" brakes were not particularly good anyway, or so I have been told.

Or you can get new 8.4" brake/hub assembly from minispares/minisport. But I kinda want 10" wheels.

So I got the minisport 7.9" vented brake/hub assembly for just a few hundred more than the 7.5 or 8.4 so I can have good brakes and 10" wheels. It's basically the 8.4 brakes with different discs and alloy 4 piston calipers.

I justified it by telling myself, it's all new. If I got some used brakes, the hub could be damaged, the bearings, CVs, balljoints and discs will probably need replacing, the calipers will need rebuilding.    

 

[Adoom]

Two coats of epotec brushed on. Needs another coat. I used about 1.2L. I'd probably get better coverage spraying, but I'm not set up to spray yet and I also didn't want to paint everything in the shed white too. 

I splooged it on heavy around the seams and gaps etc and pushed in the cracks as best I could.

Plenty of runs, but it's never really going to be seen.

The underside of the parcel tray was a real cunt to get clean enough to paint. It had a lot of surface rust... and rust coloured paint which was covered in old hard glue, that was also brown, which was covered in that fluffy sound deadening. The whole back panel was completely coated in glue and fluffy stuff too.

The rotisserie bits in the way, small space and lack of light was an added bonus. 

I ended up using turps with steel wool and various hand and drill/grinders to get the glue and fluff off.

Then I tried using phosphoric acid on the rust and discovered the paint. So had to use paint stripper to get that off.

Then I could use the acid and more steel wool and wire brushes.

After many hours over days and weeks I decided it was acceptable and I was okay with painting it.

Then wax and grease remover. 

[Adoom]

Thanks to @Lord Gruntfuttock my heater system arrived today.

I gave the bits a bath in the paddling pool. An outside hot tap is so convenient for this.

Looks like I've got almost 2 sets of bits. And a couple of mystery round bits that I suspect may not be from a mini.(left and up from the blue brush)

Hopefully the fan works and the heater matrix is not full of holes.

[Adoom]

I finally got around to drilling the roll pin holes in the extended clutch pivot shaft thing.

I used the existing holes to align it by adjusting it until I could lower the 6mm drill bit through the hole without it catching the edge.

Here I have drilled the first hole and I'm using another drill bit to hold the arm so the next hole is in the right place.

 

It all worked out fine.

[Adoom]

I've been stripping and derusting the donor rear seat pockets. I've also done the seat base panel, but it's basically just a flat panel.

I used paint stripper and KBS rust blast, same stuff as metal rescue but it's a powder that you mix with water. You can see from all the tide lines, my tub wasn't big enough.

They are just drying after I rinsed them with my outside hot tap.

There's a little bit of paint left to sand off and some panel beating to do.

These don't have the mount for the front seatbelt reel, so I'll have to make something.

[Adoom]

SO MANY HOLES to fill. The seat base originally is one big panel that includes the boot floor and it would join to a forward facing flange on that vertical panel. When the seat was deleted, the forward facing flange was cut off and the join was reinforced by wrapping a long strip of steel over it down the whole length.

But that leaves me with something like 30 spot weld holes with nothing under them.

So what's going to be less work, filling all those holes, or welding on a new flange(which isn't straight at all) so I can weld through those holes into the new flange?

It looks much more complete with the seat bits in there.

[Adoom]

Well, that took fucking ages.

I welded on the underside, so I don't have to do much grinding.