Jakes 1972 mini

[jakesae101]

So I always said to my wife you don't have to worry about me with other women but buying stuff of fb marketplace is a different story.

 

fairly clean had a respray at some point has one or two spots of surface rust but is pretty solid where it needs to be and the best part WOF and reg.

 

 

very original no radio interior very good and has a aftermarket heater fitted.

Seller slapped a fresh clean sheet wof on and I picked it up on Tuesday.

 

have done usual service stuff as no idea when it was done.

oil/filter 

clutch and brake bleed ( brakes were really good but the clutch was disgusting)

cleaned and repaired the heater fan rheostat so the heater fan is now working.

replaced the missing handbrake handle cover 

replaced the worn door opening lever

 

only issues are it is a little crunchy on the 3/2 downshift, it has the pudding stirrer gearchange so once you get used to that its not too bad. The clutch bleed made a difference to the downshifts and I adjusted the pre verto clutch to spec tonight as the stop was fine but the overthrow nut was too tight. Had to purchase a couple of larger imperial spanners ive never had the pleasure of requiring and hoping to take it out in the next few days to see if thats also made a difference.

 

Future plans are to just enjoy it with the family, could benefit from a matching pair of front tyres and need to get seatbelt mount put in the back for mr 2yo.

 

maybe do extractors and a twin hs2 conversion to give the old 850 a bit more pep but it runs very well as is.
 

have ordered the plates in black and a refurbished steering wheel.

[jakesae101]

Few small updates but nothing major 

Seems judging by my floor theres a few leaks around the place, at some point the cars had a rod or remote box in it as it has the hole in the floor and the mounts for one so gives me options later on if I want to chuck another box in it or get this one repaired im kinda fond now of keeping it as is with the magic wand box and just doing twin carbs and exhaust. 

refurbished steering wheel went on

put the black plates on it 

 

put a new manual washer pump on 

welded the engine stabiliser bracket back to the firewall.

and have been treating some surface rust on the floor area with rust converter and paint. Have ordered some underlay to try quieten things down and ordered all the bits to fit a seatbelt for the wee man in the back.

Brought some twin carbs that had been disassembled and vapour blasted, they got the tick of approval from the mini Barry as being good for rebuilding so hes doing that currently. and a mate is picking up a exhaust in Auckland and sending it to me I have a set of genuine cooper s pressed steel extractors but to get them to work without building some custom exhaust stuff is a mish so will just chuck the extractors and single box exhaust on it for now.

 

oh and importantly I fixed the choke cable so I no longer need to use a peg, have racked up a few more miles in it anyway!

 

[jakesae101]

So been chipping away at a few jobs one big one was fitting a seatbelt for the wee fella so purchased a mini specific kit from classic mini spares and all the correct lvvta compliant doubler plates and rivets, came out pretty well

 

Next on the list was fitting underlay and sound deadning to the car it was pretty loud inside with just the very thin carpet so a mate supplied some 3mm sound deading and again some underlay from classic mini spares , was fairy painless as had the underlay as a template. This has made a massive difference to the car its way quieter now even without doing the inner guards on the front as the carpet is well glued on!

[jakesae101]

So a little while ago a mate of mine picked up a complete exhaust setup for me sliced it up and send it down. he had marked it for easy reassembly so about 15 mins with the hot glue gun and I had it all back together.

 

Now the problem is my twin carbs are still with mini Barry having not much progress, and the factory manifold is a combined inlet and exhaust so cant just run the exhaust on its own as it. So oldschool autos in palmy provided the goods on another standard manifold for me to cut down and make a separate inlet manifold up after some cutting lots of grinding and a bit of welding and a hammer I had this 

 

 

And today i fitted it all together, while the exhaust was off i did the tappet chest gaskets as they were rock hard and i suspect some of my leaks? so again i ordered a bunch of exhaust mounts ect and today fitted it all, bit of an art to get it all on as its a rather tight fit but its on and running again and has a bit more of a sportier exhaust note. its a coby style copy of the factory 3 into 1 cooper exhaust with 1.5" system with a single muffler not bad since the exhaust only cost me 100$ + shipping.

 

[jakesae101]

Well well well 

 

Things were all going so well till they weren’t! Couple of weeks ago I loaded mr 2 in for his first trip and the gearbox popped out of second twice, now this should have been forewarning about what was to come anyway get on the motorway and go to come off. Gearbox is stuck in 4th and I eventually pull over and find i can get 2,4,r but no 1,3 so limp it back home, finding a 4 syncro wand box is very hard as they were only a few years of production so ive made the decision to change it for a 998 and rod box.

 

everything is currently ready to pull out with just gravity holding the 850 in.

 

hopefully ive located a 998 with all the bits i need and it will be coming this week.

 

whilst the car is mostly original it has been redone at some point and going to the later style rod shift box has some advantages, such as a stronger gearbox with better shifts and going away from the horrible rubber crosses to actual cv joints. This should also make motorway driving a bit nicer.

 

stay tuned for an update next week with a new engine!

 

Have started a discussion thread.

 

 

[jakesae101]

Bit of an update, engine has been located down south and another OSGC is bringing it up but there was a bit of a plot twist.

 

The gearbox turns out to be a remote unit , this isnt a problem as my mk3 was made for this rather than a rod and it has had the diff converted to run the later pot joints. this sort of lends a bit of weight towards the seller claims it was rebuilt at some point with a cam ect put in and the engine has had very low ks since then est 2k miles. 

Anywho was able to get all the stuff I need such as the intake, carb, gearbox remote mechanism and brackets and the all important axles with cvs, and prior to purchase i was able to see the engine running in a video with no smoke ect.

 

Downsides were that they cut the LCB extractors to remove who knows why? possibly the slip joint was welded so hopefully my extractors will clear the remote.

 

A sneak peak from @Geophy who should be here tonight 

 

In the Meantime ive been repairing and repainting some stuff there was some flaky paint on the firewall so all rust killed and painted black as thats what i had kicking around.

I also Made good an old repair, wand minis are notorious for cracking the top stabiliser mounts as its the only forward and back stabilisation of the engine. A common fix for this was welding in a washer to the top and mine had had this done really badly and it had cracked again through the poor welding and had egged the washer out as you can see above. So I machined a nice bushing and drilled it out and re-welded the whole thing, not super pretty but functional and also welded the lower bracket behind the bushing that I couldn't get to previously when I repaired that as it was also cracked.

Remote boxes are great for this as they have a mount at the rear and because I was getting a rod box I ordered a conversion mount and an extra stabiliser kit, Classic mini spares are letting me return the conversion mount but ill fit the extra stabiliser. 

[jakesae101]

Right we have had some highs and lows here ! 

 

The motor made it ! big thanks to Geophy! on getting into it the thing was absolutely filthy from being in a dirt floor shed the gearbox was infact painted underneath and after an industrial amount of degreaser and brakeclean its clean enough to go in the car.

Now the bad was looking at the motor I found the bypass hose on the head didnt look flash and upon removing the hose the entire stub had rusted away, i managed to get the nub out but getting the right tap was a mission but a good friend came through and some creative pressure application with a bar on the timing cover and a spanner got it done. After it cleared the bit of the old fitting from the thread it tapped pretty easy despite it looking crooked in the photo its pretty straight and i thread sealed the fitting . 

 

Have a fairly long list of stuff thats been replaced now with some $$$ floating to hawkswood and classic minispares

Have thus far replaced 

Oil chest gaskets and washer gaskets 

New thermostat and gasket 

new waterpump gasket ( had to remove to tap bypass)

Top rad rubbers and one shouldered bolt

rocker cover gasket and washers ect to fit the new rocker cover a mate picked up at the swapmeet

2x new manifold studs ( one took a lot of heat and work to get it out thankfully in one piece)

new lower rad hose 

new bypass hose and bypass hose head fitting 

new engine and remote mounts 

new stabaliser bar mounts 

1 new pot joint ball ( somehow the seller lost one !)

and of course all the stuff to do a service Oil, Filter , air filter and plugs.

2x new outer cv boots 

Rubber gearstick gaiter and surround 

new breather hose 

found a second hand air filter housing.

 

 

[jakesae101]

I also have swapped a bunch of stuff over like the fuel pump as the one on the 850 was almost new and the one on the 1000 got damaged during removal, the dizzy off the 850 as its a newer style and the seller didnt include the cap and leads for some reason for the one on the motor and they are different, oil pressure gauge fitting and ill be using my starter and alternator as they look in better condition than what came on it.

 

Its now ready to go in the car this weekend bar 1 CV boot that should be here tomorrow or Friday that i need to fit 

 

Could I have painted it all... yes but it wouldn't match the rest of the car would i have cleaned it more also probably yes, but there was already a metric shitload of cleaning and some painting to get to this point and can do any last little bits underneath when its on the crane or in the car as with all of that and fitting all the new stuff has taken up a significant amount of time and money so im just looking forward to getting the thing into the car and going for a hoon!.

[jakesae101]

Well Saturday came and I had a mostly free day from work and kids, my mate came over in the arvo to give me a hand and after about 7 hours of faffing about we had it in and running.

Few small hiccups along the way mainly getting the suspension apart to replace bushings ect proved hard and the big hammer came out, and the exhaust just clears the larger remote box just, have to get everything in the right sequence and man its way way more solid even without the extra mount I put in compared to the wand setup.

Once we had it all in i found that the timing was 180 out and we ended up bumping it with a plug out to find the compression stroke and got it running by ear,  we found after that the later 2 piece rad brackets and shroud bolts up closer as it appears the front pulley is different but it will in fact rub and sound a bit like knocking after we fixed that by removing a bolt all was well.

 

By this point I was exhausted and dehydrated and just couldn't work out ignition timing but we got coolant in it bled it up and did an oil change, id also routed the choke cable wrong so in the clear light of the next few days I made a list and finished it all and tonight got the timing spot on I was only about 4 deg out.

 

Tonight I finished that list by re doing the timing and one last check for leaks and it runs pretty dam good , minimal choke needed to start up and idles ect nicely no smoke and great oil pressure.

 

Time hopefully for a test drive tomorrow we ran the gearbox through all the gears with it up in the air so cant wait to feel the power increase of the extra 150cc has afforded me, im pretty happy that in under a month from breaking it ive managed to locate another engine and do the swap and have it ready to roll again as my main concern was id just leave it as is and not find time to get back to it.

[jakesae101]

Well the test drive showed a bunch of issues

 

The cooling system

The heater wasn't getting hot and was getting some high temps showing on the gauge as it turned out I had a huge airlock in it from draining everything out which lead to the discovery of the heater tap on the new motor was leaking. They are shit and all the repos also seem to leak so I just fitted the one off the old motor that is on all the time. The gauge was still showing hot now I had assumed the senders would be the same and I had put my thermocouple on the rad ect and it wasnt super hot so swapped the senders and low and behold its running the same as the old motor so thats fixed!

 

The Carb

Now it was running a bit average the first test drive and the second one was terrible, pulling the choke out seemed to smooth it out so I got the haynes manual out and got it running to roughly where the lift test works.

I found a couple of issues also, the dashpot was low on oil and the float bowl lid had no gasket so it was leaking fuel onto the exhaust! so I swapped my old carbs lid on as I knew the float would be set correctly and took it for another road test and gave it a few 1,2,3 rips adjusting it a flat at a time till it felt ok I was still getting a bit of rough running so took it for a good hoon on the motorway and the back roads and it cleared up, im assuming that because it had been so rich that the plugs were fouled and now its running great.

 

pulled a plug and looks good to me !

 

 

Some more adventures to come !