browno
ClioSport Club Member
I think the time has finally come to put up a project thread to show off possibly the world’s longest rebuild of such a small car – partly to show it off, but also to give me the motivation to get the final jobs done and get it on the road ready for the mini 50 celebrations next year.
So to get to the start of the project, we need to go all the way back to the summer of 1993 (so sorry about the quality of some of the pics - they've been scanned from old-school film prints!), when I was 16 and eager to get behind the wheel. I had saved up a fair bit of money, and was keen to get myself a car that I could tidy up in the six months before I could start driving. My Dad had spotted a mini that was being repaired at a garage owned by my mate’s Dad, and was up for sale as the owner’s husband had been banned for 12 months. So, a week or so later (on August 31st 1993, in fact), I became the proud owner of a 1985 Mini City E, which had a new MOT that day and had recorded 47420 miles. It was in good condition, but hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, so on the first day it looked like this (with me & my brother in it looking very young & of course stylish!):
So I got my most stylish gear on and got to work giving it a clean, and got rid of the fetching brown interior, after which it looked a lot tidier:
The only visible fault was a small rust hole in the bonnet, so I got rid of that:
Then we thought it would be worthwhile getting it into the garage so that we could whip out the rust-prone rear subframe to repair it as needed and paint the floor in that area:
The good news was that the original subframe was in great condition, as was the boot floor, so we stripped everything back, gave it all several coats of hammerite to protect it from the elements and reassembled it all looking much better:
So far, so good – in fact we’d found it quite straightforward – and at this point is where things changed from a quick tidy up into a more serious project. Having sorted out the rear end, I also stripped and painted the floor in the middle of the car without any problems. Then we decided to up the ante by taking out the front subframe – achieved by simply lifting the body off the front running gear, which was then wheeled out.
Then the engine/gearbox and all brake and suspension components were separated from the subframe and it was built back to give us a rolling shell (so that the engine could be rebuilt and put back into the shell later)
This resulted in a shell that was well protected underneath and looked like this:
As it had turned into more than a quick tidy-up, and I wasn’t going to have it ready for when I did my test, I decided that the paintwork wasn’t great, and could be improved – so it was sent off to a mate’s garage for a paintjob… He assured me that he’d take great care of my pride & joy for me…
The car was prepped and primed, but then the project stalled for the first time, as it was being painted as a favour, it was low priority – so spent about 2 years sitting in a shed at the garage awaiting attention.
Eventually, when I was at Uni, and had nice long summer holidays I got cracking on with it again – I built the engine up which is based on the original 998cc unit, but significantly upgraded (I was concerned about insurance at the time, and the engine was in such good nick, I decided to modify it, rather than transplant it) with the following bits:
Minisport stage 1 kit (alloy inlet & LCB exhaust manifolds, superflow exhaust & K&N filter)
Minisport stage 3 cylinder head
Minisport road/rally cam
Single 1 ¾” SU HIF44 carb
Aldon electronic ignition conversion
After a bit of nudging, the car then got painted in Ferrari Rosso Corse with a Ford Diamond White roof – and I had a motor that looked like this:
So the motor was fitted (and sounded fantastic) – then the spending then started on shiny bits for it including lots of trim, a six-point safety devices roll cage, a pair of cobra low-back buckets and all sorts of other stuff. With a big push on to fit this lot up, the car was looking pretty good and just needed some trim and wiring finishing before it was ready:
However, at this point things changed again, and the project stalled for the second, longer time. I ended up staying on at Uni for 3 more years to do a PhD and towards the end of that 3 years, my dad (who can be seen in some of the earlier pictures) died suddenly aged just 49.
Eventually I ended up finally getting myself a job, which was back near home, and bought a house – so got a mate with a truck to bring the car over into my new garage – so, we are up to 2004, 11 years after I bought it, and it looked like this:
Finally after lots of failed attempts, earlier this year I decided to have a big push and finally get it on the road, as it has become such a huge joke with all my friends and family that I have the infamous unfinished mini that it needs to be finished! I also figured that since it’s something that I’ve worked so hard on with my Dad and Brother that I need to finish it off as a memory of him too.
So far, I’ve stripped the top end of the engine again and rebuilt the head, rebuilt the carb and got the engine running again before I started work on some of the other jobs that need doing – some that weren’t done originally, others that need doing because of the lay-up.
After a lot of work, it doesn’t look much different – but it has had a lot of jobs attended to:
The electrics all now work, and the current jobs in progress are focussed on sorting out the interior and tidying all the wiring. One of the big jobs was getting out both screens to fit new seals, which meant I could also take out the dash and retrim it with a bit of help from the missus:
Note the mileage above - 47443, so in 15 years, it's managed the grand total of 23 miles - which were all done before we started stripping it, with my Dad driving! 1.5 miles a year is a pretty low rate of accumulation!
It’s currently slowly beginning to look better – but taking lots of time to get the details sorted out – things like the heater, which had a leaky matrix has been taken out, stripped and all the parts painted and reassembled with a new matrix, and replacing just about everything in the cooling system (new water pump, thermostat and everything else flushed out) - only to find that the pipes into the heater matrix were also leaky… so I’ve now got a new set on order to get fitted up this week.
Well – that was a monster post – hope it’s of interest to people! I’ll try to keep this updated with my progress, and I look forward to your comments.
browno
So to get to the start of the project, we need to go all the way back to the summer of 1993 (so sorry about the quality of some of the pics - they've been scanned from old-school film prints!), when I was 16 and eager to get behind the wheel. I had saved up a fair bit of money, and was keen to get myself a car that I could tidy up in the six months before I could start driving. My Dad had spotted a mini that was being repaired at a garage owned by my mate’s Dad, and was up for sale as the owner’s husband had been banned for 12 months. So, a week or so later (on August 31st 1993, in fact), I became the proud owner of a 1985 Mini City E, which had a new MOT that day and had recorded 47420 miles. It was in good condition, but hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, so on the first day it looked like this (with me & my brother in it looking very young & of course stylish!):
So I got my most stylish gear on and got to work giving it a clean, and got rid of the fetching brown interior, after which it looked a lot tidier:
The only visible fault was a small rust hole in the bonnet, so I got rid of that:
Then we thought it would be worthwhile getting it into the garage so that we could whip out the rust-prone rear subframe to repair it as needed and paint the floor in that area:
The good news was that the original subframe was in great condition, as was the boot floor, so we stripped everything back, gave it all several coats of hammerite to protect it from the elements and reassembled it all looking much better:
So far, so good – in fact we’d found it quite straightforward – and at this point is where things changed from a quick tidy up into a more serious project. Having sorted out the rear end, I also stripped and painted the floor in the middle of the car without any problems. Then we decided to up the ante by taking out the front subframe – achieved by simply lifting the body off the front running gear, which was then wheeled out.
Then the engine/gearbox and all brake and suspension components were separated from the subframe and it was built back to give us a rolling shell (so that the engine could be rebuilt and put back into the shell later)
This resulted in a shell that was well protected underneath and looked like this:
As it had turned into more than a quick tidy-up, and I wasn’t going to have it ready for when I did my test, I decided that the paintwork wasn’t great, and could be improved – so it was sent off to a mate’s garage for a paintjob… He assured me that he’d take great care of my pride & joy for me…
The car was prepped and primed, but then the project stalled for the first time, as it was being painted as a favour, it was low priority – so spent about 2 years sitting in a shed at the garage awaiting attention.
Eventually, when I was at Uni, and had nice long summer holidays I got cracking on with it again – I built the engine up which is based on the original 998cc unit, but significantly upgraded (I was concerned about insurance at the time, and the engine was in such good nick, I decided to modify it, rather than transplant it) with the following bits:
Minisport stage 1 kit (alloy inlet & LCB exhaust manifolds, superflow exhaust & K&N filter)
Minisport stage 3 cylinder head
Minisport road/rally cam
Single 1 ¾” SU HIF44 carb
Aldon electronic ignition conversion
After a bit of nudging, the car then got painted in Ferrari Rosso Corse with a Ford Diamond White roof – and I had a motor that looked like this:
So the motor was fitted (and sounded fantastic) – then the spending then started on shiny bits for it including lots of trim, a six-point safety devices roll cage, a pair of cobra low-back buckets and all sorts of other stuff. With a big push on to fit this lot up, the car was looking pretty good and just needed some trim and wiring finishing before it was ready:
However, at this point things changed again, and the project stalled for the second, longer time. I ended up staying on at Uni for 3 more years to do a PhD and towards the end of that 3 years, my dad (who can be seen in some of the earlier pictures) died suddenly aged just 49.
Eventually I ended up finally getting myself a job, which was back near home, and bought a house – so got a mate with a truck to bring the car over into my new garage – so, we are up to 2004, 11 years after I bought it, and it looked like this:
Finally after lots of failed attempts, earlier this year I decided to have a big push and finally get it on the road, as it has become such a huge joke with all my friends and family that I have the infamous unfinished mini that it needs to be finished! I also figured that since it’s something that I’ve worked so hard on with my Dad and Brother that I need to finish it off as a memory of him too.
So far, I’ve stripped the top end of the engine again and rebuilt the head, rebuilt the carb and got the engine running again before I started work on some of the other jobs that need doing – some that weren’t done originally, others that need doing because of the lay-up.
After a lot of work, it doesn’t look much different – but it has had a lot of jobs attended to:
The electrics all now work, and the current jobs in progress are focussed on sorting out the interior and tidying all the wiring. One of the big jobs was getting out both screens to fit new seals, which meant I could also take out the dash and retrim it with a bit of help from the missus:
Note the mileage above - 47443, so in 15 years, it's managed the grand total of 23 miles - which were all done before we started stripping it, with my Dad driving! 1.5 miles a year is a pretty low rate of accumulation!
It’s currently slowly beginning to look better – but taking lots of time to get the details sorted out – things like the heater, which had a leaky matrix has been taken out, stripped and all the parts painted and reassembled with a new matrix, and replacing just about everything in the cooling system (new water pump, thermostat and everything else flushed out) - only to find that the pipes into the heater matrix were also leaky… so I’ve now got a new set on order to get fitted up this week.
Well – that was a monster post – hope it’s of interest to people! I’ll try to keep this updated with my progress, and I look forward to your comments.
browno
