The Register

The E-Newsletter of The Mini Register

February 2008

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We would like to extend a very warm welcome to The Mini Register to:

Alan Weeden, Ickleford, Hertfordshire, UK

You could not describe Alan's Mini as standard - not by a long way. The outside of what started as a 1991 Cooper has been deseamed and the front end treated to some recessed headlights and a Subaru bonnet vent. At the rear a right hand tank has been added and each of the 4 corners now sport a 13 x 7 alloy wheel with 205x50 tyre, all of which are set at a cocky angle thanks to negative camber kits all round.

Under that Subaru vent lurks a supercharger and the interior is just as radical with front and rear seats and the dash from a new MINI.

Chris Calohan,  Lynn Haven, Florida, USA

As Chris says, he does love his Chili Red MINI, it is a 2004 Cooper S called "Mici", it is fitted with a 15% Alta Pulley, Pro Mini Cold Air Induction and Colder Plugs.

"it is a 40th year Commemorative Edition with everything one could ask for, and a few things extra."

"High School Photography teacher who has coveted the Mini's since I had one way back when. Found an incredible deal on my Mini and ran all the way to the bank laughing (it was a dealer deal). Went to the Dragon last year and had so much fun, I'm already registered for this year's event. (Hope it doesn't rain so much.) This car is my third mid-life crisis..hahahaha, not much of a crisis and it is so much fun, and I do so love my little Chili Red machine."

Adam Hobman, Colne, Lancashire, UK

This is a recent acquisition for Adam, he bought his green 1976 Austin Mini 850 van a couple of months ago in December. The van is fitted with alloy wheels and is painted metallic green.

Donny Fisher, Caledon, Western Cape, South Africa

Donny is the proud owner of a standard 1983 1275 painted green

Allen Gregory, Haydock, Merseyside, UK

Allen's Mini may well have started as a 1992 Mayfair but now its name of "Wide Boy" is an apt description of the car, painted red and white, it is propelled by a 1340 race engine, breathing in through a 48 Webber carb and out through an lcb manifold to an RC40 exhaust. Externally a set of 7 x 13" Alley Cats are covered by Group 5 arches and attached to the car with Adjust-a-ride suspension and spax dampers. Up front there are some Angel Eye head lamps and fog lights and the rear lamps have been treated to some clear lenses. To finish off, a pair of chrome wing mirrors have been added and a Bee Sting aerial graces the front of the roof.

A full leather interior from Huddsfiled Mini Spares graces the inside along with a Mountney steering wheel, new red and black carpets, and a walnut dash.

Adam Bailey and Kelly Fullard, Cannock, Staffordshire, UK

Adam and Kelly call their black and white 1994 Mini Cooper 1.3i "Brian", I hope this is no reflection on his pace.

Murray Sutton, New Zealand

It is almost exactly a year ago since we saw our first De Joux, now Murray has contacted us to say the he is restoring one, and doing a very nice job judging by the photos

Members update

Mathew Punter from Ontario has sent in these pictures of his barn find

It looks like there is plenty of work to keep Mathew busy.

Here are some pictures of Jimmy finished and back on the road where he belongs. I have had no problems with him and I'm looking forward to the show and run season to show him off.

Ruth Barr, Ballymena, Northern Ireland

The Mk I Cooper S of Ron Jernigan(Delaware, USA)is coming along nicely

assisted by his Mini sized helpers.

Alun Owen has sent in this photo from 1962 asking if we can think of a suitable caption, to start the ball rolling, he suggests

Human cannonball missed his net
I knew I should have found a bigger car to remove the body
I'm sure there should be a battery in here somewhere 

Mini Reshell

Part 3 of Rich Wignall's article on the re-shelling of a Mini

Most Mini owners, along with anyone who has done much work on Minis, have quite a lot to say about the mounting bolts at the forward end of the rear sub frame, sadly most of it is unprintable! My plan on any Mini I am asked to look after, is to remove these bolts in turn, if humanly possible, inject loads of waxoyl through the threaded part in the heel board / sill, make sure that each corner is  well ‘pickled’ (old engine oil will work almost as well if you don’t have waxoyl), coat the threads of the bolts generously with copper grease & re-fit them. When, or if the day comes that you have to change the back frame, the bolts will release easily & if there is any rectification work to be carried out on the area of the heel- board, the corners with the threaded holes are significant reference points for the rear of the car. I carried out this procedure on my own Mini when I bought it at 5 years old, in 1986. When I came to change the rear frame 14 years later, all four of these bolts released without any trouble. There’s nothing worse than applying a socket to these bolts & hearing a crunching sound as part of the back corner of the sill rotates with them. Not insurmountable, but fitting a new heel board is a bit of a challenge, especially when the vital sill-ends have disappeared.

So, what happens if you buy a nice structurally sound Mini & the bolts won’t release? Unless you have a vital reason for removing them, leave them in place & soak the rear corners in releasing oil, followed by waxoyl or old engine oil, from above, by removing the trim from the rear pockets. When the day comes that you really have to remove them, they may well release.  

The front suspension of the Mini is notoriously simple to work on, but care must be taken if using the tool to compress the rubber spring. While it is compressed, try to work on the strut & knuckle joint areas with a pair of pliers or mole grips. If the threads into which the compressor fits let go, they don’t give any warning & can cause serious injury to your hands. Always ensure that the threads in the centre of the rubber spring are coated in copper (or any) grease. The other main requirement for working on the front suspension, is a good quality ball – joint splitter. I prefer the scissor action type. I have encountered a lot of seriously over tightened ball joint nuts, which is unnecessary, stick to the torque settings in the manual, & they normally release easily. This particular car has fixed 1.5 degree negative bottom arms & adjustable tie rods. When doing a restoration of this magnitude, a new set of ball joints & track rod ends is advisable & not too expensive.

I learned many years ago that Mini left hand radius arms have a left-hand thread for the big hub retaining nut, I only ever found one that didn’t, but always proceed with caution, it’s easy to end up with a nut with no thread in it. In this case I am removing the hub to fit new bearings & Cooper ‘S’ wheel studs

The holes have now been cut in the bulkhead sealing plate, for the wiring harness & speedo cable. The wiring harness has to be pulled through the bulkhead, via a hole in the parcel shelf, starting with it inside the car. It is not possible to start from the engine compartment & work back to the interior of the car. Wiring up a car from scratch can seem a daunting task, but it is a lot easier with a good wiring diagram which shows all the components & colour codes. I was lucky with this car, because having fitted & connected the loom, everything worked apart from the headlamp flasher, which turned out to be a problem in the switch. If you are not experienced or confident with this kind of electrical work, I would suggest seeking some help from a professional, the time saved can be well worth it.

I made a bracket to secure the spot & fog light relays to the inner wing & an auxiliary harness running alongside the original. Neat wiring not only looks better, but is much safer than the often seen ‘Christmas tree’ method, which can cause electrical unreliability, or at worst, a fire. Note the battery cable now runs inside the car & enters the engine bay through holes in the bulkhead & inner wing stiffener. Always use cable grommets or at least some kind of protective sleeve in this kind of situation. Most important, when replacing or troubleshooting wiring, always make sure that all earth connections are sound, electricity takes the line of least resistance, & a poor earth will cause the current to back feed through other components, a typical example of that is when you see rear indicators glowing dimly when the brake lights come on.

With all wiring in place, the engine can be fitted, it takes only about 20 minutes to lower it into place, connect the drive shafts & engine mounts, it’s fitting & connecting everything else which takes all the time.

If using a long centre branch exhaust manifold, as I always do, it is best to leave the upper engine stabiliser off so you can rock the engine & fiddle the pipes down the back of the block & past the sub frame. If the Mini in question has a rod change gearbox, the static gear change locating rod must be secured to the diff casing before the L.C.B. manifold is fitted. The bolt will not go in with the manifold in place.

Victoria MiniShow returns

The Victoria Mini Club's annual event - Mini Show - had built up a very good reputation, that was up until 2004 when the last event was run. Well its back, the club will be running Mini Show 2008 on Sunday 6th July

Freestyle build

Wow, all of a sudden, the Freestyle looks like a car rather than a collection of tubes and brackets. I should point out at this point that the build of a standard Freestyle would have been completed within a few weeks of the chassis arriving, it has taken this long for two reasons, loads of changes to the standard to make it more suitable for autotesting and lack of time to do them

As you can see, it has started to acquire some body panels, these are made from thin (.7mm) aluminium

An old LCB exhaust manifold from the Frogeye has been trial fitted and does the job well, some bends and a silencer will be sourced next.

The wiring is now complete and with the battery attached, all the connections were tested

Everything has been clipped and tied in place to make sure nothing comes adrift in the middle of a test.

Rather than worry too much about wire colours, each terminal is numbered and a laminated diagram will be attached to the back of the cover behind the seat

A bracket has been fabricated for the electric water pump, this just requires a new plate on the side of the block with a pipe welded in place to replace the original waterpump.

Although there will be no work on the car for the next month, the next job will be to pull the engine and box apart and make sure everything is OK.

Start of Freestyle Build

YouTube clips

Chris Lee sent in this YouTube link of Paddy Hopkirk and Timo Makinen demonstrating some autotests at the Pukekohe race track in New Zealand back in the 60's

By coincidence, I found this one of classic Minis enjoying the Laguna Seca race track in California

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkoJytcrkbk

Do you have a favorite YouTube clip?

AutoSolo

Knutsford and District Motor Club organised another of their excellent AutoSolo events last month and once again Kato filled the role of competition car very well.

The only other Mini was the classic Mini of father and son team, David and John Robinson in their Mini Sprite SPi, the other cars ranged from a little Suzuki to a Subaru Lancer estate and included a couple of nice classics like a TR3 and a Saab 96.

KDMC laid out three different tests during the day and we got to drive each one 3 or 4 times. Although it didn't rain at all, the surface started wet and slippery but dried out by the afternoon.

One of the advantages of the AutoSolo scoring is that your worst time on each layout is dropped, this is just as well as I forgot to switch the DSC off on one test and it cost me 2 seconds!. We started off about 4th overall but by the end of the day had climbed to 1st in class and second overall. A very enjoyable days sport.

Events

Sunday 1st March - Redwood Empire Mini Enthusiasts - Mount Tamalpais and Chees Factory run, starts just north of the Golden Gates bridge at the Safeway in Mill Valley at 9:00 am  - see http://redwoodempiremini.com/ for more details

Fri-Sun 14th to 16th March - Excellent indoor show at Stoneleigh Park - more details and advanced tickets at http://www.raceretro.com

That's it, please let us know what is going on in your part of the world.

Keep in touch

Mike Bennett
theregister@miniregister.co.uk

The opinions expressed in The Register are those of the members and not necessarily those of The Mini Register.

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