JDM Mini Canvas II

[Merlin]

I am creating this post as a start for the update to a new-to-me mini. I still have BondoRocket sitting and waiting for more time or motivation.

I picked this mini up a month or so ago on a whim. I really wanted to get a smaller car as I drive my truck all over the place at around 20Kmiles/year. Not entirely sure it was a great idea, but when have I ever had a logical one.



This is a 1992 1.0L Auto. I saw it on BAT and bought it because it appeared to be rust-free, working sunroof and an AC that blows cold. It turns out that none of those things were true.

Additionally, Data on these cars is hard to find. Google says that only 400 of these canvas cars were created and its likely that 200 of them exist. I spend more time researching. ChatGTP, TheMiniForums and somerford minis has been limiting in help.

Car showed up looking good but worn. A few things of note were that the sunroof would not close all the way. The engine was packed full of emissions stuff. Seat foam was worn in critical spots. Lots of japaneese aftermarket stuff wildly wired. The first drive involved the car overheating two miles from home.

After digging into the car, I found that all of the vacuum lines were toast, carb was worn, radiator shroud and fan were shot and the front right wheel was making contact with the fender. I noticed on the short drive that the car had "terrible torque steer" which is probably more a worn suspension issue.

The interesting thing to learn is that these cars were sent over to Japan from England and then modified. The car is full of imperial hardware, and then when you come across a Japanese market addon, its metric. Electrical is a mix between nissan and lucas. No exact wiring diagrams exists, and the components that were added are tied in with those insulated wire splices.



So what to do....

I really want a daily driver. I find myself driving often as a single rider. I need a car that is fun and quirky, yet I need to trust it.

The list of goals for this are below.

Fix the sunroof, or replace with something else
Refresh the seats and seat cushions
Suspension refreshed and corrected
Emissions removed (within reason)
AC system rethink and revamp
Engine clean and reinstall
Apple Car Play
Remote locks
New wiring harness
Convert to LHD

I am sure that more will come.

[94touring]

I'll come by and check it out when I'm back in town.

[MiniDave]

Convert to LHD will need a completely different dash, as the JDM one is unique to those cars. not that you can't buy one from any of the sources.

I'll get you a link to a wiring diagram.....https://www.theminiforum.co.uk/forums/topic/324929-wire-diagrams-redrawn/

[MPlayle]

Depending on whether you want to keep the air conditioning or not will also affect the LHD conversion effort since most JDM Minis have the evaporator on the left side and the vent arrangements vary considerably.  The evaporator will have to be relocated to the right side and the venting reconfigured as well.

Probably easier to leave it RHD?

[MiniDave]

There's an Austin America on BaT right now for really cheap with a 1275 Automatic in it, might be cheaper to swap than rebuild the 998 in there now - bonus - mor powahhhh!!!!


https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1969-austin-1300-2/

[Merlin]

Ahh the AC is the hot topic. Pun intended. The plan is (no so) simple. We are going to build a completely custom setup.

The issues to address are as follows.
The system was an r12 setup and needs to be updated to R134a
Condenser takes up too much room in the engine bay
Evaporator and fan assembly make the passenger footwell impossible to be utilized
Parts are difficult or impossible to source.

The first issue to resolve is the R12 to R134A
This will require the changing of all the orings and the expander valve. I have also found that because of the higher phase-change temperatures, the R12 condensers are not effective. Compressor requires no change.

We are lucky in that the mini went through this change and offers an R134A condenser. This is thinner than its counterpart. in the later mpi setups, this was mounted to the right inner wing. The controller for the electrical fans comes with two outputs (more on that later) so we can run a dedicated fan for the condenser. The mounts for the newer condenser are NLA, so I created my own to include the fan. This creates two new issues. The first is that the windshield wiper bottle has to move and that the hinge rod catch will need to be moved. Future Merlin issues









The evaporator was a debate for a few days. I was doing some forum research and someone posted one of these AC units from Siroco and it appears to fit in the same spot as the heater. The thought of the heater and the AC being separate kept gnawing at me so I pulled the trigger and bought one. After it arrived, further thinking and drinking happened.

https://www.t7design.co.uk/air-con/air-conditioning-units.html

I noticed that the matrix of the unit could fit inside of the heater. What if the AC unit could be a direct swap? A little Solidworks and printing and the first proptype box came out for fitment.



After some tweaking and serious digging, we are currently here.




My next plan is to create another door in the top of the box that would feed upwards into the dash. I had orignially planned on keeping the car RHD and I was going to reuse the ac vents that slide up the dash and to the center, but after having a think about the car and what I intended to do  with it, converting to LHD makes more sense but creates two issues that I need to resolve... the first is that i cannot reuse the ac vent tube and the second is that there is not a LHD version of the JDM dash. 

The current plan is this: The fresh air vents that are already in the car are useless to me with AC. I plan to use these vents as the AC vents by either one of two ideas. 
1: Cut a hole where the wheel well meets the dash and the firewall and run scat tubing through a printed flange. Create and elbow and re-intercept the fresh air vent from inside the wheel well.
2: Create a printed vent that runs along the firewall and the wheel well and have it replace the existing flanges to allow the vents to connect with little modification.

A third option is to recreate the center section of the dash and make a mirrored version. This is also a reasonable possibility except that I would also need to carry this over to the glovebox. Since both are separate from the three gauge dash, this wouldn't be too terrible.

Controls for the AC are to be driven from the Vintage Air servos. I picked up their water control valve and their Gen II servos. These will be included into the AC box. I have done some testing and it appears that these are dumb motors with a 3.5k pot attached as feedback. A simple H-bridge can be used to drive these. An arduino with some potentiometers as input could be used to do blending and door control. The H-bridge chips are on their way to do some further testing in a few months.