Restoration-Mini

I decided to start a new thread for this one......

Dan brought the shell up to me (on the only rainy day we had this weekend!) and it did wash off a little bit of the "barn find" that was all over it from sitting in his shed for several years.....but it still needs a lot of cleanup and smells horribly! I have no idea what it is that reeks so badly, it does not smell like cat or mouse pee but rather more like mold or something.

There's no front subframe in it although the back is on wheels, I need to figure out how to get it mobile so I can get it out in the front drive and see if I can wash it down some more. If that doesn't do it I'm going to look into one of those mobile blasting outfits and have them strip the shell. I'll need that done anyway, so why not get it done up front?

So, that's where I'm at right now, the engine is here and running, preliminary measurements show that it will fit, next I need to strip it down to a bare shell and see if I can borrow a rotisserie so I can work on the bottom - my scissor lift is not conducive to bottom work.

I'm also having a 10X16 shed built in the backyard for storage of all my yard equipment and the extra parts I won't be working with for a good while....that will help me get some more working space in my tiny garage.

I believe it's a racoon and opossum medley of odors.

Whatever it is, I don't like it!

I've contacted a couple of places to see what it would cost to get it blasted here in my driveway......and I'll also ask what it costs if I trailer it over to them, just for comparison.

Anyone have any idea what this will cost?

$1200

No one has asked how I got a pic of Dan towing this car up to me in the rain?

Quote from: MiniDave on May 21, 2023, 05:18:38 PMNo one has asked how I got a pic of Dan towing this car up to me in the rain?

That is a good question. 

NO guesses?

One of the local MINI club members saw him and posted the pic on the club's Facebook page.....

So, I found out what the horrible smell was - I guessed it was something like this, but not to this extent! Turns out here were large mounds of poop, and driving up in a rainstorm got them "activated" again.....I spent all of today so far removing, cleaning, drying, vacuuming and so on.....it's still a mess but once I have everything stripped out I can go after it with the pressure washer - I just have to figure out how to roll it outside. Getting it back in again is less a problem cause I can just hook the winch to it and drag it back onto the lift.

I can't do a whole lot of work to it yet as I just don't have anywhere to put the stuff I remove from it. Once I get the shed built then I'll have a little more room to work, so the next two weeks will be doing site prep for the shed - they say two weeks, but I'll be very surprised to see it that quickly.

There's also a lot more rust and holes than expected, but some of it will be removed anyway to make room for the motor - I do have to replace the right sill and do plenty of patchwork on the floor corners and such. My plan is to do all the metal work so when it goes to Dan he just needs to sand, prime and paint it. I'm sure there will be some filler work needed too, but hopefully it will be minimal. I def need a rotisserie!

Rose has renamed it from the Hotrod to the "Poop car". <sighs>

What were the blasting quotes?

Didn't get any replies....

You're a brave man to tackle that POS.

Thanks Larry.....it will be a challenge, no doubt - but I've seen worse - and fixed worse! My 69 E-Type coupe was way, way worse and it turned out nicely.

Well any rot on the rear end is basically non issue as Dave will be cutting it all apart for custom framing and the engine install. The front end is all new including inner wings if Dave decides to keep the wings depending on some ideas he has.  Things yet to do would be outter cills and I'm going to assume some inner cill repairs here and there, front pan sections, and some door skins on at least one door.  Really not much in the bigger scheme of the project. 

Mobile sandblasting -  1st place.....$2,000 -2,400, 15-18 if I took it to them

You could have used my wet blasting kit down at my place in the yard for the cost of a 3000lb pallet of fine sand!  About $250 and the worst time you can spend in a day lol.

I have a sand blaster - I did my entire Jag with it but I had the perfect place to do it - a dirt lot with all the clean dry air I could use. I think I only used about 10 bags of sand total. I'll just go ahead and repair all the rust and holes, then figure out what to do about the rest, I can always chemical strip it too.

Made the first parts order of many with MiniSpares.....this one is mostly just sheet metal parts to fix all the rust holes.

Still working on coming up with a rotisserie.....may wind up making one tho I really don't want to do that.

At this point I have the body mostly stripped out, all the poop and the hundreds of mud daubber nests cleaned out.....I'd really like to get it outside and use the pressure washer on it but I may just go ahead and remove the rear subframe and go on with the welding, then clean it all once that's done.......dunno.

If you build a rotisserie what avenue were you going to take, an skmini version or a pipe through the middle version?

I was going to build one like skmini, just have not had time to do it yet. Maybe I could split costs and come help you build it and then once you are done with it I could use it.

Or if you end up building one I could buy it from you when you are done with it. I don't foresee me having time to start on mine any time soon.

We could probably come to some sort of terms one way or another so you aren't stuck with it once your done with it.

OK.

Not sure of the style yet, considering the old 2 HF engine stand style......I was hoping to just borrow/rent one long enough to do this job, but I'm not finding anything remotely local.

Funny thing - I found one for $500 in (nope, not kidding) Harrison Arkansas - right where we were the last week!

All the pre-built ones such as from Eastwood are fairly spendy.....most are closer to $2K and still would need modified to work on the Mini

That was basically my experience when looking for one and why I decided I would just build on instead.

It was actually cheaper at the time to order the one from the uk specific for the mini like the one skmini built than it was to buy a universal version like from Eastwood that you still had to modify to work.

Too bad the one you found is so far away. I found one a while back within 100 miles but it was sold by the time I saw it and asked about it.

Not a lot to report on this build so far, I have the car completely stripped down to a bare shell, and I have been measuring and figuring for various parts - I reinstalled the bare front subframe for example, so I could figure out the fuel tank and radiator and A/C condenser locations and size.

I ordered a fuel tank, and the first order of panels to repair the rust in the front of the car/sills should arrive by the end of the week, according to DHL.

Just in time for typical Kansas summer weather to arrive - hot and oh so muggy! Time to switch the shop unit over from heat to A/C!

I got a small bench top media blaster at a garage sale and decided to try it out on an upper control arm - it did great, but I made the mistake of leaving the air plugged in. I was upstairs having lunch and I heard the air compressor kick on - usually it takes about a minute to recharge the tank but it seemed to go on and on, so I headed down to see why it was still running. When I opened the door to the shop the air was full of dust - the hose inside the unit had popped off and it was blowing the media around inside - forcing the dust out around the seal for the window! I popped the air off the connector and gave it an hour for the dust to settle so I could see again.....not a lot of media got out, mostly just the dust but I think in the future I will roll this thing out on my hydraulic table and use it outside!

Do you have a vacuum cleaner hooked up to pull the dust out? Does make a difference with the dust level. It is always nice to have clean parts.

Yes, just a shop vac....it would be better if it were a Hepa filter vac but I don't have one of those.

Get yourself one of these. I have used similar ones for years on my blast cabinet and wood tools. Home depot started carrying this ones that just snaps onto a bucket and it is a lot lower profile and cheaper. I have one rigged up to my big shop vac I take places. These will even keep sheet rock dust from clogging your filter up. If you have ever done any sheet rock work you know you can completely plug a shop vac filter in about 15 minutes. With one of these I have had the same filter in my vac using it on sheet rock dust, table saw dust, chop saw dust, etc.. for over a year now and I have filled countless 5 gallon buckets with dust.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Dustopper-High-Efficiency-Cyclonic-Dust-Separator-12-in-Dia-with-2-5-in-hose-36-in-long-with-2-Sweep-Elbows-HD12A/315749552

Buncha stuff showed up yesterday, a box full of panels and later my gas tank.

I got new front floor pans, door step, both sills, all the repair panels across the back including a new valance and a set of louvers to help vent the front compartment. The radiator and A/C condenser will be in the front, so I wanted plenty of openings to get the hot air out of the front compartment.

The gas tank came in and I'm really impressed with the quality - especially for the price I paid for it. The welds look almost machine done rather than hand done, and it came with three -8 fittings on top - one is the fuel pickup, one is the vent and one is the return line. It also has the sending unit and of course the cap. Too bad I'm going to have to shorten it to fit in the space in the front, but I know a guy who's a wiz with a TiG - we'll see how he does in comparison. It's 17 gallons now and it'll be 10 when I cut it down. $125  and free shipping!

I've been working on the fuel tank, first I cut the end off so I could figure out how to mount the pump and pick up. I'm also going to have to relocate the fuel sender so I'll need to drill some holes in the top. Once I have all that done I may engineer some baffles - one around the pump pickup to act as a surge bowl, then another somewhere about half way to keep the fuel from slopping around as I drive.

Once I had it cut down to size, I could look at how to mount it in the front and how I'm going to strap it down, or maybe just make some angle iron holders for the top and bottom to locate it. Dunno, still working that out. I also have to find a gasoline proof bulkhead fitting so I can bring the wires out of the tank for the fuel pump.

Because the bulkhead bends in a bit in the center, I'll have room to run hoses down between the tank and the bulkhead - I plan to run all the brake and water pipes and tubes in the center tunnel, since there won't be an exhaust system in there anymore.

Wow, not only has shipping gone way up, I got hit with customs on my last order for another $60. So shipping cost a total of about $250! This order is brake parts and Sprite gearsets, nothing big but I know when you get close to $2K in value you always get hit with customs.

Since the big shed got finished I spent a day moving stuff into it from the small old shed, and then spent a couple of hours cleaning the mouse poop and other schmutz out of it so I could start moving car parts into it.

I still have a ways to go on that but today I wanted to get the modifications done to the gas tank. I had the end I cut off before and used it to make two panels, one to go on the end once it's all done and another to fit in the middle as a baffle.

I also had to bore a new hole for the sending unit and cut a slot in the baffle to allow the arm of the sender to swing all the way. With all that done the only thing left is to attach the pump to the pick up pipe - but to do that I had to order a couple of things.

The pipe is 1/2" OD and the nipple on the pump is a little under 3/8" I don't know of a hose that will stretch that far, so I ordered a 3/8-1/2 hose barb and a section of 1/2 fuel hose. Once those are here Sat I can shorten the pick up tube and install the fuel pump.

Once I'm done with all my mods I'll take it all over to the welder guy and he'll weld in the baffle, close off the old hole for the sending unit and weld the end cover on...that will do it for the tank and I can start figuring out how to mount it to the car/subframe.

I know you've already done all that work to fit your fuel sender, but a simpler solution if you have any issues with that setup would be to use a floatless sender. Like this: Tanks Inc. (https://www.tanksinc.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=346/mode=prod/prd346.htm) You can specify the length and the gauge resistance, and it just drops straight down into the tank.

HI Red, thanks for the input......I'm aware of those tube style senders, but I decided to go with this one for now as it came with the tank.

If it has issues I can always easily update it to one of those.

The tank is over at the welders and may even be done today as we finally got some cooler weather so he can work in his non-A/C shop. Nothing hotter than trying to do fine TiG welding when it's 100+ in your shop!

Next up for me is to start repairing the rust. I have a bunch of new panels to weld in and as I don't have Dan's expertise or experience (tho I did a shit ton of welding new panels on my old Jag, but that was 30 years ago now!) I'll be going at it slowly, so as to not make it worse!

Is that an RCI tank? Looks similar to mine.
(https://i.imgur.com/D9qZZCI.jpg)

I have no idea, I just found it on Ebay, and the price and design were right for my application. It does look similar to yours, doesn't it?

For my car I needed one that was tall and thin rather than the usual wide and flat type. How many gallons is yours?

This one will be right at 10 gallons by my math, which is fine......if it even does 30 mpg that will be more than enough miles before I need to get out and stretch. Plus Don usually has to fill up his Pup about every 150-175 miles.

The welder says he'll be done with it today, then the next step is to figure out how to mount it securely.

How did you vent yours? I'm thinking a hose into the fender well then either one of those little air filters or maybe even into a charcoal cannister.

It's a 15 gallon tank, which is way overkill, but it fit into the space I had. I'm inspired by what you are doing and I might cut some of the height out of it if I get bored and want a new project. I'm using a the VSR vent canister from here: II Much (https://www.iimuch.com/collections/fuel-differential-vents/products/fuelvent2dm) It was a bit tricky finding a spot higher than the top of the tank to mount it, but I got it done. I ran the vent from the canister down to the original vent hole in the floor through a bulkhead fitting into a sintered brass filter. I was getting a lot of fuel smell and this fixed it. I cut down and extended the floor around the spare tire well and battery box to get the tank down as far as I could. So I needed to relocate the battery as well. I started out with a Braille racing battery but now I'm running an Odyssey Extreme battery for a Harley Davidson. Works just fine for my D16 VTEC.

I like your battery hold-down, I'm thinking of using a smallish battery too and locating it in the right side companion bin, that way I don't have to run cable from the front to the back of the car.

Good find on the fuel vent - spendy, but if it does the job.....

My next project is to find the right radiator that will cool this motor.....I'm looking at a Scirocco 3 core, dual pass aluminum.....I need to double check the measurments, but I think it will fit and give the maximum cooling I'll need. I'm also looking at A/C systems.....

Had a scare a few days ago, the engine wouldn't start on the pallet - it's always fired right up in the past - turns out I had run it out of gas! Put a couple of gallons in the gas can I had the pump in and cycled the key a few times to prime the system and it fired right up and ran perfectly again. Whew!

Ain't got no gas

um-hmmmm......

OK, so the tank is back and looks great, he did a super job. 1st pic shows the fuel pump mounted and a small zip tie to keep it from swinging about....which it may not have done anyway but I had him weld a small tab on so I could put the zip tie on it.

You can also see the float on the end of the sending unit's arm, it moves freely so it should work just fine, once I get the appropriate gauge. No firm ideas on what gauges I'm going to use at this point but I'm leaning towards something more modern than traditional Mini gauges. We'll see.

The tabs on the ends of the tank are for mounting brackets, tho I probably will work out some straps ala Binky too.

The round can on top is the fuel filter/pressure regulator, which has a return hose to goes back to a one way valve on the tank. The middle fitting will be for the tank vent.

Has it been leak tested after the modifications?

Yes, he sealed it up, put a small amount of air pressure to it and sprayed all his welds with soapy water....no bubbles!

Next up I need to build a mount....I'll probably just weld up some angle iron for the bottom to hold it in place, then figure out how to mount the top.

Never fails......after assembling the tank yesterday I realize I forgot to make one more hole - for the bulkhead fitting for the wires to go thru to power the pump!   :embarrassed:  First I guess I'll need to find a fitting, the ones I've seen at places like Summit Racing are stupid expensive for what they are - $35 plus shipping is $50 to me - for one plastic fitting!

Red Riley, how is your tank mounted and tied down?

I'm still cleaning up storm damage in the back yard, and in between rain storms trying to get all the seams caulked on the shed so we can get it painted. Because of all the rain we've been getting the grass had gotten really tall, so I got the ZTR out and did a quick mow too - in between rain showers! Nice to be able to just drive it back into the shed - I used to have to let it cool for about a half hour, then cover it with a tarp and tie that down with bungy cords.

I see a couple of fuel cell bulkhead electrical fittings on Amazon Prime with free shipping for about 20 bucks. Is there enough empty space on the sender base that you could put it through there instead of drilling another hole in the tank?
My tank just has some tabs welded on to bolt it to the floor. It's not going anywhere.

I probably could, but the sender is on the other side of the baffle, and while there's a big enough gap at the top to feed the wires thru it would be difficult to tie them down. I figure I can remove the big black filler and stick a small cup directly under where I'm drilling to catch all the bits, then vacuum out anything that I miss....so drilling a hole directly above the pump is no biggy.

I'll go check on Amazon.....I mostly found them on summit and such...... all the ones I've found for $10-20 have holes for 10ga  wires, these are more like 16 ga. I suppose I could just silicone them in the bigger holes but I'd really prefer to find one that's sized correctly.

Tank fits the subframe perfectly! Next I need to build some brackets for the bottom to make sure it can't move, then set the subframe back into the car and reinstall the tank to figure out the upper mounting.

Next project is to get a radiator and decide on an A/C unit so I can figure out those mountings. That will complete the initial design work on the front end. I think once that's done I really need to start cutting out rusty metal and welding in new stuff. Probably need to go buy some cutoffs so I'll have material to make patches with for those areas that I don't have panels already.

The tank is not sitting at an angle in the subframe in the second pic, it's just the angle of the camera

Are you going to put some kind of insulation on the front of it? Being behind the radiator.

Yes, I've also been toying with the idea of a shield of sheet metal to direct the air out the sides

I mounted the front subframe back in the car and cut a piece of 1 1/2 angle to act as the bottom mount, then set the tank back in. Fits perfectly and it's exactly the way I hoped it would fit, low enough for plenty of room to  mount the filter/regulator and the tabs to mount it to the bulkhead. I also ordered the radiator today, and tomorrow I'm talking to a shop that sells vintage car A/C kits to get some measurements for their "mini" evaporator, if it fits I'll order a kit, that will get me the right sized condenser core and I can do the planning for those bits.

That will do it for the front end for now - that's the major part of the design/engineering for the front end. Next up - I'll brace the body so I can start cutting out the rust and welding in the new panels. Once I have that done and the body fairly solid, I'll pull the motor off the pallet and strip it so I can plan to cut the sheet metal out of the back and fit the motor into the shell. Then the real fun starts, engineering the rear subframe and suspension.

At least that's how I see it in my head!

Are you in need of any interior mini ac components? 

Maybe, but most of the kits I've seen come with pretty much everything

What brand of vintage car a/c systems are you considering?  If they are the Vintage-Air brand, the factory is local to me and I would be willing to drive my Mini Van over to them for checking the fitment of the in-cabin (evaporator?) unit.

Vintage Air is one of the ones I'm talking to. I appreciate your offer, but if I get the dimensions I can take it from there, I figure I'll need to cut out some of the firewall no matter what unit I get, but at this point I need the condenser so I can figure out the mount for it and the radiator/fan. Knowing which unit will fit the dash will probably dictate the size of the condenser.....I just need to call them and chat for a bit right now.

Radiator, A/C condenser and a mock up empty plastic evaporator casing on the way....so I should be able to finish the major front end brackets and mounts and stuff for the fuel tank, radiator, A/C condenser and fan and get an idea of what I need to do to fit the A/C evaporator in the dash.

I've started removing the extraneous wiring and components off the motor so I can lift it off the pallet. I won't be using their radiator, tho the 16" 2100cfm fan should do nicely and just fits. The pallet the motor sits on is huge, so getting it off there and onto my hydraulic table will make for a lot more room to move around.

I'm still working on the rear subframe and suspension ideas.....can't decide between a double
A-arm like the front or a trailing arm like BMWs......I'll probably need to make the hole in the back for the motor first, then lift it up in there and start measuring. I have some basic ideas from looking at MiniTec's stuff and some of the other rear Honda engine builds.

I'm also trying to decide on the instruments, I'll need to use modern instruments as the old Mini ones aren't compatible with a modern ECU.....trying to decide on style, faces etc. So many choices out there. Another alterative is a simple flat screen ala Tesla......

I wanted to keep my dash looking stock(ish), so I decided to go with Autometer electronic analog gauges. They have a custom shop online so you can get pretty much any combination of faces and trims. The programmable speedo is super easy to calibrate and just uses the VSS signal from the ECU, so no trying to figure out cables and adapters and stuff.
(https://i.imgur.com/nUSPZt2l.jpg)

Yes, Don has autometer gauges in his car too.....I've looked at all the major gauge mfrs and I've found one set that's fairly reminiscent of a Porsche 911 that I'm considering. All the gauges in one panel.....really spendy tho, plus I'd have to buy a couple of sending units....That purchase is still far off in the future tho

My goal with the A/C is to not have a big ol hunk of plastic hanging down under the dash......I'm sure part of it will but I'm hoping I can hide most of it. If necessary I'll make a panel - much like they did on Binky - to cover it.

Did they pull the tach, water temp and oil pressure signals out of the ECU too? I need to get a pin out diagram for this
ECU.....

Quote from: Red Riley on August 04, 2023, 06:58:11 AMI wanted to keep my dash looking stock(ish), so I decided to go with Autometer electronic analog gauges. They have a custom shop online so you can get pretty much any combination of faces and trims. The programmable speedo is super easy to calibrate and just uses the VSS signal from the ECU, so no trying to figure out cables and adapters and stuff.
(https://i.imgur.com/nUSPZt2l.jpg)

That's a good look.

To be honest, it's been so long since I put them in that I don't remember where the signal for the tach comes from. I think maybe there was an existing wire in the dash harness. The temp and pressure gauges need senders on the engine.

New radiator and A/C condenser appeared, so for the umpteenth time I bolted the front subframe in again and mocked up the locations. It looks like it's all going to fit well....I still need to fab up brackets and such but it all went together pretty much the way I saw it in my mind's eye.

So I'll make all the locations and build out the brackets and mount it up one last time for a final fit check, then that part is mostly done.

I also got the mock up A/C evaporator box, with a little bit of cutting of the sheet metal it looks like it's going to fit right in the dash too, so I won't have to Binky an air box together!

I've been mocking up other bits and bobs too, the accelerator is mounted to its own bracket and it looks like it will bolt right to the bulkhead and be placed perfectly. I love it when complicated things go together easily!

There will be challenges plenty yet to come!

The engine is now off the pallet, getting rid of that 4'X7' pallet really opened up some room in my tiny shop!

Now I can get to stripping off things I won't need and figuring out how to modify those I do need so they'll fit in the car.

Most of the things I imagined while laying in bed sleepless look like they will build out exactly as I imagined. Some not so much..... :grin:

One thing I am puzzling over. The shift linkage at the gearbox has a couple of fairly heavy weights attached, I know MINIs (which use a very similar Getrag gearbox) do not use these weights. I'm debating cutting them off, as it would simplify my shift linkage considerably. I can't fathom any real use for them unless it's for the general "feel" of the shift mechanism.

Those weights might be something to research before cutting them off.  Unless of course they're easily put back on.

It's a cast part, so I don't think it would be easy to re-attach them...... :017:

Today's project was to get the engine settled on the hydraulic table and remove the engine electrical harness......which was a total PITA! But I didn't want to have it in the way when lifting the engine in and out of the car to mock up the subframe and suspension.

With that done I'll probably move back to the front subframe and build and weld in all the brackets needed to mount the fuel tank, A/C condenser and radiator. With that in place I can start thinking about how to run the pipes from the front to the back, I have some basic ideas already but I'll need to refine them as I go along. Looks like the two big hoses will be in the right place to hook them to the pipes, and I'd like to put some elbows in the front part to match up to the radiator, so all I'll need are a couple of short elbows to connect them. However, there are a couple of small bleed pipes that were attached between the coolant recovery tank and the thermostat housing, that used proprietary fittings. I'm not sure how I'm going to make those work, or even plug them off if I can't make them work as intended. Challenges....

By the way, each one of those little blue tape markers are for a sensor or control........there are a bunch of them!

Dave .... in case you've not seen this, I thought I'd send a little motivation your way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8O6l2gzh2w

I had not seen that one, very interesting! I also got sent a link to a FB group devoted to people who put other engines in classic Minis, and one fellow has done exactly what I'm doing. I messaged him about whether he has a build somewhere that I can see. No point in reinventing the wheel if someone else has already done it successfully!

Today I'm making brackets and such to weld in to mount all the stuff in front.....to that end I got to use a new tool today! I needed to remove the big heavy bracket that the clutch hose attaches to, so I got out my spot weld cutter kit. I bought it about 30 years ago and never had used it before, so there was a learning curve as I broke one fairly quickly - but, once I got the hang of it, it worked really well, even in this thick metal. Should make separating some of these other panels easier that just ripping them apart with an air chisel.

I was concerned that if I just chiseled it off it would tear the underlying metal and I would have to weld in a patch.

I had to pause my bracket making when I realized that if I set the tank all the way down in the subframe, the pipes for the coolant wouldn't clear and would hang down below the subframe......so.......

I decided I was tired of working in filth and I need to get the shell outside where I can go after the mud and mud dauber's nests with my pressure washer. To do that I needed to make some sort of dolly. I dug around an found these 5" casters, I bolted them to a 2X6 and bolted that to the subframe. I figure if I can get a couple of my young, strong neighbors to help, we can "wheelbarrow" it out onto the driveway. Getting back in might be a trick, but we'll figure it out. I had to make it wide enough that the casters would ride on the boards beside the lift....

I had a problem with the front panel not being square to the subframe, so Don brought his porta power over and we moved it out enough to get the spacer in place. Things lined up pretty well except for the gap that opened up at the outer corner between the fender and the valance. Dan thinks it will pull together with a judicious application of clamps and welds.

I still haven't gotten the car out of the garage as I'm having trouble co-ordinating with strong/younger neighbors to give me a hand (one's wife had a baby this weekend so he's excused), and since a car ran over my foot at the car show last Sunday I'm not really in any shape to lift it, so I decided to get started on cutting out the old rusty floor panels and welding in new shiny ones.

I started by removing this crossmember - I noticed after drilling out a few spot welds that a LOT of big rust chunks were falling at my feet.

When I got the crossmember out, this is what I found - yes the blue paper towel was in there too - it looked like someone had closed up a hole by shoving that paper towel in there and gobbing a bunch of bathroom silicone over it.

You'll also notice there is a fairly thick sound deadening applied to these panels which I have to remove in order to get at the spot welds, and it is a royal PITA to get off of there. Sometimes if I can catch an edge I can drive a scraper under it and lift off a section, but usually I have to take my heat gun to it to get it soft enough to scrape off. PITA!

With that out of the way I dropped the new panel into place so I can start figuring out where exactly to cut out the old one and start welding in the new. I'm a little undecided about the sequence of what to cut and weld first as I'll be rebuilding the entire lower side of the car. On Binky they welded in the door step area first and I need to do that as well, so I may do that before cutting out the floor. It's a mess, no question!

That sound deadening comes up lickity split with an air chisel fyi.

I figure since I'm removing the whole panel, I don't need to remove all of it......I only need to remove the areas where I'm going to drill the spotwelds out and reweld it.

But I do have an air chisel, so I'll try that......

Finally got the hot rod off the rack and out into the driveway for a bath! It only took me and one other guy to do that but I'll have a spare helper to get it back in - over the lip into the shop and up the ramps onto the rack again. It's a nice, warm, dry day so once it's baked a while we'll roll it back in again.....with so many holes in the floors and sheet metal, it drained easily!  :rolleyes:

Did you put the air chisel to work yet?

No, the Inno is back on the rack so I can drain the gas and put fresh in and button up the last bits, then I'll get the hot rod moved over and bring the Inno down when I come down for the races first week of Oct.

Then while I have an empty garage I can get to grinding and welding without worrying about splatter hitting another car.

It was surprisingly easy to roll it back into the shop.....

Also the front coilovers came in today. Once I get a few more suspension bits in I can build the front end up and roll it around on actual wheels!

If you build a dolly with those bigger inflatable rubber wheels that thing will move nicely over all those cracks and lips in the concrete.

What's happened with this project in the last seven (7) months?

I've been acquiring parts, finishing up other projects to clear the shop out and looking at whether I need to build a rotisserie or maybe acquire some other specialized equipment.

I've also been working on engineering the rear subframe and suspension. I currently have two different designs on the drawing boards, one with long/short arms and one with trailing arms ala MiniTec's version.

Once the shop is clear, I'll be back on it "full time" - in quotes because I can only work in the shop for a few hours at a time.

So, tomorrow the red hot rod is going back on the rack so I can start cutting and welding......pics as it happens!

About time!  I imagine the weather is a big factor

Yes, I want to get it up on the rack before it gets too cold.....I have parts coming for it too so I need to get it set up

OK, so my parts should arrive tomorrow, that should help kick this project along now as I can get the engine mounted in the subframe, and the rear suspension and brakes sorted. plus once the roll cage is set in place I can start welding up panels and re-inforcements.

We'll see if everything gets here tomorrow as the shipper is saying.

The car is mounted up on the rack again, and I'm planning to pull the front subframe out and install the suspension pieces so once the rear subby is assembled and in the car I can put it on wheels. That will be fun!

With a decent start on the front of the car, it's time to switch things up and do some engineering on the back end....to that end I ordered the back half of a "Midi" kit from MiniTec, I had full intended to weld all this up my self but I figured why reinvent the wheel. It was spendy but it solves a lot of issues. Off course it opens the door to just as many since their kit is for putting Honda motors in and I'm doing a Ford.

The parts arrived today and I spent some time familiarizing myself with the various components, then went ahead and assembled the basic framework.

Next I'll take it all apart again and start figuring out how to mount the motor.....

Mocking up the motor in the subframe, a couple of interesting issues have come up.....

Looking at the Honda powered version my friend Russ built, the bottom of his crankcase is level with the bottom of the subframe - a good idea so you don't drag the crankcase on anything.....to achieve that is fairly easy, but there are some knock-on problems. Looking down from the top you can see that the axles will have an angle to get to the control arms, so I need to move the frame as far back as possible to minimize it, that puts the top bar of the frame almost against the intake manifold. Moving the engine further forward isn't possible.....

So, I need to find out what the acceptable amount of angle is......I seem to recall that Binky's front axles run at an angle too.

The second issue is that there is limited upward travel on the control arms, moving the frame down (engine up) means almost zero vertical travel available at the control arms, which would mean a terrible ride - plenty of room for the arms to drop but almost no room to go up on a bump.

Dropping the engine lower fixes that, but them the crankcase is more exposed and the frame moves forward again, increasing the axle's angle both forward and vertically. I could lengthen the trailing arms, but that moves the wheels back further in the wheel openings.....the big flares would cover that except there may not be enough room at the back of the wheel wells. Everything I do only seems to make the axle angles worse, so this will be a head scratcher.

So far I haven't even begun to figure out motor mounts.....I think I'll probably order a cheap set of factory mounts and see if I can build something from them.

I'll get some pics up later to show what I mean

This is one of the issues I'm trying to resolve - the grey pipe represents the axle, and as you can see there's quite a bit of angle downward, but also there's a lot of angle forward too. My experience the axle should be as straight as possible when the car is down on its wheels.

I can raise the frame up some to mitigate the downward angle, but that tends to move it more forward, increasing the forward angle.....still studying this for now....

I fit up the motor to the subframe and right away several issue were evident - the A/C compressor will NOT fit where it's supposed to, and the axles were at crazy angles to reach the hubs......so I spent several days pondering, moving, adjusting and scratching my head trying to figure out how to make it all work.

I'm still not 100% there, but one question needs to be answered. I always thought the axles should be as straight as possible to the hubs and gearbox under normal ride height - is this correct, or just the preferred situation?

Dan pointed out the crazy angles his VW bus axles run at all the time. First thought is - yeah, but it's a slow moving low HP bus - except it isn't, it's a 150hp bus that he tows a loaded trailer or a Mini behind at 70+ MPH for hundreds of miles at a time, and after 20K miles or so, his axles still seem fine.

I also seem to remember that Project Binky's front axles  run at some angles too?

Point being if I can run some odd angles, I can probably put my A/C compressor back on.

To test out a couple of theories I moved the engine around, tilted it somewhat and built a couple of brackets to set the ride height approximately where I think it will be - at about 1/2 of the shock travel. Doing all that I've managed to get the axles pretty much straight on in both directions. I will have to do some small modifications - I'll need to remove a boss on the oil pan where the A/C compressor used to bolt up, and I will have to completely engineer a bracket to remount the compressor somewhere else......but that at least gets me in the neighborhood.

But, if I can run the angles then I may be able to move the engine back further in the frame set and put the compressor back on.

What say the cognoscenti?

You may need to Google the max angle the CVs allow to see how crazy you can go with the axles.  Lemme see if I can find a pic of mine.

Here's what I found for VWs.  Type 2 bus can have 17 degrees angle. Type 4 CVs can have 22 degrees.

I haven't gotten MiniTec to tell me what CV's they run yet......

So MiniTec called me back and after a good conversation I now know what to get parts-wise to keep moving forward.

Don dropped by and helped me lift the subframe up and off the engine so I could get it up on my lift table and get started cutting off that boss to make clearance for the suspension arms to move.

Once up on the table it wasn't too hard to cut the boss off and use my angle grinder to clean up the area enough to do a test fit. Putting the subframe back in place by myself turned into a challenge, but using the engine lift and some straps and chains I managed to get it in place.

Now the axles line up nicely and there's room on both ends for the trailing arms to move without hitting anything.

I messaged my brother in England who used to work for Sanden to ask about compressors as I won't be able to use this one now that I'm using the area where it used to mount for the suspension.....he gave me a couple of leads as it's now going to turn the opposite direction - on what compressor to order and it turns out they're readily available and fairly inexpensive. Once I build the motor mounts, add the coilovers and axles, I'll be able to see where exactly I can put it and build some brackets to mount it.

I know on some of the Vtec Mini builds they mount the alternator to the frame rather than the motor - not sure that would work but it's an interesting thought anyway....I'd be concerned with vibration when it's running and how to tension the belt.

1st pic shows where I cut off the boss, second the clearance to the trailing arm and third the nice straight axle lineup.

While I had the subframe standing on its side I also found where the adjustment is for camber, it uses a large eccentric washer to move it where you want it.....simple and effective. A similar set up adjusts toe....

All of the aluminum has a lot of corrosion on it, I found some liquid spray-on stuff that's supposed to clean the corrosion off without damaging the metal......that will be one of the last jobs I do, but I'm definitely going to give it a good shot at cleaning it off. Maybe while the engine's out when the body is at paint would be a good time to tackle that......

Trying to sort out how to do the motor mounts, MiniTec sent me a pair of what they use. The transmichigan end is easy - lots of room. The other end is close! I cut a length of 1 1/2" angle and mounted it to see how I can do this - it's possible - it just fits in the gap, but it is tight!

I also ran the suspension to both extremes and everything clears with ease, so no worries there.

After finagling the motor around in the frame a bit, I welded up the motor mount on the engine side, ran out of back and material to finish it. Next I'll build the legs that attach it to the subframe, then switch over to the transmission end. I also need to buy some bolts and some more metal for the "legs" on both ends, plus I want to brace up the shell before I start cutting any metal out of it - it's probably only held together with the paint as it is!

This is my first effort and I'm sure I could do better, but as long as it holds, the only one who will ever see it is me!

I had a weird thing happen when I was trying to weld it up - I was just putting a couple of tacks in to see if I had the angle and spacing right, and it just would not weld. I was using a couple of very strong magnets to hold things in place, so I switched over to regular c clamps - it immediately welded up normally! I think I've run into this before, where a magnet somehow screws with the welding arc. At any rate, I'm glad I figured it out cause I was getting pretty frustrated with it!

I'm going to clean up the edges and weld splatter before I'm done with it.

Looking good Dave!

As far as the welding and magnets goes, I have always heard it referred to as arc blow, no idea if that is what it is officially called or not. The stronger the magnets the more pronounced it can be. You can usually mitigate it by moving the ground clamp around and the closer to the weld the better, also located between the weld and the magnet if at all possible. Obviously once tacked remove the magnets to fully weld. Basically the magnetic field of the magnets is interfering with the magnetic field of the welder.

Well, given that the welder I'm using is 35 years old and only a 120V and I'm welding 1/4" metal, I need everything it's got!

I'll just use clamps from here on out, cause I'm getting good penetration and nice smooth welds now.

Can't decide if I need to gusset the sides of that mount now or not.....I think it's plenty as is, but I might go all out and fill it in.

I'd gusset it myself

Yeah, I'm thinking the same way......I found a metal store that's not halfway to St. Louis like the one I used to use, and they have pretty much everything! They're in Olathe which is only about a 10 minute drive instead of 1/2 hour or more......prices are double what they were a few years ago, but I got everything I need for now....

So I picked up a load of metal - it only came to a little over $100 - and that should allow me to do all the bracing of the shell, finish the motor mounts and a few other mods....

I've been getting the rear hubs all figured out - I bought the hub and disc rotors, pressed the hub into the rear bearing and found that my standard offset wheels rub the trailing arm. I also decided to change out the studs so I don't have to carry metric nuts and English ones both. I can always just use a spacer, or If I'm having Force Racing build me some custom wheels they can change the offset for me.

Clancy uses 7/16" studs instead of the 3/8" that come in the Sprite/Mini hubs, however the rear hubs are for a Miata, and use 10mm studs - which is slightly bigger than 7/16". In fact, the 7/16" studs just dropped into the holes......also the spacing is just very slightly wrong, so as you tighten the lugs you slightly bend your studs. To fix both of these problems, Clancy loaned me a fixture he uses when he drills out the hubs, I put the new, slightly smaller diameter 7/16" studs into the holes and bolted them to the fixture - that pulled them straight and there was just enough play in the holes that the studs came out straight too. Then I welded them to the hub. I just tried them in the wheel and they pull up nice and true....

Next I'll press out the 3/8"studs from the Mini front hubs, drill the holes out and press in the 7/16" studs....since those holes will be the right size I won't have to weld them, the splines will hold just fine. 7/16" studs will torque at 70-80 ft lbs too (compared to standard Mini studs at 45 ft lbs), which I think will be a good idea considering the extra HP and sticky tires I plan to run

The reason I'm focusing on these rear hubs is once I have the motor mounts finished up then I can measure the length of the axles I'll need and get the shop started on them......no telling how long it will take them to make them but judging on their past performance I'm expecting it to take a couple of months!

Built the motor mount for the transmission end today, next I'll build the connections to the gearbox.....then do the same on the other end.

Once that's done I'll need to build a bracket to keep the engine from rocking - I've got a couple of good ideas but haven't finalized any plans yet.

That one looks solid

I'm probably going to redo the other one, I'm not completely happy with it.....

Ran out of welding wire, I usually just buy it from Harbor Freight, but they didn't have any of the 2 lb .023 spools I usually buy, nor did I see any of the 11lb spools either. I asked at the desk and they found  a lone 11 lb spool " in back" that I think had been on the shelf a long time, based on the amount of dust on it, so they gave me 20% off. It's .025 which actually worked a little better on this 1/4" thick metal, but we'll see how it does on the thin sheet metal.

Next I need to find where I put my extra tips as this one is toast......I just saw them the other day but could not find them tonight.....naturally!

I bought a package at HF, but they don't fit this welder at all.

I just had to buy another 11lb spool, but I use 0.030.  Had to go to the other HF to find it.  I keep a lot of tips on hand so no issues there.

I borrowed a Miata axle from Jesse Prather as he races Miatas, so once I finish the motor mounts and I'm sure of the engine position then I can pop the outer one in the hub and measure the short axle's length, then with that info they can get started on mine - I'm guessing it will take them a couple of months so the sooner I can get them moving the better.

I'm going to send them the short Ford axles, there should be enough length that they might be able to just cut them off and machine the one end to match the Miata CV joint, that way they only have to do one end instead of two, or if they want to start from scratch they'll have the Ford end to copy.

I was at Kent Prather's shop last night and we talked about how to change the studs in the front Mini hubs, it's going to be a bit more complicated than just drilling the holes bigger. Turns out the Mini studs have a taper around then to fit a taper in the hub - I've never paid any attention to them before so I didn't know they were made like this..... anyway Kent says the right way to do it is to send it to a machine shop.....have the spacing indicated, then set up on a CNC to make sure the holes are centered and spaced properly. He said the last time he did a set of hubs for an MG he did them on his mill and they vibrated like crazy, so he did this and it fixed the issue. I was just going to drill them and poke them in.....

Motor mount on the gearbox end designed and built.....this is all 1/4" thick stuff, but I'm debating whether I should make the vertical legs out of bigger stuff - they're currently 1 1/4" wide, I have some 1 1/2" and even some 2" wide stock......I'm sure it's plenty strong enough as it is, so maybe I'll just go with what I have.

I decided to just go with what I already had built, and after getting it all welded up I think it's going to be plenty strong enough.

I reinforced the mount on the other end by cutting some legs for the angle iron and filled in the gaps on the mount, it feels a lot stronger now too. It fits, but barely - but it does clear and I don't expect it to move around much if at all.
I also cut the plates to mount to the frame. Now I need to cut out the parts to connect the plates to the mount and weld them all up.

Once that's done the next order of business is to engineer the engine steady mount. I have some ideas on how to do that and I may copy those used on Minis but I'll have to make it a bunch stronger, and adjustable.

With that done and the engine firmly mounted in the frame I can accurately measure the axles and get those started at the machine shop - who knows how long that will take to get made?

Next I'll put the front end together - once my front hubs are back - then cut out the hole in the back and mount the subframe (sans engine) in the back of the car. At that point it will at least be on its wheels and I can see if any of this stuff is going to work!

Drove about an hour and a half to the machine shop in the middle of nowhere Kansas (well, about 5 miles east of Burlingame) to pick up my front hubs. I sent them there because I wanted to use bigger (thicker) studs like on the rear and Kent told me if I didn't have a machine shop indicate them and bore them on the CNC mill the front end would shake. OK.....

So he bored the holes as instructed, but didn't machine the boss for clearance around the head of the stud.....I was resigned to the idea that I would have to have that done either at Kent's or a local machine shop, but it turned out he was there (they had left the parts in the outer office in case I came when they were not in the shop). I showed him what I wanted and in 5 min they were done! He runs a really top notch clean as a pin huge shop in which they build front engined drag cars - big supercharged Hemi motors and all! They build pretty much every part in house, too.

https://neilparks.com/

I would love to use him for all sorts of stuff as his price was very reasonable and his workmanship is first rate, but he's just so far out there...... but what a place. Every kind of machine you can think of and some you can't - or at least some I didn't recognize, and the place was immaculate.

So, now I have everything I need to build up the front end, so that's next.

Those look nice!

The guy did a great job, I pressed all the studs in and they fit perfectly....I wish his shop was closer, I'm sure I would be throwing him some more work!

The new mig tips I ordered are wrong, and don't fit my welder. So, Ima try Northern tool - their descriptions aren't very thorough, and if they don't have any I'll try the local air gas store where I buy my mig gas. If they don't, I did find some on Ebay, but they were expensive......

They're a small size tip 5mm x .08 thread, most are 6mm X 1.

I also need the gas shield, I bought one and it fits but it's too short. To make it work I added a rubber washer under the threads to seal the gas, and shortened the contact tip but that's not a particularly good solution. It would be better if I can find the right parts, but this is an OLD welder - I bought it new in 1990, so almost 35 years ago. It still works just fine so I don't see any reason to replace it.

Can you just buy a replacement gun?  Meaning the entire hose/gun from the welder that is updated to fit replacement tips and parts easily? 

Probably, but if I were going that route, I'd probably just buy a new welder - like I said this one is almost 35 years old! I'm sure they've made significant improvements since then.

I don't know if the common "Tweco" style torch will fit inside the welder.....I'll have to look into that. Most of the ones I've seen have been pretty spendy - around $150-200.

I have found the tips I need online tho.....so I'll order those today just to get going again. The one tip I have left is on its last legs!

The gun trigger had partially broken on mine a few years back.  I bought some generic replacement and it wasn't very expensive. Has been working without issue since.  I'm getting low on gas and will need to fill the tank soon. I've done so much welding on Brants car it's not even funny.

Mine is still working OK, once I have these mounts all done it'll just be sheet metal work and brackets and such. I'll need to build a bracket for the shift cables to attach to the gearbox, and I'm sure there will be other bits and bobs.....Oh yeah, I have to build the brackets to mount the fuel tank to the subframe.

With the engine mounted in the rear subframe next I'll build the front subframe up, then cut out the hole in the back and see if I can mount the rear sub into the car. With that done it will roll on its own wheels.

Dave Long wants to use the lift for a bit, he wants to pull the engine out of his Sprite racecar and see about some oil leaks, a new clutch, radiator and a few other "maintenance" items before his first race some time in April. He also has a new core support and left front fender to replace after smacking the wall at the last race at OIR in October.

Got some more done on the hot rod today, the engine end motor mount is all welded up and bolted in, and I got a pretty good start on the engine steady.....it's a little crude looking at this point but it will do the job I'm pretty sure. The last bits I need to make are the brackets I'll weld to the frame. There is a pretty large rubber bush I need to press in the frame end of the steady, then drill some holes in the brackets for the thru bolt to go thru, weld the brackets on and that's it.

With that done I'll get the final measurements for the axle lengths and see about getting them made.  I sent a note off to the machine shop in Burlingame on Thursday to see about having them make them for me, but I may not hear back from them till after the holidays. I was kinda hoping to take the axles up to them before Xmas so that I could move a little further up the line, but it's not a critical thing at this point.

Today I finished the brackets for the engine steady..... I have the frame all marked up where I need to weld them but I may not get to that today. I also did some additional welds and clean up on the engine end, so it looks a little more presentable now - although I did that after I took these pics.

I also found the missing 2 wheel studs - Clancy had them - and got them pressed into the front hubs, so that's done and I can start building the front end once these brackets are welded on.

Did you make the metal brackets that go over the tube framing and if so how did you cut the radius so clean?

I did make the brackets. I took a 3" wide piece of 1/4" flat bar and used a 1 1/2" hole saw to drill a hole, then split the bar down the middle.... :grin:

Looks good 👍

I keep looking at that 3/8" bolt on the engine steady and wishing I'd done it 1/2" instead, but I didn't have any 1/2" bungs. Now I wonder if there's enough meat in the bung I used to drill and tap it for a 1/2" bolt? I originally put it in there in case I needed to adjust the length on the steady, but now that I have it all made I kinda know the length. My OCD might kick in here and make me remake it......

I'm also looking at those two pads already welded on the frame and wondering if I can use those somehow for a rear sway bar....

More as it happens.....

I'd probably upgrade to the 1/2" now rather than later when the 3/8 can't handle whatever load is on it. 

Well, a couple of guys on Grass Roots Motorsports said that the 3/8 will be plenty strong enough.....I'm going to leave it for now and carry on with other things so I can keep making progress.

Since it's an easy to reach bolt-on part, I can easily remake it if I have to later.

A little pause in the action on the hot rod.....holidays, my granddaughter's wedding in Phoenix which I drove to and so on. I did get the parts I needed to fix my welder and now it works well again, so back to work. I also got pretty much all the extra metal I need to make supports, brackets and other bits.

Now if I can just get Mini Tec to answer the damn phone - I still need my rear coil overs, brake calipers and they owe me some axles.

I did finally get the Ford axles taken apart - I was trying to remove the outer CV's off the axle shafts and they would not budge. The funny thing is they moved on the splines OK, and there wasn't any rust or damaged splines on the ends of the axle shafts. The final answer was to cut the races with my angle grinder so I could get all the balls out, then once the only thing left was the inner race - I took that over to the 20 ton press - it didn't budge! So out came the death wheel again......I thought cutting a split in the inner race would release it.....nope! I wound up cutting 4 or 5 places on the race in two before that final bit popped off! What a pita!

Once I had the axles on the bench I found some interesting differences, so I'm going to re-measure for the lengths I need. My plan is to use the Ford Axles rather than start from scratch. But, if they decide that won't work then we'll get some Cromemoly bar stock and get to making them up - at least they'll have the Ford axles to use to model the inner ends off of....if I can't get a response from MiniTec I may take them out to the guy in Burlingame, tho he warned me that it would be a while before he could get to them.

These are quite a bit thicker than the Miata axles MiniTec uses so there should be plenty of meat to cut the new splines on the outer ends.....once I decide exactly how long to make them. It would help if I had my coil overs so I'd know exactly how much suspension travel I have to account for, but I think I can get close enough.

First pic shows the difference in the inner ends, second pic the size difference with a Miata axle (top)

Finally heard back from MiniTec this morning after leaving yet another message, they claim my coilovers will be here on Friday. I need those so I can see how much axle length I need to account for suspension travel. Once I have that I can send off my axles with the measurements and get them started on those.

It's been 1 1/2 months since I first contacted them about the shocks and axles, I must have sounded more pissed off in the last phone message I left yesterday!

While they're doing that I will get the hole cut in the back and start fitting up the subframe into the car.....that will be a big moment in this build!

I must just be really lucky, because I almost always get someone on the phone at MiniTec whenever I call them.

I've never been able to just call and talk to someone at MiniTec, it's always a game of phone tag!

I think they do pretty good work, and while I think they get premium prices for their stuff - considering how long they've been doing it, so any engineering or jig building has long ago been amortized - their stuff is solid - now. Their first attempts were not so great, but they made good with improved parts that have held up.

Don's Pup was one of their first builds and I had to redo his subframe as it broke and was poorly designed, and he also had to replace both his upper control arms that broke. They came up with a better design for those and he has over 40K miles on it now. I'll bet he has more miles on his than anyone else who's done a Vtec conversion - he drives it everywhere he can! He did have it off the road for three years tho when we rebuilt his engine, subframe and changed the final drive so call it 3K a year.

Yeah they did have some quality issues out of the gate. They did mine right after Don's. It took a couple of trips back there to get the torque steer settled down and take care of some electrical gremlins. But (fingers crossed) I've never had any issues with the subframe or suspension parts. I'm sure I don't have near as many miles on mine as Don does. I've probably driven it less than 1000 miles a year.

A "shocking" development! Only took 7 months to get them.....I have a feeling MiniTec "forgot" to order them......I left the springs off for now so I could measure suspension travel and get a final length for my axles. I'll ship those off with the measurements in a few days if it ever warms up. Currently -2 in KC, headed for a high of maybe 10, but it's supposed to get into the twenties and maybe even the thirties by the end of the week.

These QA1 shocks appear to be a well made  bit of kit, with adjustments for both compression and rebound

I've been re-watching early episodes of Project Binky to get some ideas on brackets and bracing the shell.

Today the weather was pretty nice, next 10 days it's going to be winter full on again, with snow, really cold days and nights etc, so I got into the shop today to get some work done on the hot rod Mini.

Not looking for them and of course they show up! I spent several days looking for the tips for my welder and could not find them no matter how hard I looked, so I finally found some new ones in St. Louis and ordered plenty of them - they came in in time to do some welding on the Sprite racecar last week and today I'm getting ready to weld some braces up for the hot rod, and there they are......in plain sight.....in a drawer I looked in 10 times!

Anyway......today we got started on making a big hole in the back of the hot rod, Don drilled out some spot welds while I measured up some small plates to bolt onto the body, then weld some bars to ....they came out pretty good I think.

I'm not done tho, I need to build some more cross braces in the back of the car too.....

We also stripped the suspension and motor mounts off the subframe to make it lighter and easier to manhandle into the back of the Mini once we get the hole cut out. Still a LOT more to do......I'm really concerned about how rusty this shell is and whether cutting this big hole will cause it to shift around - so I'll be building a lot more bracing in. Of course, any time you add bracing like this you wind up making it that much harder to reach the next thing you need to cut or weld! I have lots of new sheet metal to weld in but I think if I can get the subby bolted into place it may help to hold things still as I cut out and weld in new pieces.

Built some cross braces, but haven't welded them in yet. I built all the braces welded onto plates and bolted in place, so I don't have to cut them out then repair the cut areas later.

Once I have those welded in I'll drill a hole where they cross and put a bolt in to tie them together too. All the braces make getting to the areas I need to work in a lot more difficult, makes me wish I had a rotisserie so I could roll it upside down and work from the bottom - I did that with my Jag, it sure made welding in new panels a lot easier!

Then I'll start cutting metal out of the back, I'm a little concerned about how weak the structure is back there as it's SO rusted out, but we'll see. You can see an example in the lower left corner of the floor, there's a big hole there, but the rest of the floor isn't much better.....I think it's all being held together by the paint!

I have an interesting idea of something to do with the seatback panel, I'll see if it will pan out later.

I have replacement sheet metal for all the rusted out areas that will remain once I've cut out the big hole, and the subframe will bring a lot of rigidity back once it's bolted to good metal too.

Pulled all the braces out and finish welded them, then bolted everything back inside - and put a bolt between the two long cross braces. It's a small thing but it really stiffened them up.

Of course, it makes it way more difficult to get where I need to to cut out the back sheet metal....not sure how I'm going to work around that yet. Sure would be a lot easier if I had a rotisserie, then I could just work from the bottom.

After doing a tidy up in the shop and putting away a bunch of tools it will be time to start making a hole......gonna need to wait a couple of days tho, our temps have dropped into the single digits and will stay there for about 10 days. It costs a lot to heat my shop up and it's 38* in there right now.......I may have to wait a bit for mother nature to turn the thermostat up some....

I was going to build a rotisserie using a couple of the cheap harbor freight engine stands and some 1x2 tubing for the parts that attach to the front and back of the car. Never got around to figuring out if the engine stands would be tall enough for it to rotate. It was a while ago that I looked at it but it seemed like an easy way to go about building one.

I've seen a number of them for sale but they're all miles away from me and I don't have a truck to go get them. Plus too and also, they all want $12-1500 bux. And I would still need to make whatever brackets to attach it to the lift. Mind you, those are really deluxe models......still, I wonder if I could get most or all of my money back after I'm done with it? Cause I sure don't have any place to store it.

It would sure be handy to do this work......

Fence piping at the hardware store would do the trick.  Mine are just cobbled together oil field pipes. 

Yeah the "fancy" ones are always expensive, I have never seen one near enough or cheap enough for sale that would tempt me to go get it. I have a truck and trailers so that's not an issue, if you find a cheap one let me know I would go get it so long as it's not too far and I am sure we could work out a deal once you are done with it.

I am sure I could also probably find old oil field pipe to cobble something together like Dan's, that stuff is just so heavy though it seemed like it would more feasible to build something like the ones that attach front/rear and do not traverse all the way through the car like the pipe models. I drew this up a long time ago one day when I was bored. The yellow bits are the parts the attach to the car, for ease/speed of construction was thinking the grey bits would be replaced by the cheap engine stands. The yellow tubing parts were about $50 worth of material at the time, probable more now. Also the grey bits could be significantly simplified in various ways to make them a lot cheaper to build. I was probably going to do more of the triangle style stands like below if I ever built the whole thing from scratch.

The one from Huddersfield Supply is cheap but would probably cost as much in freight as the unit  :rolleyes:

https://www.minispares-online.co.uk/roller-jig-powder-coated-for-classic-mini/ (https://www.minispares-online.co.uk/roller-jig-powder-coated-for-classic-mini/)

Yeah I contacted them a few years ago because it was actually cheaper than building one. Shipping was actually more than cost of the rotisserie at the time. Can't imagine its any better now.

There's an issue with the rear mounting, it's attached to the shock towers which I'll be cutting out. It's possible I could attach it to the parcel shelf, but I'm not sure that would be strong enough.....dunno.

Although I like the way that one's built, but the part is £375, and the shipping was quoted at £800!!!!

Mine bolts to the rear parcel shelf.  But depending how much you're cutting out, may not be an option. 

most I have seen attach to the shock towers and rear parcel shelf, but you could probably attach to the underside of the rear parcel and the seat back/rear bulkhead somehow instead and still be strong enough?

Except all that will be gone!   :grin:

You could increase your attach points on the B pillar and use that as a place to mount a rotisserie.

all things are possible.....I also could use the seatbelt anchors points on the C pillars....but before I go to all that trouble I'm going to cut out the big hole, and then see about welding in the first panel....if that goes well I'll just carry on.

Another possibility is to just roll it on its side on a couple of tires or a mattress, like they do in England

I've been just using a jack stand against the roof gutter on Brants car.  No need for mattresses.

I rolled mine over onto a roof rack for doing the lower panels.  I only put it onto a rotisserie (https://www.restorationmini.com/forum/index.php?topic=2590) once the shell was complete, to make it easier to do the bodywork and paint.

I remember that!

I have a scissor lift so I can get the car at a good height to do work, especially on the outer sides. but bodywork and paint will fall on someone else's shoulders..   :grin:

I plan to get all the metal work done to a good standard so body work will hopefully be minimal. 

I initially rolled Brants car on it's side using the jack stand on the gutter because I didn't feel like setting up the rotisserie that day.  Then I realized it's pretty easy to work on like this.  I don't have metal legs in the way either.

I made a hole! Next I'll cut out the seat backrest, that should give me pretty good access to see what I need to cut next, and how to get to it. It pretty much filled the house with smoke smell, both from the metal and the undercoating I cut thru. This is going to be a pretty long and involved process. MiniTec sent me some pics of how much they cut out when they did this conversion on one of their cars, I think they went a bit further than necessary but considering they put a Honda V-6 in theirs that made about the same HP as what I'm doing maybe it doesn't matter?

We're headed for a spell of brutal cold, with lows down to -11* and highs around 5*, so I won't be doing anything in the shop till nature bumps the thermostat back up a bit in a week or so......

Is there any reason you didn't go ahead and cut out the wheel arches and the lower part of the rear end panel?

Yes, I'm not convinced I need to cut out the whole panel of the arch, I'm thinking just the part where the shock tower is,, and then plate over that with flat plate. Trying to keep as much strength in the back as I can. Same with the boot floor.

Next I'll cut out the seat bottom, then the companion bins, then the floor....that should get me close to being able to do a trial fit.

I did go ahead and cut out the backrest tonight, but given our weather pretty much all next week I think that's as far as I'll get for now.

It took just over two weeks, but MiniTec say they got my axles today   :dance:

They say they can turn them around to me in a week......we'll see. I hope they return them via FedEx or UPS tho, cause I'm reading that the post office has close to a million undelivered packages, some from before Xmas!

I've been studying my pics above, trying to plan out where/how to cut out the remaining metal so I can start to fit the subframe in. I found that it bolts on where the old subframe did, at the front, and one of those bolts broke off in the captive nut, so I may need to get out the acetylene torch to get that out. I did buy a set of the heel board repair panels just in case, but after looking at them I figured I could have easily made them myself, since instead of using captive nuts in a bracket they simply welded nuts to the back of the new panel - shoot - I could have done that!

The other interesting part is I only need the outermost portion of the heel board, right where those bolts are.....if mine is rusted badly (and it looks like it is) I may do something creative with the new panels to shore up the area a little more. I won't know till I get the rest of the sheet metal out.....

Once the subframe is fit into place and bolted down I can start to replace all the rust with new metal - there will be a LOT of that based on what I'm seeing. Looks like I also need to order a new inner fender/wheel well as the right side has some huge holes in it that I didn't see till I was reviewing the pics. Pic below is of the inner arch, looking up from below.

I'll also need to smooth out some of the sharp edges I left so I don't slice myself to ribbons!

Binky has nothing on this car when it comes to rusty bits!

I did a massive amount of cutting out sheet metal and rust today, still have quite a bit to go but my back called it quits. It was so nice today - mid 50's - warm enough to be able to open the back door and run a fan to suck the smoke and smells out so they don't go into the house.

First I cut out the seat bottom, I thought about trying to save it by drilling out the spot welds then I decided that was just a waste of time and used the saw and cut off wheels on it. I put a new blade in the air powered recip saw and what a huge difference that made - I guess I didn't realize just how dull the blade had gotten. I also found I had bought some small fine tooth blades that let me control the cut a little better, the new one of those went thru the sheet metal like butta!

I'm going to wind up replacing a large part of the floors as they've been bent up badly and have rust both on the edges and in various places along the center tunnel. Oh boy! s/

Next I went after the companion bins - again I thought to just drill out the spot welds and decided to just cut them out. I seriously doubt I'll be using any part of them unless it's to build some cubbies or covers somewhere.

Once those were out of the way I went ahead and trimmed up the floor, the only reason to do this at this point is to do a trial fit of the subframe......I'm almost there now. I still need to remove a few brackets and trim up some edges, then I'll see how it fits and what more needs to go.

My current plan is to fit the subby and use it to help locate the new panels and stiffen the shell as I cut metal out and replace it.

I managed to get the rest of the sheet metal cut out today, although I see I still have to do some clean up and trimming, but I decided to do a trial fit of the frame first.

It didn't go.

So next I'm going to try something different......but first I'm going to try and get ahold of Mini Tec and see how they do it.

My next attempt will be to go in thru the door cause it simply won't go from the back, unless they have some secret way of doing it that I haven't figured out yet!  :rolleyes:  I'm not keen on that cause it means removing the bracing on one door and the cross brace......I got it almost all the way up, but the forward lip of the frame is supposed to go over the top of the floor, and that wasn't happening.

Here's a pic of the pile of metal I've taken out so far.....

Hard for me to tell by that picture what the fitment hang up is.

The front lip of the subframe is supposed to go over the edge of the floor, coming up from below there doesn't seem to be a way to do that - it's just too tight. Next thing I'll try is to go thru the door and drop it down into place - that's going to take some real maneuvering, I think it will go, but I really don't know if that will let me get it in place or not.

They don't send instructions or anything......based on the few pics I got from them of their cars, it looks like it goes in from the bottom.

I have a call in to MiniTec right now, we'll see if/when I get a call back.

From the photo, it appears that interference lies between the frame and the inner edge of the wheel well. It looks as if the wheel wells need to be notched and trimmed for the the frame to slide upward. Are there other points of interference not evident in the photo?

Will it rotate around the rear so the front portion would go up and in first and then sit down on the floor when the rear is rotated up and in? Like Scargo says though it looks like the wheel arches will be a problem once you get that far? It is kind of hard to tell what's going on at the front in those pics though.

There's no interference on the sides.....the rear upright is hard against the bracket, the front upright is hard against the floor edge, so it can't go forward or backward, and the whole front bracket is still under the edge of the floor. To go where it needs to it would have to move back about 2-3", so the lip could go over the back edge of the floor.....which it can't do because the rear upright is against the bracket.

I'm half considering cutting those rear brackets off and either making them a bolt on deal or welding them back in place after the subframe is in place......that way the whole subframe could move backwards enough to go over the floor and slide forwards into place.

MiniTec's pics

The way the mini tec picture shows it up on the 4x4 at the front with the rear rotated lower is what I was poorly trying to describe in my previous post, lower the rear down enough so the uprights stay below the opening, that way it can move back far enough to get the front lifted in and over the floor, then shove it as far forward as you can and rotate the rear up and in.

Not saying it can be done, but that first picture is sort of showing exactly what I was thinking.

The first Mini Tec picture also shows the whole face (and bracket) of each rear wheel arch removed - not just the shock tower section.

Yes, and if you look at my pics, (edit: oops, looks like I didn't post those pics.....sorry) that's exactly what I did, however the rear uprights can't go any further back - and rotating the front up pushes the rear uprights back, which they can't do.....I also removed the entire vertical face of the wheel arches......there's no issue with room on the sides.

I'm just going to remove those rear brackets and build them differently so they'll just bolt in, that way it will go in easily.

Minitec did not return my call, they simple emailed me the same set of pics they did before. They have never been known for their customer service and they are living up to their reputation brilliantly.

Once I do manage to get the subframe bolted in, next I'll have to figure out how to start replacing bad metal - ie: what to cut first - there's so much rot especially on the right side sills and such it's hard to decide what to do first.

Ok, so it's in the hole!!!

I did have to carve those rear brackets out of the way, then it went in easily and everything lines up as it should. I still have to do some small trimming here and there and clean up all the sharp edges.

Next I'll start thinking about where to start the rust repairs, I'm thinking the best place would be the rear passenger side where so much metal is missing.....

Looking at the rear panel, I bought an entire new rear panel but the only place its really bad is on the bottom edge, so taking a page out of Dan's playbook maybe I'll just replace that lower couple of inches. Of course the boot floor and lower valance also go together at the same place, and I have new pieces to go there as well. I'm thinking maybe weld those two together and put them in place, then replace that lower edge. Dunno, I'll need to think about it for a bit. There's nothing there below that edge, it all rusted away.....

Did you buy the entire rear panel with boot opening? 

I also need to fit my seats and so I can decide which ones I'm going to use. I used the seats that came with the car in my green car on our trip to South Dakota and found them really comfortable......I also have a set of modern seats out of a WRX that I ran for a bit in the green car....I don't know if they will clear the door bars of the cage, so that will be one of the things I need to determine.

Quote from: 94touring on February 26, 2025, 02:34:46 PMDid you buy the entire rear panel with boot opening? 

Yeah. I also have the individual parts.....I'll take a pic at some point

What about the seats I gave you that were in the truck?  You have the one there to tets

Oh, I forgot about those! Yeah, so three different possibilities....

Quote from: MiniDave on February 26, 2025, 02:47:56 PM

Quote from: 94touring on February 26, 2025, 02:34:46 PMDid you buy the entire rear panel with boot opening? 

Yeah. I also have the individual parts.....I'll take a pic at some point

I'd just cut across the lower part of the C pillar like I just did for Brant.  Doing just the bottoms makes for a lot of welding and grinding in the boot opening channels that's no fun. At least your window frame size will match.

Yes, the one I got just goes up a couple inches on the C pillar.....

Today I needed to deal with some rust - almost every post from here on out can start with that sentence!  :grin:

The new subframe bolts in one place right where the old one did, and the right side was rust held together with paint and seam sealer. So I built a new piece from scratch - I had to make sure it was in exactly the right place so the subframe would be square, I'm guessing that the original pieces were - at least it all measured out good.

So I built the new piece, welded it in, cleaned up all the brackets that didn't need to be there, took off all the pointy rusty bits that were catching my back every time I went in and out of the hole and by the end of the day I put the subby back in and it bolted right up nicely. That done I went ahead and drilled the holes for the rear support in the package tray and also the holes in the floor that the lip of the subby goes over.

There are several places in the back there that will need to be patched, then I can start replacing all the rot in the floors, door step and sills, that should stiffen things up nicely. The inner wheel arch on the right side is more hole than metal, and the left isn't much better. What I do to fix all this will partly be determined by whether I wind up using the big Fortech flares or go with Sportpaks.

But before I do even that  I may go ahead and reinstall the rear suspension so I can see where the wheels are going to wind up, and how far out of the body they'll stick.

So, big day today.....I bolted the suspension back in and fitted the rear shocks and wheels.

The suspension was a bitch kitty as it's held by heim joins that are fairly buried under the lip of the subframe, and of course they ride on shoulder bolts. That's not so bad but there are also a couple of spacer washers, and fitting the shoulder thru the bracket, thru the washer and into the joint, thru the other washer then thru the bracket - and get a nut and washer on the threads was......well, difficult and awkward.

After I managed to get the left one done I realized that If I swung the arms all the way down I had enough access that I could at least see what I was trying to do. So it's all bolted up and I took a few pics to see how the wheels would look in the openings. They're nicely centered, but it's going to sit pretty low it looks like. One pic at mid range of the suspension travel and one at full extension.

It was exciting to see it looking more like a car again!

Don't think I would trust this even with a Mini body on it! 

burned rotisserie (https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1567659800565919/?ref=product_details&referral_code=marketplace_top_picks&referral_story_type=top_picks)

Yikes, looks like it must have been a pretty hot fire too with as warped as some of the metal looks. Not sure how they think it's worth $400. I would not drive too terribly far to pick it up even if it was free!

Exactly! I don't think there's even $100 of scrap there!

My inner wheel wells are supposed to be here tomorrow, but we had a blizzard blow thru so it won't surprise me if they're a day late - still, DHL has been pretty good about hitting their delivery dates or even being a day early. We didn't get a lot of snow, only about 2 inches, but with the cold wind it feels more like ice than snow. Lots of downed power lines, big tree branches etc.  We lost power briefly several times during the night, and this morning the wind is still blowing hard.

It's interesting that we must have had enough warm days that all the concrete has not frozen over, in fact most of it is clear of ice or snow, all of that seems to be in the yards. I was concerned that the combination of ice and strong winds would down a lot more trees, and while there are some large branches down, it's not too bad.....not like storms we've had before where it sounded like shotguns going off as the trees broke.

So, back to the car......I've decided to work from the back to the front in replacing metal.....to that end I think I've figured out what to do on the wheel openings - it will require a lot of fabrication but should give me the look I'm after. Once I've got those in, I can build all the rest of the metal to them, including the rear support brackets for the subframe. According to MiniTec you're supposed to use where the original subframe bolted on at the back, but I could not get this thing to fit if those were in place, and since they were rusted down to nothing and had no strength I knew I'd be cutting them off anyway. So, I'll need to build those, but before I can I'll need to build all the sheet metal to attach them to, as there's nothing but air back there now!

I'll have to build those brackets so they can be bolted on, to let me be able to get the subframe in and out. As it sits now it goes right in with no hassle. I plan to cut the wheel openings up to within about 1/2" of the holes that the sport pak arches attach to, that should give me enough clearance for the tires. Once those are in place I can start building back all the missing sheet metal. If you look at the last pic, there's no Q panel, sill or anything attaching the inner wheel well to the rest of the car, I'll have to build all of that......there's a lot of rust right where the inner wheel well welds to the q panel, so I'll remove that in the process and I'm hopeful that I'll find good metal to weld to.

Starting the modification to the wheel wells.....I made a "Binky Bending Tool" and I'll turn the lip up tomorrow.....I hate sanding paint and body putty! I'm seriously considering rolling it out the garage door and using paint stripper on it! The original paint under where the arches were is all cracked, I'm surprised the repaint is still hanging on as tightly as it is!

Are you leaving any kind of arch on the inside of the rear quarter panels? 

Yes, since the right side was mostly rust and holes, I got new ones. I'm also moving it upward on the Q panel when I weld it back in. Although I'm not sure how much good they'll do since probably half of the tire is outside the fender (but under the Sport Pak arch)

Second pic is what's left of the right side inner wheel well.....bracket is for the rear mounted windshield washer bottle. I may take that off and remount it back in the front trunk area now.

I don't know if I'll be using all of the floor panels, but there should be enough to fix the sills and the front edge where it's attached at the bulkhead floor at least.

My next and ongoing challenge is to start getting some of this rot repaired.

My seatbelts came in too, and since I've removed the companion bins where they used to attach I bolted in a door bar to see where I can install them. I can either weld a bracket onto the door bar or build a bracket off the body, not sure which way I'll go just yet. Some of it may be determined by which set of seats I wind up using - right now I have three sets to choose from!

I guess I'm curious how well those will fit now that the radius is different.  I wouldn't even bother rolling a lip outward. I'd just weld the inner arch repair panels to the quarter panel opening.  You wouldn't gain any additional strength by bending a lip in the quarter panels with the inner arch welded into place if that was a concern.  You really just need a flat buffer in case a tire came into contact with a knife edge of a arch opening with it being lipless.

That's why I was planning to turn the lip out, that would give me a 1/2" flat area if the tire contacted it instead of a sharp or even rounded off edge....it would also be easier to weld together, either plug weld or maybe even try my buddy Jim Allen's spot welder.

There's a lip on those repair arches that would overlay where the quarter panel lip was.  If you want it even wider then yeah bend out the quarter panel or weld in a strip of sheet however wide you want it. In my mind I think you might have an issue with the inner repair arches actually fitting now though.

We'll see......right now it seems like they'll meet up just fine...... :017:

Today was copy Binky day!

I made a tool just like they used on Project Binky to bend up the lip under the arches, and it worked! I didn't do quite as good a job of cutting out the q-panel as they did, you learn as you go, right? The other side should go better.

So once the hole was cut, I used the tool to start bending the lip up, a little at a time, till I got it the full 90*. I had to do a little trimming of some other brackets and in fact I still need to ease one of them about another 1/4" but the inner wheel well fit and lined up nicely with the new lip. Once I'm happy with the fitment of everything I'll weld 'er in place.

Then I'll do the same to the other side and bolt the wheels back on and see how the clearance looks. It should be quite a bit better as I removed about 1 1/2" of metal. Once both sides are welded in place I think the next thing is to replace the rear panel.

With that in place the boot floor lip (only about 2" of that will go back in) and lower valance can go in. That should stiffen things up all across the rear of the car. Then I'll weld in all the filler panels and build the rear braces for the subframe.

From there I'll work forward.....on the door step, floors and sills.

With those done I'll see about bolting in the rest of the cage. Once it's all welded and solid I'll put the motor in and start looking at all the other "to-do's'"

Today I wanted to assess my work before I did the same to the left side, so I took the springs off the shocks so I could move the trailing arms the full length of the shock travel. I put the tire back on and ran the suspension up as far as the shock would let it go. The first pic shows the clearance. The holes are for the attachment points of the Sport Pak arches, so it looks like they will clear ok.

The I went to the left, unmodified side. Second and third pics show the wheel won't go all the way up without hitting the lip, so I was justified in my thinking on cutting the lips up....

Lastly, today I gave the poor green Mini a bath - it hasn't been out of the garage for over three months so it was well past due for a good cleaning.

I decided to replace the rear panel in it's entirety, based partly on a recommendation from Dan - who pretty much knows about these things! I had another way to go , and I had panels for either choice....

First choice was to simply cut off the bottom, rusty bits and replace them with a panel made for that repair, in hindsight it might have been easier than drilling out all the spot welds and cleaning up that mess, but like I said....I think replacing the whole panel will give a better final result. I hope so at least.

1st pic is of the three repair panels, next pic shows the whole a panel removed.....I need to clean up any left over seam sealer and I'll need to get the flap disc after the remaining bits so I have a smooth seam to weld to. I also need to clean the e-coat off the joining surfaces of the new panel, and spray a little weld thru primer, then I'll be ready to weld er up.

I left a little at the top on the c pillars, I'll clamp the panel up in place then slice that for a clean joint.

1st test fit of the new panel....still a little trimming and clean up to do before I drag out the welder. I had hoped to get it welded on today cause the weather's been perfect.....mid 70's and dry. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain!......I also need to make a thousand holes to plug weld thru!

I've been going slow on this project, mostly because I don't really know what I'm doing!  :017:

Also, I don't want to weld something up only to have to tear it apart again, so I'm trying to make sure I'm doing this in a logical order that will all come together in the end.

So I marked where I need to drill holes to plug weld the rear panel on, basically everywhere there wasn't a spot weld from before.

Then I decided it would be a good idea to clamp up the valance panel to make sure everything was square and fit the rear panel and the rest of the body. Before I did that I decided to weld the boot floor edge on first, that stiffens up the valance panel and gives something solid to weld the back panel to.

So I drilled a million little holes to plug weld the two together, bolted them up using the bumper attachment holes and filled in the holes with plug welds. So far so good, it still fits up nicely.

Next I needed to weld in the closing panels, but first I had to modify them as they no longer can go where they did originally - I had to make room for the subframe to be able to go in and out. Once this stuff is all welded together on the car I'll build some bolt-in brackets for the lower part of the subframe to attach to these panels. One end is done and I'll get started on the other later today.

This sheet metal is pretty thin so I have to be careful welding it together that I don't blow holes in it....so far I've been lucky. Once everything is welded up on the valance I'll clean up all the welds and give it a coat of weld thru primer before I attach it to the rear panel. I also need to cut out the left side wheel opening and remove the inner wheel well.

Then the next thing will be to weld those inner wheel wells in and tie it all back to the rear panel.

From there I'll move forward to repairing the floors and sills. I've got a really long way to go on this project, and I just need to get on with it!

You certainly have more than enough plug welds lol.  Because of the strength of a plug weld vs the factory spot welds if anything I space them out a little wider.  I did get a chuckle looking at the valance closing panel where you have 8 beefy plug welds and the factory uses 3 wimpy spot welds.  But, it's certainly not coming apart!! Usually anytime I'm done with welding a car back together I pity anyone who might have to try and break it down on some other restoration 50 years from now. I've had cars in my shop where someone or some shop used their own personal spot welder to add sills or front end panels and I could literally peel them off by hand. 

Ha!

I pop one in about every inch but you're right.....it's a bunch!

Now I have to go and grind all the nubs down on the valance so that it will fit up tightly against the rear panel. But first I'm going to cut out the other wheel well and opening, then I'll start welding it all together.

At least, that's the plan!

That ain't going nowhere!

It's been a month and 10 days since MiniTec got my axles and said turn around time would be a week.....yeah, right......

Today they called me back after I enquired about them - haven't touched them of course....they may build decent stuff but their customer service sucks majorly.

They wanted to know what engine I was using so they could supply new CV joints......even tho I sent explicit instructions with the axles with complete descriptions, measurements and instructions on what I needed done. <Sighs>

Now I'm concerned about what I'm going to get back, assuming I do get them back someday....or if I may be starting over from scratch with a local machinist.

Surprise! Today I got a note from MiniTec that my axles are on their way to me......they even sent a tracking number.

I have been working on the body, lots of cleanup, fitting, measuring, adjusting, more adjusting, thousands of holes drilled and swarf cleaned off but now it's all welded on again.

The back panel is done except for the c panel joint which is just tacked for now. The inner wheel wells are fitted and welded in too.

I've got the valance panel all ready to weld on but I'm not sure I can get the subframe in and out with it in place. I'm going to bolt it back on now that the back panel is solid and see what happens. I do still need to add a bracket for the inner fender brace between the wheel well and the parcel shelf panel. That will be pretty easy to weld in once I make them.

If the subframe will clear the rear valance then I can go ahead and weld it in place then build the brackets for the lower subframe mounts. Then I'll need to grind all the nibs off and give those spots a little primer.

Next project after all this - floors and sills. before I can tackle those I need to clean all the sound deadening off the floors. I have a tool for that.....

Today I'm grinding all the nubs off from my welds, it takes a while as I want to be careful not to damage the adjoining panel or grind thru the lip I just welded.

Like Dan says, 40 grit rolocs work pretty fast on them, but I just ran out so I need to find some more. I wonder if HF carries them? (Edit: Yes, they do - $4.50 for 3 in 36, 60 80 or 100 grit.)

I also got my axles today....another piece of the puzzle

You can get a 25 pack off Amazon for about $17 too. Ironically the guy who's car this was worked for 3M and gave me boxes of sandpaper as well as sanding disc for die grinders.  This was a decade ago by now and I'm still using the supply he gave me! 

Also, any ID on those CVs?  That's the type of thing I like to cross reference so I can buy a set on my own if needed without waiting 2 months for minitec to send me some.

The outer CV joints are Miatas, the inners will be the Ford ones of course. All the running gear on the subframe is Miata, hub bearings, disc rotors and brakes (that I haven't bought yet.) I wasn't sure they would be beefy enough, but they look plenty big! The wait of course was for them to machine the ends of the axles to fit the Miata CVs, getting the new CVs is as simple as going to Ebay or Amazon.

I'm undecided on rear calipers - I find "refurbished" ones from good sources easily, new calipers are difficult to source and three times as expensive, but given what's going on politically I figure I'd better get them ordered really soon, whichever way I go.

Nice connection at 3M, too bad he's out of the loop now.

Yes, I found the sanding discs all over Amazon, I bought a 50 pack for $20!

Still waiting on the part for my hole punch, I'm going to make a zillion holes over the next month or so, it will be a lot easier to use that tool than drilling them!

Still don't have the parts for my air punch,, tho they show them shipped out via USPS on March 27th......

Today I cut a chunk out of the old back panel to fill in the hole for the fuel filler. The panel is curved in two directions so there was no way I thought I could make a piece that would fit correctly.....Dan suggested cutting it out of the other side on the old panel and it fit beautifully!

Finished welding in the fuel filler hole.....lots more welding to do. Next up , finish the rear valance panel, then more on to the floors. Still don't have the parts for my hole punch, 20 days and counting. I'll call them later today and see what they have to say.....last week they assured me I'd have them by Friday.

So I called Astro Tool again today, and while they still insisted the parts had been sent out on the 27th, I decided to just not mess with it further - I also looked at my bank and saw that they hadn't charged me for the parts. So I asked if they could just sell me a mew tool, and maybe cut me a deal on it. She said they didn't sell direct to the customer, but since this had been going on so long she'd make it happen, and sell it to me for their cost and no shipping charge. I said ok and gave her my CC number again....

That was at about noon our time, at 5:30 a neighbor knocked on my door, holding an envelope - you can guess what it was! Yep....turns out the postal carrier had delivered it to the wrong house - a week ago!
He was a little lazy about getting it up to me, but the envelope did show a postal date of Mar 27th.

I put the one part in but it didn't fix it, so if they've already sent it I'll just keep the new one and get on with the project.

I had ordered everything I thought could give trouble the first time I called, so just as an exercise I may go ahead and take it all apart and see if I can figure out what's wrong. It sorta works, it clamps down hard, but they the jaws won't release all the way unless I disconnect the air hose......

The tool owes me nothing at this point, I bought it about 35 years ago and used it steadily for about 4 years building my Jag, so if I replace it now I can't complain.

Edit: The postal date on the envelope was March 27th, just as they said.

Quote from: MiniDave on April 14, 2025, 06:46:33 AMFinished welding in the fuel filler hole.....lots more welding to do. Next up , finish the rear valance panel, then more on to the floors. Still don't have the parts for my hole punch, 20 days and counting. I'll call them later today and see what they have to say.....last week they assured me I'd have them by Friday.

I would recommend welding the other sections from the back side. Minimal grinding required.  Work smarter not harder!

Can't do that on the C pillars, as they have a brace welded in there....

I had cut the line below the brace on Brants car, but I don't recall without seeing where the brace is on later shells.

Just saw this online. Probably not work for your hotrod as no room for the drive axles.

That's pretty cool!

No battery box?

Work plods along, today I built the corner lower brackets for the subframe. I bought some flanged nuts to weld into the sheet metal so I can unbolt them when I want to remove the subframe. Next I'll weld the rear valance panel into place, then I can bolt these in and try the rest of the cage for fit.

I also acquired a sport pak arch from Dan to try, it fits perfectly but the inner edge return will rub on the tires unless I remove it, which might make the arch flimsy. I need to bolt a tire back on, remove the temp brace and reinstall the shock so I can see how far up into the arch the tire goes, and how far out it sticks.  Ima give the arches some more thought before I do anything. Plenty of other work yet to do anyway......

So, after making the rear brackets and marking where the holes should go on the rear valance, I dropped it out and welded in some flange nuts. I made a little bracket so that I could set the height just below the surface of the valance panel and tacked them in place, then went around and tacked the whole nut in place. After that I ground off the nibs so I'd have a flush surface for the bracket to mate up to.

That done I bolted everything back into the car and to my complete surprise it all fit and bolted up!

The back end of the subframe was only bolted to the parcel shelf, I needed to get these brackets in so I could unbolt it from the parcel shelf and add in the top parts of the subframe so I can see how it all is going to fit.

Next up I'll pull the valance back off and make sure I've cleaned up all the weld nibs and get it ready to finally weld into the car.

I also went over to Northern Tool and bought a couple of trailer fenders, with the idea that I may use those to form an inner fender from the q panel out to the sport pack flares, that should give plenty of room for tires - but I'll need to do some careful measuring first. If it looks like it will work I'll split it down the middle and have one for each side.

The fronts will be stock 13"X6" wheels so std sport pak arches will work there, in the rear I'm looking at either 13X7 or maybe even 13X8 wheels.

So, looking at the Sport Pak arches, I went ahead and bolted on one wheel, and took out the brackets and installed the rear shocks, so I could measure the wheel travel compared to the arch opening. I know that it clears the opening in the Q panel but as expected it hits the return on the inside of the arch.

It also looks like I need to move the wheel back about 1/2" to center in the opening.

Then I put my trailer fender in to see how it might work as an inner fender - the curve is exactly right although it's way too short - I would have to buy two and weld them end to end to completely fill the opening.

With the wheel in the normal position - about 1/2 of total wheel travel - it clearly hits the arch, but it does fit comfortably withing the outer limits - since I'm currently using 3/4" spacers it looks like I could at least run 7" wide wheels in the back, but 8's probably won't work with Sport Paks.

I do have a set of Fortech knock off arches and they are super wide, so I know those will work no matter what wheels, spacing, offset or spacers I run but they are a lot of work to make look good. Still, maybe those on the rear and Sport Paks on the front? dunno.....

Today I went ahead and welded on the valance panel, then trimmed off the excess. I also put a few tacks in where the panel meets the inner fenders. I'll need to go ahead and finish welding those areas, but I'm kinda thinking of adding a small bracket between the valance and inner fender, rather than just tacking the two panels together.

I think the next thing to fix will be the quarter panel, then the floors, then the sills. I'm not going to mess with the arches right now....I kinda need to decide what wheels I'm going to run, that will help determine which arch I go with. I could also use some of the Group5 arches....maybe.

Esthetically the sportpack arches look the best IMO compared to fortech or miglias, for a street car.  You can get 7 inch wide mini wheels too and be set.  I still think you'd save yourself a ton of headache by just getting the taller shock/coilovers for the rear. 

Yes but.......running the car higher adds angle to the axles. I think I can get by with 7's - the 6's that are on there now are on a 3/4" spacer, if I take that out then it will only be 1/4" wider overall than the way it is now, that's do-able. Tire size will dictate what wheel I have to run, and I want to get plenty of tire back there if I can.....currently on 175/50-13's, but I know I can get 205/45 or even 225/35's and the overall diameter is still pretty close, so they should fit OK.

I like the Sport Pak flares, but I have so much more work to do to the structure that I'm just going to concentrate on that for now.

Next project - try this bad boy out!

220V Miller spot welder. Several issues.....

1st, it's heavy as hell, 30 lbs is my guess. Trying to hold it still and clamp down in the right spot, time the weld etc? Fraught with peril! Need to dress the tips before I try it on anything too.

2nd, I'll need to wire up the appropriate plug, I do have a circuit available and a long extension cord.

Lastly, learn how to use it to get good welds.....I guess I have enough scrap metal around to practice on before I attack the Mini body. Probably should have used it on that back panel for both the side seams and the flange at the bottom, but I know how to weld with the mig, so I thought in the interest of getting it done I should just use what I know.

We'll see......

Had to go buy an end for the extension cable, but Home Depot had one. So I gave it a try.....

After welding these two together I could not drive them apart without tearing the metal, so it seems to work. I only gave it about 1 second of power too. I tried it a couple times for maybe 1 1/2 second but it made a lot of sparks like you see in the movies.....using 1 sec it didn't.

I'm not sure where I can use it at this point, maybe at the top edge of the side of the floor panels where they meet the door step....wish I had tried it earlier, it would have worked great on that back panel!

That looks nice!  Borrow it or buy it?

Belongs to a Mini buddy of mine, local.

They're like $800 to $1500 used!

Been working/thinking/planning on the q panel work, first I had to cut another 2" of metal out above where the patch will go as it's too rusty to weld to. Then I'm trying to figure out how/where to cut to lay in the new piece, plus I think I'm going to have to remove the A panel as the door step fits behind it - maybe I can just cut the weld at the bottom and slip it in behind the A panel.....these things are never straightforward!

Next I cut a patch and formed the edge using my flange tool, this way the patch sits flush with the panel it adjoins and I don't have to butt weld the two together.

I was hoping to use the spot welder but I can't get the tongs inside this area square to the metal.....so I'll have to do as I have on the other panels and plug weld it. To that end I punched a bunch of holes in the outer panel and will weld thru to the patch.

Before I weld anything I need to make sure I've done everything that's inside of this area as I won't be able to reach it once things are welded up. I think I've decided to weld the door step in first, so I'll have something to weld the floor panels to.

So I cut out the door step and now I'm trying to figure out what sequence to do the repairs.....I'm also trying to decide if it's a better strategy to remove the entire floor panel or only the parts towards the outside that are really rusted. It would be nice to have complete clean non rusty floors but I can't decide if the outcome is worth the extra effort as the panels I have won't do the entire floor, I will have to patch in a few of the missing pieces.

When I did the back panel, it was only after I had removed the old one that I found I could have bought a repair panel for just the bottom couple of inches - that would have been FAR less work than changing the whole panel and I'm pretty sure the results would have been just as good, maybe better.

Like Binky, I could have bought an entire new floor and welded it all in one piece.....but I'm past that point now.

My project is continuing, slowly......in the meantime Don and I trekked south about an hour from KC to the private Hedge Hollow race track to watch some friends run their vintage American cars. My buddy says this track is one of the fastest he's ever raced on but it's completely miserable for spectating. The track was never intended to be open to the public, so there are no access roads or spectator areas.....he may add those as he's now running NASA race weekends as well as lot of club dates for the Mustang, Corvette, BMW and Porsche club events. Right now the only place you can watch from is on the balcony in front of the garages, and all you can see from there is the banked turn one and the short front straightaway. Too many trees in the way for the rest of the track.

We also had a huge storm blow thru which did some major damage to the trees in my neighborhood. Spent a day helping neighbors clean up the mess.....all the trees in my 'hood are 50-60 years old or more and are pretty huge - even the branches are a foot or more in diameter. Gave me a chance to fire up the chainsaw which hadn't been used in several years. Some fresh gas, a quick sharpen of the chain and some bar oil and it was good to go.

I've also been helping a couple of guys with their new classics. One fellow has now rebuilt his engine, transmichigan, whole front end and brakes all around. He also added a Weber carb and has been trying to get it tuned out properly. He's almost there with the carb and we have an appointment in 10 days to go to the dyno to get it finally sorted, in the meantime he's been adding break in miles as quickly as he can. The second car is a recent BaT pruchase and it's a really nice car with just a few needs.....it's a Canadian 998 with drum brakes, some terrible oil leaks and a non op clutch. He's ordered a 4 pot brake kit and we'll see about the rest when it gets here.

On my hot rod, I've added a 1/4" spacer at the front attachment point of the rear subframe, to move the wheels back into the centers of the wheel openings, they were a bit too far forward to my taste. That required redoing all the other attachment points and remeasuring for length the replacement floor parts.

I've also been practicing with my bender tool, and made a filler panel for the floor where the companion bins sit - the new floors had a cutout in the shape of the companion bins.....next up  - more welding!

More work on the Mini Hot rod, I needed to remove the sound deadening (like dynamat) that was really stuck down on the floor. I had tried to use my heat gun and that did work, but it left a layer of black bitumin that was difficult to scrape off. I need to get it off so I can see what the floor looks like especially next to the tunnel - whether there are any spots rusted thru, and sure enough there was one on the passenger side. I'm trying to decide whether to replace the entire floor pan or just patch the bad spots.....I'm leaning towards replacing the whole panel as I don't think it will be any more welding involved than in replacing the long edge by the sills and the same on the inside near the tunnel.

So, today I tried ye olde dry ice trick and I have to say it worked pretty well. It evaporated before I got all of it off, so I will have to go buy another bag - another $12 worth. The stuff I got from our local grocery store was in small bits, rather than the one big chunk like I used to buy, so that def made it easier, however I haven't figured out how to do the tunnel as it won't stay in place. I thought of using a thin grocery store plastic bag and just do a small section at a time....we'll see whether that will transfer enough cold to get it to break loose or not. But.....in one hour's work I got 2/3 of it off, where with the heat gun it would have taken many hours of heating and scraping and it would have left a residue to clean off .

For those who haven't tried this before you simply spread out the dry ice, let it sit a bit, then smack the panel with a dead blow or hard plastic hammer. It pops off, sometimes in pretty good sized chunks. Top left section in the first pic shows what I have left to do.

Honestly an air chisel would have it all off in about 10 minutes. It's what I always use.

I have one of those, it didn't work well.....it left a lot of black sticky stuff that was really hard to get off. If you look at the back edge of the tunnel you could see where I used it to scrape some off.

If I'm just removing to inspect for rust, I don't bother with what residue is leftover. Usually on the flats of the floors the air chisel knocks big clean chunks off.  If I had to prep for paint after removing, I took acetone and a rag and the black residue wipes up. Anymore though I prefer not to paint floors with color. I brush on por15 after the exposed painted panels are painted.  Your floors to me look pretty solid, unless the bottoms are about to pin hole through everywhere.  I'd patch the sill where needed and the front floor pans as needed and call it a day. 

So in order to remove the floor pans and sills, I needed to get the weight off of them first....as it is I had a 2X6 across under the floor and resting on the lift pads. To do that first I needed to remove the subframe, which is now a lot more difficult as I welded in the rear valance....so the subby has to come back to clear the lip of the floor, then it has to go forward to clear the rear brackets thru the notch in the wheel wells, then down and forward till it clears the rear valance then once it's down all the way either raise the lift or take the 4X4's under the back of the subframe off so it will drop low enough to clear - it's a process!

Once the sub was out I needed to figure out a way to lift the body up off of the scissor lift, I built a small bracket that I bolted onto the end of the engine hoist lift arm, the screwed that to a 2X6. The board rests against the double seam at the top of the rear windows and I'm confident it will support the weight of the body. So the next step is to start removing the floors and shore up the ends where the subby attaches and measure thoroughly to make sure it's all square.

I still have a board resting under the floor and on the lift arms just in case the engine hoist decides to come down......more as it happens!

So with the car no longer resting on the lift in the back, I can now get on with cutting out the floors and seeing about replacing them.

At Dan's recommendation rather than using the dry ice to get the rest of the insulation off the floors I used my zip gun, it definitely did the job tho loud as hell bouncing off those tin floors! The remaining glue will come up with acetone according to Dan, so I'll pick some up tomorrow and get the rest cleaned up, then I need to mark things out and get cutting.

I'm not going to clean off all the residue, just on the areas that I won't be replacing.

I need to do some careful measuring before I cut anything more, since there's so little metal left holding this thing together I need to make sure it all winds up back where it belongs. I've already identified one place I tacked together that isn't quite right, fortunately it's easy enough to cut thru tacks and reweld it.

More as it happens.....

I made a bracket to hold the dimensions and to support the right side, since there's so little metal there now, and will be even less when I cut out the floors. I think before I do that I'll see about designing some reinforcements for that right side to stiffen it up, then when I weld in the step and sill it should be in the right place.

You could add a big pipe in there like Binky.

I'm actually planning to do that......just for extra stiffness since I'll be putting quite a bit more HP thru it. But before I can do that I need to get it all square and reinforce this end, so that when I put the pipe in it all stays in the right place and the subframe will still fit.

Unlike the Binky boys I don't have a frame I can lock it all down to to keep it square.

So I've spent a ton of time measuring and checking and figuring out how to stabilize the end of the sill where the subframe bolts on, so it will be square and in the right place in space - since there really isn't any original metal left to locate it. today I added a short brace that sets it vertically, I already made a brace to set it horizontally.

Next I'll weld in the door step, then the front floor, then the rear part of the floor, then the outer lower sill. I might do like Binky and weld in a tube inside the sill to help brace/strengthen that end too - couldn't hurt. I've already made some patch panels to weld to the area where the companion boxes were.

After that I'll tie in the front end of the inner wheel well and hopefully that will strengthen it considerable, enough to hold the subframe properly and in the right place. After all that I'll move over to the right side. Not sure what to do there - the front floor is toast, but the door step is good except right at the flange where the bottom, outer sill attaches. Gonna hafta give that some thought.....

Well, it may not seem like much, but a major step has been taken (you'll see the pun later)

The issue was trying to figure out how to weld a panel in that had nothing to weld it to, so that I could weld other stuff to it, and have it all wind up in the right place.

I freely admit I dithered around but today with Don's help we just did it. The good news is by measurement at least, it's in the right place.

Getting the brace to the rear of the mount for the new subframe was step one, once that was solid it was a matter of cutting, trimming, measuring, tacking, bending, measuring and so on till it's in.

Now that that's in place in the firmament, I can cut out the front floor panel and weld it in place and I have the step panel to use as a locator. Progress should happen more frequently from here on out.....hopefully.

Any updates on the hot rod?

Yes and no, I'm still welding in to replace rusty panels and such, I'll try and get some pics up. I stopped for a bit as I had a family reunion with my brothers and sisters, some I hadn't seen in over 20 years.

This weekend I'm going down to the Ozarks with some friends who are racing vintage cars - I built a couple of the engines that are running this weekend - always fun to see how they do.