Mini ST Hotrod

Started by MiniDave, May 21, 2023, 10:42:51 AM

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94touring

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? 

MiniDave

#101
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!
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

94touring

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.

MiniDave

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.
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

MiniDave

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.



Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

MiniDave

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.

Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

94touring

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

MiniDave

#107
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:
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

94touring


MiniDave

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.....
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

94touring

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

MiniDave

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.
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

MiniDave

#112
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)


Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

MiniDave

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!
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

Red Riley

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

MiniDave

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.
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

Red Riley

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.

MiniDave

#117
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 QA11 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.



Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

MiniDave

#118
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.
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

MiniDave

#119
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.



Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

MiniDave

#120
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....

Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

cstudep

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.

MiniDave

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......
Complete failure at retirement - but getting better!

1972 Mini Racing Green
1972 Mini ST hotrod
2017 Audi Allroad - Glacier White - His
2018 Audi Allroad - Floret Silver - Hers

94touring

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

cstudep

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.