Mini ST Hotrod

[MiniDave]

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.

[MiniDave]

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......

[MiniDave]

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!

[94touring]

That looks nice!  Borrow it or buy it?

[MiniDave]

Belongs to a Mini buddy of mine, local.

They're like $800 to $1500 used!

[MiniDave]

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.

[MiniDave]

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.

[MiniDave]

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!

[MiniDave]

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.

[94touring]

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

[MiniDave]

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.

[94touring]

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. 

[MiniDave]

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!

[MiniDave]

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.....

[MiniDave]

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.

[Willie_B]

You could add a big pipe in there like Binky.

[MiniDave]

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.