1960 Austin 850 Project

Started by tsumini, May 22, 2014, 06:45:40 PM

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tsumini

Greetings,
Having acquired an older mini and researching on the restoration I had considered posting progress for others to follow but was unsure of what place to do that such as a forum Blog or dedicated site. As others have said it could aid in staying motivated and active.  Having followed spartimetoys progress from the first and seeing his and other restoration projects I kinda decided that this forum may be fun to do.  I mention spartimetoys becaused my Austin 850 is an Early 1960 build date of January 20,1960 about one week after sparetimetoys' Austin was built making them almost twins. Hopefully this will be mutually beneficial.
First photo is how we found it in the weeds.

sparetimetoys

Glad to see you showed up over here. Looks like you have a bunch of the trim that I lack on mine. What was the factory color?
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.

tsumini

yeah fortunately lots of the hard to get trim stayed. Trim around arches and sill are missing but are easy replacement.  Originally it was Tartan Red. I found out that Rustoleum Regal Red is almost a dead match. LOL. I'll throw out some more details shortly. 

94touring

Painting it tartan red again?  I have codes in DuPont if you end up going that route. 

Mudhen

Awesome, another project on board - welcome!

I need to keep a better eye out for Mini's in the weeds...  4.gif

tsumini

Quote from: 94touring on May 22, 2014, 09:52:16 PM
Painting it tartan red again?  I have codes in DuPont if you end up going that route.
yeah plan Tartan Red. Finish body work and paint prep is next on to do list.

tsumini

The car was acquired in May 2012 from my brother who had had it for 5  or 6 years. I was looking for a rust free "project" to keep me busy on my summer range near South Fork Colorado. It seemed to have a few isolated surface rust spots with no body rot that I could see. Didn't want to learn how to weld. A few pics of car "as received".

tsumini

For some reason at this point I hadn't taken a pic of the engine bay and the obvious missing engine. Here's later pic.

sparetimetoys

Wow you have the door pull cables. Im going to have to make my own.
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.

tsumini

Can't see in the pic but the pulls are later grooved pulls rather than early smooth. I think one is also broke and taped back together. Also note the door lock on PAX side has early round button.

tsumini

Gathered all the mini parts I had hauled back to East Texas last fall and didn't do much to and loaded into 4x 8 uhaul and brought  them back to my summer pasture in Colorado. Haven't figgered out how that much stuff can fit into a trailer but cant fit in a one car garage.
Anyway trying to make room to prep shell for paint. need to strip paint and fix a few dents then figger out paint.

tsumini

Just a few lines to show some progress after various summertime "to do's"
Repaired steering wheel which was cracked and in pretty bad shape. 3M 8115 panel adhesive works very well. I used dental floss to work the adhesive into all the cracks. It's all sanded but not yet painted. Not quite sure what paint to use.

tsumini

Considered sandblasting the shell but couldn't find local sandblaster. One wanted $20 each to blast wheels and didn't seem very interested in doing it. Another was a powder coater that didn't want to blast only. But then my brother told me about a local shop which overhauls oil field equipment that did blasting. Shown are two sets of wheels which I had blasted for $100. Mounted wheels are wheels from a 1960 Morris mini. They are original '59 vintage riveted wheels.  All tires are old as dirt. One with white sidewall is Dunlop Gold Seal. It didn't have the "C41" as shown on the 59 Registry as original tires. Other non-mounted wheels are wheels picked up previously. I need to primer and then paint. Dan, do you have the paint?

tsumini

Found three cracks in the mount holes. Scrap.


One wheel with damaged hole. Probably weld repair.

tsumini

Brought the doors, bonnet and boot lid down for blasting yesterday. We'll see the results and maybe consider doing the shell. Unfortunately my trailer is full and would have to unload it, load the shell unload shell after blasting and reload the stuff now on it. So I kinda decided that I would strip the paint using paint stripper.

I did strip the roof which took a few hours. Original paint is tough to get off. There was surface rust and minor pitting. May need some guidance on how to treat the rusty areas.

sparetimetoys

How did the bonnet and boot lid turn out?
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.

tsumini

Talked with the blasting guy a couple of days later and asked to watch blasting and make sure they didn't warp them. He said their compressor was down and he would let me know but hasn't called yet and presume they're not done. I'll have to call them again tomorrow Mon. I kinda stopped stripping and hope that they can do the shell without warping it.

sparetimetoys

When I get ours down to the shell I'm taking it to this place.   www.dustfreeblasters.com/  They use the crushed glass in water blast. The metal actuall cools from the blast so no warping. If I had a larger compressor that would keep up I would buy the small shop and hobby one from the place in Houston that makes the unit these guys use.
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.

tsumini

Yeah the wheels were fine but hard to screw up wheels. Talked to blaster guy this am and is supposed to set up door blasting sometime this week. Not sure what the media is but called it "slag". Need to check that out.

sparetimetoys

Here is what the dustless guy sent.

Hello Larry. We can defiantly help you with that. Without seeing the car an
estimate would be between 1000.00 to 1400.00. Again I just need to see what
all you have to get you a closer figure. We will also clean the car after
wards to remove as much media as we can.  If you would call us to discuss
and We will get you fixed up. Thank You again for the reply.


Best Regards,

Johnny Rineer
Dust Free Blasters
111 Industrial Ct.
Kennedale, TX 76060
Office 817-478-2005
Mobile 817-721-9190
www.DUSTFREEBLASTERS.com


But Rick the guy with the 60 mini that is close to me found a local place that rents the whole blasting setup for $500 a day. I know we could knock out two in a day. All the places who do the blasting say it takes one to two hours to do a car inside and out. I'm going to talk to the rental place it's about 2 miles from work. Only thing is its soda blasting not the crushed glass.
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.

94touring

I want to buy one of those dustless blasters so bad but $$$.

tsumini

I asked my guy if he did soda blasting. He said yes but took forever to strip paint so in the long run would cost more. Kinda bummed that I didn't pay more attention to blasting in my working days but it was usually silicon carbide on Hastelloy X and a guy could destroy a part in seconds.
Looks like there are so many variations in blasting it would be a major project just to guess what is best for your operation.

Nicholasupton

I have one of the texas built Dustless Blasters and can strip and complete mini inside and out with the doors, boot, and bonnet, in about a day and a half.  Here is a video of me stripping a rusty bonnet.


sparetimetoys

Quote from: Nicholasupton on July 15, 2014, 06:14:14 PM
I have one of the texas built Dustless Blasters and can strip and complete mini inside and out with the doors, boot, and bonnet, in about a day and a half.  Here is a video of me stripping a rusty bonnet.

I can't open the video on my iPhone or iPad. Is your the crushed glass system made down in Houston?  I would like one of those but my little home compressor will not keep up 22.gif. 
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.

Merlin

My local blasting place wants to do the car with plastic. I saw their work on an old triumph and it seemed to do fine. Didn't clean rust but removed the paint so that you can see it. The local guy wants <$600 for the entire car. $1100 seems high.

Engineering the Impossible