Blake's Den

£600 wouldn't even buy a project now. Fancy a laugh? Look at the prices of Mini pick-ups and vans

Lol - between the tyres and the roof too!

A bit more progress made this weekend. I did a bit of digging around to see how bad the rust was ar the rear end. It's a bit odd; the wheelarch is gone as expected but the battery box is solid. Normally these are the first things to go, maybe it had been replaced in the past. Unfortunately I've found some big rust patch on the boot floor / rear seat base area. I'm actually glad that I found it as it is right next to the rear seat belt mounts. There must be a moisture trap between the sub-frame and the body. The thumbnail makes it look a lot worse than it actually is!

They seem to clock up large miles in America with the V6's so I guess they aren't bad as long as they are looked after. I think that they are very understressed. Only 170ish hp out of 2.7 litres was pretty lazy back in the early 2000's. My road tax is £325, it's not in the top bracket (like my forester xt).

It has been a while since I posted about the Santa-Fe so here is a quick update. It's been running fine and providing reliable and cheap motoring. Admittedly the mileage this year will be low due to COVID and all of that but she's doing everything that I'm asking her to do. If fitted some 'Event' ML698 off road tyres as they were an ebay bargain along with another set of wheels. The tyres are noisy but then do grip well in the soft stuff. I've also had a towbar fitted. I actually paid a man to do it as the car doesn't really owe me any money and I've supported a loca

Renault Mégane 1.6e RT Sport. We changed the cylinder head gasket at a friend's house. When refitting the drivers side wheel (because French) I forgot to tighten the wheel nuts. I got within 1/2 a mile from home when I wondered what the banging was from the front. And it make it worse, I had left the locking wheel nut key on the wheel nut ready to be tightened. Locking wheel nut key lost, pride damaged but car lived to fight another day. It eventually had complete electrical failure and was traded in!

Now you tell me! I'm quite happy with the repair. The heel board is in suprisingly good condition. I was poking around it today and was pleasantly suprised

I've been making the most of those days between Christmas and New Year when nobody really knows what day it is. The plan was to remove the rusty rear subframe bolts which had sheared off when I was removing the frame. I thought that this would be an easy task but it soon escalated! I found that the captive nuts had failed on both sides which meant that a repair to the heel board was required. I’m still impressed by the lack of rust on the heel board. Hopefully I’ll make some more progress before I’ve got to go back to work ☹

Wowser, good stuff! Although I agree it should have orange indicators. Mini's have always been 'personalised' from 1959 onwards! I'm keeping this one completely standard as standard mini's are getting really rare now.

Thankfully mine came with all of the correct trim. I do need a new bumper though

Hello all Long time lurker and occasional poster here. I thought that I would share my classic Mini Designer project with you. There seems to be a lot of love for old mini's on here plus everybody has had some connection with mini's over the years. I'm actually mid way through the recommissioning of this. I'm avoiding the word restoration as that would suggest I know what I'm doing! The pic below was how it looked when I bought it back in 2016. Doesn't look too bad for a thirty year old car but mini's can and will rust about everywhere. The wing was an obvious problem but there

Following with great interest! I'm currently renovating an '88 Designer special edition. I'm currently on with the bodywork, once that's all sorted it will be time to look at the oily bits.

Evening all I've somehow been shortlisted in the best video category of the Haynes Repair show, I'm guessing that they didn't get many entries Here is the link: https://haynes.app.do/vote-for-the-winners-haynes-manuals-car-repair-show. I'm video number 4 (Gareth T). The video is the story of me fitting a new wing to my Austin Mini 1988 Designer special edition. I'm not saying that I'm and expert restorer, I'm just your average bloke who is giving it a go. If you can take a minute to vote for my video then that would be amazing. Thanks oh - and

Thank you all, its really good feedback. I'll give it a go posting on here and keep my fingers crossed. Its the 2.5 turbo manual if you were wondering I've actually had a few messages already from people who might be interested which sounds promising. I really appreciate the help and advice. I've been lurking on this forum for some time now and I'm impressed with how friendly everyone seems to be.

Thanks all for the replies, greatly appreciated Looks like I'll give the sales section of a forum a try. I'll get some pictures up after the weekend (hopefully).