Blake's Den

More progress on the Designer! I've fitted the rear subframe which means that I am one step closer to being able to put it back on to its wheels. I've also given the inside of the sills and the cavities on the subframe a liberal coating of Dynax 50 which should hopefully keep the tin worm at bay for a bit.

Kraftwerk Autobahn

@LightBulbFun to the the nearest phone please 😊

It wasn't far from that!

I used to work in a shite petrol station many years ago. We had three pumps which weren't computer controlled, you had to look out of the window to see how much fuel someone had put in! If three people turned up at once it was chaos. The till didn't work either and wasn't plugged in. It had a cable to pull to open the tray. I once started a shift at 8am and the first customer came in at 10:45. DIfferent times!

Fantastic! I'm seriously considering building an Exocet. I've wanted to build by own kit car for years, it was Ron Champion's Build Your Own Sports Car for £250 which got me interested. The problem is that I don't have enough spare time at the moment and i know that in a few years time MX5 prices will be through the roof! I reckon that I need to find a rusty MX5 now and stash it away somewhere.

My '97 Mini has a 5 digit odometer and no trip counter

An update on the Copper MPI. March is an important month as it means two things. I've owned it for another year - I bought it in March 2009 The MoT is due I've kept it in hibernation throughout the winter. As expected, it fired up straight away. I decided to try some Lanoguard rust protection on the underside. I'm quite happy with the product so far but time will tell. I was surprised at how good the underside of the Mini was looking too. It passed the MoT with only one advisor so I'm taking that as a win!

Some more work on the Ford. I actually filmed this a few months ago but for various reasons I have only got around to uploading the video this weekend. The Lucas C40 dynamo had seen better days so I decided to give it a bit of a rebuild. It is amazing how many British vehicles use this dynamo, in fatc I have the exact same one on my Turner Ranger which runs a 1098cc A-series engine. After the rebuild the charging light went out so I think that we are back in business. Although the only thing on the tractor which draws power is the starter motot, I don't even have any lights!

More progress to report. This time it involved me rebuilding the rear subframe. It did not go as smoothly as I hoped. Firstly, one of the brackets which hold the radius arms on just wouldn't line up with the four bolt holes. Whilst sorting that out I realised that I should have put the front trunions on before that. Needless to say, the other side went together a lot easier! Also a viewer pointed out that I mounted the rear trunions back to front. In the back of my mind I knew that there was a mistake in the parts manual but I coluldn't remember exactly what it was. Its an easy fix, I just need to swap left with right before I attempt to mount it to the body.

I remember driving past the factory on the Team Valley when I was young. There is a Greggs on the site now - a sign of the times!

Back to Mini content. I've been making more progress on the Designer, I've finally got around to coating the underside of the boot floor with Gravitex. Top tip - it is messy stuff! I got it absolutely everywhere - over me, the floor, cupboard, wall, seat, camera, overalls and shoes! It is worth it though, I'm very happy with the result. The next step is to build up the new subframe.

I didn't pay a lot. I reckon I can get back what I paid for it anyway. The original features are quite hard to find and it has most of them. Yep it's a lot of work but it's only small so it shouldn't take long!

In sort of mini related news I've bought a mini caravan! A Thomoson mini-glen to be precise. It came up on marketplace nearby and I decided to go for it. The plan is to turn it into a garden room (without sounding too middle class....) but also it would be nice if I could get it road worth and habitable again. Here is the video of the latest project:

Interesting to see a LHD Imp. I wonder which country it came from? Anywhere in mainland Europe would be quite a drive in an Imp!

Even more progress has been made. I fitted the rear valance closure panels. Not the most exciting of content but it is an important panel as it stops the rear valance from filling up with rubbish chucked off the rear wheels. I ended up bonding on the panels with stixall. I'm not sure if it was the extreme cold we that had last week or the heat that I added by grinding off the excess but when I went into the garage the next day the panel had de-bonded from the valance! So in the end I decided to plug weld them on, I'll cover that in the next video. It is good to get some momentum back into this project.

I've managed to make some more progress on the Designer. I was going to work on my Ford tractor but the weather decided otherwise. As such I spent the day in the garage fitting the rear valance. Visually, I think that it makes a big difference and it now looks more like a Mini again. The next job is already half filmed - fitting the closeure plates on the valance which stop it from filling in with mud and road grime. After this it will be a case of painting the rear underside with gravitex and fitting the rear subframe. I'm really trying to build up some momentum on this project. When I looked at the tax disc I realised that it expired in 2014 which was 10 years ago! Heres the video and applogies for the lazy thumbnail which is pretty much the same as the previous one.

Way back in the day, I'm guessing 1992 or 93, one of the scenes was being filmed in a house in the village that I grew up in. I remember seeing all of the camera crews and location trucks when I was on the way home on the school bus. But the most exciting thing for me was the fact that the sierra saphire cosworth was there! I remember going back just to look at the car. If my memory serves me right, it did have a secuity guard with it which ties in with the story about the first one being stolen. I remember this being in the local papers at the time, the cossie was the weapon of choice for ram raiding as this video shows Sorry for the thread hijhack!

Hi @LightBulbFun, do you know that you are internet famous?! I was watching this video yesterday and he shows a screenshot from this forum of a post from yourself showing the NI numberplate of one of the ex Spender Sierra Cosworth's

From FB marketplace, the source of entertainment every day. I have many questions. Original link https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1574362530034782/?ref=facebook_story_share

Yeah it was an armoured one. A couple of them just sold via auction recently

Mildly funny story. In about 2002 I went to a classic car show in Washington. I got a bit lost and forgot what district I was heading for. I saw a Morris Minor traveller and thought "aha, I'll follow that as it must be going to the show too". Nope, I ended up at Savacentre, they were off to do their shopping!

Gateshead West Street outside the town hall, sometime in the 1960s. That's a nice looking mini countryman.

So, I am officially famous! I was interviewed by a fellow youtuber at the show and here is the video It is a bit odd to be in front of the camera but I think it went well. Not too cringe worthy.

A bit of an update on the Ranger. I was invited by the Minikits group to display it on their stand at the NEC classic motor show. When I was prepping it I thought that I would tighten the hand brake up a little as it would help me with loading it onto my trailer. Long stroy short - the transmission brake caliper was half missing! Therefore I had to instigate a bodge to get it ready in time for the show. You can still get a replacement caliper, it is actually off a go kart. However I didn't want to pay the £80 postage from the USA.... Luckily, we made it to the show and I got to meet some great people. I event met someone who used to make these on the production line in the factory! The ranger had lots of interest and I was pleased to show it off. At the end of the show I filmed this video. Warning - it contains about 2 minutes of horns being sounded to mark the end of the event. I then captured my drive across the NEC site back to my car and trailer. I saw some great cars along the way - it is not every day that you see a Ferrari 348, a maestro camper, a SD1, a Fiat Coupe and and MG Xpower SV in a line of traffic.