Tommyboy12

Not 100% a car but self submission for it's awfulness 😅

So I have a spare Mini 998 auto I am stripping for spares for my budget build. I was told it was seized. Needless to say I didn't expect it to be *that* seized. I'm hopeful the crank is salvageable as it's only a 44k miles engine but I'm not 100% convinced. Things like the timing cover and bracketry will be used as well as the manifold. I've got to source a carburettor and build a shopping list of engine parts when I'm done stripping it.

In other news today. I have been trying to sell my Megane 225. I had a guy come and look at it today but he went home in a different car... It wasn't 100% my intention to sell it this soon (it was on the cards around March) but I gave him a slightly inflated number and he was happy with it. The Mégane is still up for sale...

Made it home! What a lovely car. No point in any piccys as it's dark and miserable. I'm looking forward to ownership!

We have arrived!

First off a stop for fuel!

Time to pick up my recent AS roffle win! The noble steed for the trip is ready. The wind is high. I'm sure it'll be fine!

Supposedly about 60k miles on it which is probably about right looking at the bore wear. Bearing shells are standard size too and original. It's not in bad health and I've pulled apart worse.

So I'm starting on rebuilding another A-series for my brown project Mini. A 998 built on a budget. I'm not aiming for anything other than a running engine. I bought this engine for 100 notes in pieces. He said it probably needed work which means he knows what was wrong with it. Crankshaft has a few rings in it but not too scuffed up Conrod shells aren't too bad. No major wear but it's dragged something metallic through the journals First main bearing was not so good... I've made a bit of a shopping list. I'm going to spend a bit of time properly measuring the crank with calipers to make a call on regrinding it

Man that car was so much fun as a project. One of those rare projects that I never actively avoided working on. It was only about £1300 of investment in the end so you've got plenty of budget left to build a few duplicates. For me, I have my dream car, although I've probably sank a little bit more than 10k into it over 14 years of ownership. The turbo engine build alone was around £4000 because I opted for forged components and straight cut gears. I paid £650 this Mini back in 2010 and it's come a long way since then. Now it's a 200hp rocket ship and it puts a smile on my face every single time I drove it. It's bouncy, it's loud, it's smelly, but it's mine.

Took the Beetle to a breakfast meet. Parked next to its great-great-grandson. It's nice to have a handbrake!

Put me down for one of the desk calendars please

The metal folding/pressing in the handle had spread out so the rod for the button was free to slip past the hook if acts on. I'm guessing sideways force probably caused it to spread. I clamped it up with some grips and it doesn't slip out now

I didn't even know that was a thing! Not sure why it would be missing but given the age of the car anything could have happened to it.

There's always Shedfest although that's run by another YouTuber and last year's had a lot of pretty modern chod. It also had some right old crap so it wasn't a bad show and barely an MGB in sight. I've started to prefer weekend breakfast meets at various places. They tend not to be too pretentious and most people are happy to chat. I spoke to a guy with a manual Audi R8 V10 about my Mexican Beetle at the last one I did 😅

I spent some time on the Beetle today. I managed to do quite a bit and basically now have a fully functional and road legal bug! First off I sorted the handbrake lever. The handbrake was working but the button was stuck so it wasn't holding the handbrake. I stripped the handbrake down and found the handbrake lever itself had bent and wasn't holding the button and rod in place inside the lever. A quick clamp in the vice and I have a handbrake! Next up changing the rear shoes. There's been a grinding noise coming from the rear right. I assumed it was worn shoes. Turns out they were fine. It was rust and brake dust build up. As I had bought shoes and hardware anyway I changed them. Meant I could clean and free everything off. Handy really as one of the adjusters was seized. I had to apply some heat and brute force but it came out in the end. Passenger side (note the missing heater duct in the background). Drivers side (heater duct in place) Nice new shoes and hardware. Adjusted at the drums and I also adjusted the handbrake Lastly I wanted to give it a service. I drove it home from Paignton and have been driving it round for some time on the oil in it. God knows how old it is or when the last filter (tea strainer) change was. So I drained the old oil out and set about swapping the filter which is a bit unconventional. Plus it looks like it could filter anything. More of a tea strainer than anything else. It's fitted in the following order. Block, gasket, filter, gasket, filter cover, 6 copper washers and 6 nuts. Then another bolt and washer in the middle of draining the oil. Handling all that while gravity fights you is a bit of a pain plus I had to spend about 20 minutes scraping the old gasket off the block. I don't really want to do that again in a hurry! There was quite a lot of the forbidden Nutella gummed up in the filter cover and filter though so I'm glad I changed it. And thafs it! Off to a breakfast meet with it tomorrow. I shall continue to enjoy it and tinker!

I do like those Smith's rev counters. With the cost of the pod it's definitely not worth making your own

Got up close and personal with my biggest fan today. Fitted a high flow fan to my turbo Mini today to go along with a fan for the oil cooler. It's a tight fit against the reinforcing bar for the removable front I have so I had to shimmy things around a bit. I'm glad to finally have it fitted as I've been meaning to do it for a while. Should help with temps when it gets hot.

Ooof. Lovely chod. RWD Volvo's are great. I thoroughly enjoyed my late 240. It was a bit thirsty when fuel was up around £1.80 though 🥲

Fridays are still a quiet day for commuting then. Chodspeed!

I do love the look of that Mini. I guess this is its last officially required MoT given the age of it. My A-reg was registered in October 1983 so becomes MoT/Tax exempt this April.

I must be a lucky guy cause I received a second part to my ASSS just before New Years! Thank you to whoever sent this. Those pesky 10mm sockets will forever need replacing!

I know that his brother already has one of these with the pop top! Personally I think he should give me one of the AX's and we will do a stupid road trip somewhere very far away and hope we make it home!

Thank you ASSS. I have a pair of these exact socks that were recently condemned to bin due to holes. It's nice to have a replacement pair! The homemade card itself was very good also!

I've been off this week so spent a bit of time doing some jobs to the fleet. Mostly it's been fighting the Mégane to replace the front struts. It was a royal pain. The RS model has unique alloy hubs that clamp onto steel shock absorbers with a steel bolt. Bimetallic corrosion has not been my friend. I managed to remove one strut without removing the hub by compressing the spring insitu but standard practice is to remove the whole hub and strut for this job. Which I had to do on the other side because the bolts were seized in place. It took me 7 hours to do two struts. However, my track car now has cup pack suspension! Totally worth it... I also did some welding on my dad's MG this week. It's been sat waiting on this since my girlfriend binned it in the September... However it's not in a position it can be filled and painted. I've also upgraded the speaker on my Beetle! I now have the luxury of a speaker in each door instead of just one in the passenger door! I celebrated the new found volume by going to Tesco today to buy milk. It was hell on earth unsurprisingly given it's the last Saturday before Christmas. Over the winter break I'm intending to give the MGF another go. I really want to get it sorted. Then if I can fit it in around the weather I'm going to start welding my brown Mini.