Smoll shite acquired. The wife made me do it....

[groovylee]

4 hours ago, 2flags said:

Also nice to see one that doesn't need hundreds of hours welding on it. Looks like a good one there.

thanks 2flags

although im not 100% on what lurks beneath, i think it is pretty solid underneath all of the nice bits.....  the sills aren't dodgy over sills, and although there are a few issues with paintwork, especially the roof, it should make a nice usable 'classic' - after all, we bought it to drive, not hide in a garage.  it will be a sort of 'half daily', as i may well end up driving hire cars for work, so it can be used as and when required.

[bezzabsa]

and so the journey down the 'mini' rabbit hole begins LOL.

 

my 1st legal car was a 850 mini van, with datsun 120y front seats .. loved it, non servo drum brakes that did bugger all over 60mph...mind you flat out was just about 75..

 

[2flags]

Had a couple of minis my self over the years. I remember the clubman estate I picked up for the princely sum of £50. I had just sold a saloon for a small profit and the estate suited my needs better as I could fit things in the back. I had acquired a spare for £20. This provided many useful spares. I remember the fuel gauge never worked. I had to carry a fuel can every where as the range was only 200 miles. I ran out quite often as I didn't  always judge it quite right. Cost me £150 to get it through an MoT then ran it for a year. Sold it after that for £50 so I thought a years motoring for £150 was a good deal. Great fun.

[groovylee]

ive had a few previous to this one - first was a 1988 mini mayfair that had sportspack arches and 7x13 minilites added by the previous owner. yearly wheel bearing changes were a fun thing....  that cost me £1850 back in 1999.  while i had that a 1275 GT came up locally for £50.  that was rotten as hell, and everything was knackered, so that was raped of it's engine and *sorned for later.  then i bought a 1989 cooper.  for £150. that was awesome, flew straight through an MOT after sitting for a few years on a driveway, just needing new tyres. right up until i drove it up the back of a punto driven by an off duty policewoman.  i robbed the engine from that and it was scrapped  

if i knew then what i do now, that 1275 would have been a resto project, as genuine ones are silly money now!

this one has cost me more than any other car ive owned. by some margin too...  but hey, you only live once, and mrs groovy really wanted a mini again while they were still affordable.  i wish my dream car was still affordable - at some point in my life i want to own a 1980s Porsche 911

 

[groovylee]

time for a bit of an update i think

so, the neon has sat on the drive doing next to bugger all due to it running like a bit of a bag of shite. so i dug out the timing light and colourtune, and set to work checking ALL the things.

firstly, the leads weren't great, secondly it was running very rich. so rich in fact that it didn't need choke to start from cold, even when it was very cold outside. lastly, whilst it would idle ok, it bogged down under any kind of load (i knew all this at time of purchase, but as others have said in other threads, mechanicals are easy on these).

so, the mixture - turns out that the vac advance on the dissy is knackered, and it is sucking air in the vacuum line. not great. i resolved this by replacing the dissy with an electronic one, along with new plugs and leads. happy days.  so got it all timed up, mixture set (but still not really behaving how i'd expect), and took it for a quick spin on the cul-de-sac.

all good until i braked at the end of the road. cue much spluttering, plumes of white, acrid smoke, and the car bogging down. hmmmm.

drove it back on the driveway, using the handbrake, and set to diagnosis...

hmm, why is my brake fluid reservoir empty? (you know where this is going)

yeah, i managed to burn through the whole reservoir of brake fluid, via the vac hose to the servo. bugger.

so that brings us up to date.  I have a new master cylinder, which i intend to swap out on monday as im working this weekend. there is a chance that the servo diaphragm is also knackered, which would explain the slightly strange colourtune experience, but im hoping that it isn't because theyre not the cheapest things.

is there an easy way to check the servo while im there changing the master cylinder?

im also going to change the brake fluid while im there and go over all of the brakes just to kill a few birds with one stone. once this is done, then it will be a case of getting it taxed, and then sorting out the final bits like new dashboard and heated screen wiring etc.

will get some more pics and do an update on monday.

[PhilA]

They're awkward to test properly but you should be able to run it, switch off and then get as couple pumps of assisted brake pedal before the pedal goes hard.

That and it should hold a run vacuum for at least a couple of hours after the engine was switched off.

Phil

[groovylee]

Thanks Phil, I’ll swap the master over and see how it behaves.

Forgot to add, the old wheels are gone and it now stands on the new ones 👍

[groovylee]

update time!

the servo turned out to be ok, and it was indeed the master cylinder at fault. £75 later, and a bit of spannering, and the new master cylinder was fitted, and the brakes bled. happy days.

thats where the happiness stops...  in my haste to get everything done as quickly as possible, i had set the timing up to cyl 4 instead of cylinder 1.  i know, i know, just call it a premature senior moment lol.  so i set about starting from scratch. the timing was correctly set, the leads were connected the correct way around, and the colourtune was pressed back into service.  here's where things get a bit confusing for me, so any thoughts are welcome, so i can make a list to check off.

idle is fine. colourtune showing a nice bunsen blue colour.  when you open the throttle, it all goes black in there. you can still see the spark, but everything else around it is black.

i pulled the plugs, and they are a bit sooty, but im putting that down to burning brake fluid.  cleaned them again just in case.

my next suspect was the carb - an HIF38.  i purchased a service kit, and took it off.  on dismantling, it seems the float was set a bit low, so that has been remedied. everything in there was shiny and new, so that rules out the carb being gummed up with crap.  im hoping the float being set too low was starving the engine of fuel when the throttle was opened?

next check will be to test the fuel pump while the carb is out.  if that isn't playing, then a facet leccy job will be fitted.

if neither of these things turn out to be at fault, i think the last thing would be the needle - but would this be enough to kill the engine when the throttle is opened?

 

as i say, any pointers are welcome, as if this doesn't fix it at the weekend, i'm going to have to give it to a garage, and i'd rather not spend those ponds on stuff i really should be able to figure out myself.

 

cheers all!

[Parky]

So is it getting too rich a mixture when you accelerate?  Sounds like it could be the wrong Jet is fitted?  Am no expert on SU’s (or any carb to be honest).

Will assume all Vac lines are good and timing is spot on based on what’s been done so far.

[groovylee]

48 minutes ago, Parky said:

So is it getting too rich a mixture when you accelerate?  Sounds like it could be the wrong Jet is fitted?  Am no expert on SU’s (or any carb to be honest).

Will assume all Vac lines are good and timing is spot on based on what’s been done so far.

at this point im not 100% sure if it is too much fuel, or too little, as the cylinder as viewed through the colourtune just goes black, with only the spark to be seen.  i need to re set the mixture since the carb was stripped, but if still no joy i'll see what needle is fitted and go from there.

vac lines all good, and the timing will be checked one more time just to be on the safe side!

thanks,

Lee

[groovylee]

I had last week off, so much tinkering ensued.....  and we have a result!

i took it to a local mini licker, and he determined that it was running way too lean in the midrange, and the needle was likely at fault.  he tuned it as best he could with what he had, so i left happy that things were ok, but a new needle was needed.

i found that I had fitted an AAV needle, and was poiinted in the direction of a site that compared needle fuelling curves.  i found that most stage 1 kitted 998s have an AAU fitted.  hmmm, i think i bought an AAV by mistake when i meant to get a AAU.  a quick look at my shopping list, and yep, bad handwriting wins the day. D'Oh!

so with a new AAU needle in hand, i did the swap, set it up with the colourtune, and voila! it runs a million times better!

to celebrate, i took minigroovy for a run

[groovylee]

next up was some minor fettling.  a new dash was fitted, complete with new sony head unit.

[groovylee]

then the old grey door pockets were fitted to the nice new doorcards.

[groovylee]

before a good clean and polish. then it was ready for her majesty to take a ride in her 40th birthday present. a mere 16 months after i bought it for her.... oops!

the day after it sailed through its first MOT with us, with no advisories!

next steps are a bigger battery (tiny thing in these, and it wont like the heated front screen, heater, stereo, lights and wipers going all at the same time in winter), a little side project involving an R56 BINI centr console complete with cupholders, a bootlid cover complete with tool storage, and then finally some storage boxes for under the rear seats.  then i think it will be done for a bit.

oh, and i need to source a good looking roof rack for when we go camping in it.

cheers for reading!

 

Lee

[groovylee]

oh, one final thing.  ive heard that GMB plates (?) are no more, so if anyone knows of a place that can do replica dealer plates from a photo / scan, please let me know.  the rear plate is the original, but is very tired, and the front looks a right mess, so i'd like to get some correct dealer plates made up

 

[DSdriver]

Wouldn't an uprated alternator be a better purchase than a bigger battery? That's what we used to do when strapping 4 Cibie Super Oscars to the front.

[groovylee]

On 8/2/2021 at 2:11 PM, DSdriver said:

Wouldn't an uprated alternator be a better purchase than a bigger battery? That's what we used to do when strapping 4 Cibie Super Oscars to the front.

quite possibly, im just checking to see what the current alternator is rated at.  the current battery really is tiny though - 35AH and 330CCA.

[BorniteIdentity]

🧐😬

[groovylee]

the peg has now been designed and painted by little groovy   well, there are now 4 of them as we all wanted to have a go! lol

[Tommyboy12]

063 battery is the biggest you will get in the battery tray. A worthwhile upgrade though. Both mine have 063s and they just never die!

As for the alternator, if its original its probably a 45amp unit. The 70amp unit from a Metro is a straight swap. I would recommend you swap over the pulleys or you could end up with weird pulley size combinations and will find the drive belt wont fit. You can tell the difference between the 45amp and 70amp unit by the large plastic cover on the back of the 45amp unit which is not present on the 70amp unit.

[groovylee]

27 minutes ago, Tommyboy12 said:

063 battery is the biggest you will get in the battery tray. A worthwhile upgrade though. Both mine have 063s and they just never die!

As for the alternator, if its original its probably a 45amp unit. The 70amp unit from a Metro is a straight swap. I would recommend you swap over the pulleys or you could end up with weird pulley size combinations and will find the drive belt wont fit. You can tell the difference between the 45amp and 70amp unit by the large plastic cover on the back of the 45amp unit which is not present on the 70amp unit.

Thanks for that. I had read much the same, and was just in the process of deciding between the 075 and the 063.  now i know which to go for

[groovylee]

due to impending Ranger dismantling, and the need for driveway space, the mini is currently a garden ornament 🤣

i forgot just how small these are! great view out of the lounge window though

 

[groovylee]

Not much has happened with the smoll neon, but I still wasn't happy with how it was running, so I booked it in with the nice chaps at LynxAE in Wellingborough. Mrs Groovy took it up there, and after some timing adjustment and needle fettling, she now reports that it is awesome to drive 😁 I'll find out at the weekend... We have even got a nice little graph that I'll attempt to decipher at some point lol

[groovylee]

I also managed to pick up a nice roofrack for it, and a towbar. Undecided on whether that's going on or not, but for a proper Dixon Bate towbar at £25, I wasn't going to pass it up 😬

[tooSavvy]

@Bezzabsa

"..my current car is a 993, with Citroen brake lights .. loved it, *MOT fail/renewed brakes that did bugger all over 60mph...mind you flat out is just about 75.."

Get the 'rose tints' on m8!

😉

 

 

[groovylee]

not much has been happening with this one over the winter. i dont really want it to see salted roads very much, so it has been tucked away.

the only problem with this, is that it leads to boredom..... which leads me onto my latest aquisition

the plan is to get a new shell (ordered last night), paint it the same colour as the real Neon (Nordic Blue), and then turn it into a replica!

ive even found a guy that says he can make the 1:10 scale 'Neon' decals so that it looks just right.  i'll post up progress as it goes, but for now, this is how the new car looks.

[Tommyboy12]

On 9/16/2021 at 9:29 AM, groovylee said:

Not much has happened with the smoll neon, but I still wasn't happy with how it was running, so I booked it in with the nice chaps at LynxAE in Wellingborough. Mrs Groovy took it up there, and after some timing adjustment and needle fettling, she now reports that it is awesome to drive 😁 I'll find out at the weekend... We have even got a nice little graph that I'll attempt to decipher at some point lol

I missed this post. How did you find the Lynx AE guys? Theyre not far from me and I need a tune up when the 998 is back into my white Mini.

[groovylee]

2 minutes ago, Tommyboy12 said:

I missed this post. How did you find the Lynx AE guys? Theyre not far from me and I need a tune up when the 998 is back into my white Mini.

really good, and obviously knew their stuff. everything they did was discussed and explained - would recommend.

[UltraWomble]

On 8/5/2021 at 9:49 AM, BorniteIdentity said:

🧐😬

TADS

Mine certainly did

[Noel Tidybeard]

10 hours ago, UltraWomble said:

TADS

Mine certainly did

mine didn't!