1989 Austin Mini 'Designer' special edition project + bonus Mini Cooper content

[Blake's Den]

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.

 

[Blake's Den]

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.

[Blake's Den]

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:

 

[N Dentressangle]

I do like those old vans, but hope you didn't pay much for it! 😉

Lots of work to do there 🔨

[Blake's Den]

2 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

I do like those old vans, but hope you didn't pay much for it! 😉

Lots of work to do there 🔨

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!

[Blake's Den]

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.

 

[Blake's Den]

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.

[Blake's Den]

An update on the Copper MPI. 

March is an important month as it means two things. 

1. I've owned it for another year - I bought it in March 2009
2. 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!

 

[Remspoor]

Just trying to catch up. so will be watching the one about the tractor generator.

[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.

 

[Blake's Den]

No progress on the Designer but I have had to do a small job on my MPI. I wound the passenger window down to adjust the wing mirror and I realised that the winder mechanism was reallt stiff and crunchy. I knew straight away what the problem was, the window runner was corroded and had failed, I had a similar issue on the Designer. Luckily I had a spare runner and it was quite an easy fix. I just need some nice weather now to justify winding the windows down!

 

[Blake's Den]

I've really been making some progress on this project, I seem to have found some more energy to crack on with it. The plan is to get it back on the ground sound which will allow me to move it out of the garage and have a bit of a reorganisation. The latest progress was getting the rear brakes fitted. I had rebuilt these seperately some time ago so it was good to get them out of the cupboard and onto the Mini. Onwards and upwards (or techincally downwards?!)

 

[Blake's Den]

I forgot to post this one. Another small step forwards with getting the wheels on the ground - the rear dampers are now fitted. Only four nuts involved (five if you include me!) but it wasn't that straightforward as the parts that I had didn't seem to match the part diagram. I had them 'in stock' for about 8 years, they were due to go on my MPI but I never got around to fitting them.

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

i would've done top mounts first

[Blake's Den]

7 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

i would've done top mounts first

Yeah that probably would have been easier in retrospect 

[Blake's Den]

Exciting times at Blakesden Towers, the mini is on the ground! This feels like a major milestone to me. There is plenty more to do but I feel like I've broken the back of it now.

Everything went relatively smoothly to be honest. I'm glad that I removed the brake calipers as it is so easy to roll around. I decided to get it out of the garage today so that I could have a good tidy up. I might see if I can get it running just for fun....

 

 

[Blake's Den]

After the success of getting in on all four wheels I decided that it was time to rebuild the break calipers. I decided to Google what I was doing half way through the job and I found some very mixed opinions on the mini forum. Some say you should never split the caliper, some say always split the caliper. Anyway, what I learnt was that if you do split the caliper then you need new bolts and new seals which are not in the rebuild kit!

I'm quite happy with how the finished calipers looked. I need to find some more small jobs like this so that I can keep chipping away at the project (and all my other projects).

 

[Blake's Den]

I decided to try go for a quick win and started fixing the bonnet. Spoiler alert, it wasn't a quick win!

I knew that it needed a new front lip and I had already ordered a heritage replacement to weld on. When I removed what was left of the lip it also took off some off the bonnet skin which had rusted away. Then a pinhole appeared in the bonnet which grew to something about the size of a 5p. The bonnet braces were also rusty, cutting the rusty bits off revealed yet more more rust. Plus the bonnet catch needed welding back on, that fell off a few years ago.

So, given the number of patches required I think that a new bonnet is required. Either a heritage panel or a decent second hand one. I'm sure that the bonnet is repairable but I don't think that it is worth the effort. I'd much rather spend my time doing one of the many other jobs that I need to do on the car.

[Blake's Den]

The next big step that I want to take is to remove the engine. This will give me a good chance to tidy up the engine bay and also paint the engine. However, before I remove the engine I want to know what health the engine is in. So I decided to compression check it and see if it would run

 

Compression was good but a little uneven. But I was doing it on a cold engine with the throttle closed so that might be why I was getting more than 10% spread in my numbers. She fired up easily enough and ran without any knocks, ticks, or bangs so I'm going to take that as a win! I didn't suspect any issues but it is good to know that all is well.

[Remspoor]

Just watched the Haynes video. This is for you.

I have an old one for the Austin Westminster. It is a think soft covered book. I also have the official BMC workshop covering the same car. The Haynes  copied word for word the BMC book. It is going to be a bit busy for me but I will try and upload images later this week.

[Blake's Den]

I managed to fit in some garage time after Christmas. My plan is to remove the engine to enable me to paint the engine, the engine bay and the front subframe. To do this I am braking down the engine removal into smaller tasks, first of which was removal of the radiator. The radiator is in bad condition, you can see in the video that the fins were badly corroded. The hoses are in good condition and I was thinking about reusing these but I'm not sure if it is a good idea. I know that new rubber products don't seem to last and the old hoses show no signs of rot at all. Maybe I'll by some new ones and keep these as spares.

 

[Remspoor]

I have still not got my act together even though a month has passed by.

[Homersimpson]

When you have the engine out it would be a good idea to weld nuts onto the engine mountings for the bolts to the front sub-frame, it makes it so much easier to refit them. 

Also remember the speedo cable when putting it back (connect before lowering) as its a pain to fit once the engine is in.

[Blake's Den]

15 hours ago, Homersimpson said:

When you have the engine out it would be a good idea to weld nuts onto the engine mountings for the bolts to the front sub-frame, it makes it so much easier to refit them. 

Also remember the speedo cable when putting it back (connect before lowering) as its a pain to fit once the engine is in.

Thanks for the heads up, it is appreciated 🙂

[Blake's Den]

A bit more progress on the project. In this video I removed the SU HS4 carb in advance of getting the engine out. It was a straightforward job really. It a shame that YouTube doesn't do smellavision as it really stunk of old stale fuel. I'll give a good clean up and service before it goes back in.

I'm interested to see what needle is in it. The Mini came with an RC40 back box fitted which suggests some mild tuning and possibly a stage 1 kit fitted.

 

[MrBiscuits]

15 minutes ago, Blake's Den said:

A bit more progress on the project. In this video I removed the SU HS4 carb in advance of getting the engine out. It was a straightforward job really. It a shame that YouTube doesn't do smellavision as it really stunk of old stale fuel. I'll give a good clean up and service before it goes back in.

I'm interested to see what needle is in it. The Mini came with an RC40 back box fitted which suggests some mild tuning and possibly a stage 1 kit fitted.

 

The ID should be stamped on the needle somewhere. When I put a single box RC40 and freeflow manifold on mine years ago an old boy told me to fit an AAU and it was spot on. I think standard was AAC.

[Blake's Den]

3 hours ago, MrBiscuits said:

The ID should be stamped on the needle somewhere. When I put a single box RC40 and freeflow manifold on mine years ago an old boy told me to fit an AAU and it was spot on. I think standard was AAC.

Yes, it should be stamped. A changed the needle on my Turner Ranger (A series 1098cc) a while back as it had the wrong one it it. All of the needles are listed in the David Vizard Tuning the A-Series Engine book.

[Blake's Den]

A bit more progress was made before the cold weather hit. I got the exhaust removed, I thought that it would be an easy job but it actually was abit more complicated than I was expecting. However it was much easier than my Mini Cooper MPI.

I also removed the heater cable from the incredibly seized heater valve assembly,

I have been in the garage doing some more work but it is so cold in there I can only stick it out for about 30 minutes. The forecast is for warmer weather the next few days so hopefully I'll be able to do a bit more soon. The biggest problem that I had was all of the tools being cold. Even when I was wearing gloves you could feel the cold transfering to your hands.

 

[Marshall2810]

1 hour ago, Blake's Den said:

A bit more progress was made before the cold weather hit. I got the exhaust removed, I thought that it would be an easy job but it actually was abit more complicated than I was expecting. However it was much easier than my Mini Cooper MPI.

I also removed the heater cable from the incredibly seized heater valve assembly,

I have been in the garage doing some more work but it is so cold in there I can only stick it out for about 30 minutes. The forecast is for warmer weather the next few days so hopefully I'll be able to do a bit more soon. The biggest problem that I had was all of the tools being cold. Even when I was wearing gloves you could feel the cold transfering to your hands.

 

Glad to hear someone else braving the cold to get a bit done outside! I've been out most of today -2 to about +1° but there's nothing like some progress to spur you on. Keep up the great work and look forward to watching your full video later. 

[Blake's Den]

17 minutes ago, Marshall2810 said:

Glad to hear someone else braving the cold to get a bit done outside! I've been out most of today -2 to about +1° but there's nothing like some progress to spur you on. Keep up the great work and look forward to watching your full video later. 

Thanks!