So the first day of dismantling my Mini… well, not really, right now when writing this I’m a couple of days off taking out the engine, but lets pretend.
Ok, so my Mini has been rusting for a while, and I’ve been wanting to restore it properly pretty much since I got it, but it was cheap, 650 (ish) quid to be precise (ish). It wasn’t great when I bought it 4 years ago, all four roof corners rusting, one with an inch diameter hole in, A-Frames rusting, subframes rusting and to top it all off, the fuel tank hose broke off the day before I went to pick it up. I had to drive about 50 miles with a car full of petrol fumes. Now normally this would be manageable with the windows wide open, which it was, until it started to piss down with rain on the M3.
So we reached the travellodge we were staying in, and it was horrific, articulated lorries going past the window all night, about once every 30 minutes, literally. Anyway, we ended up throwing away the back seat of the car and just saving the cover. Luckily we found another Mini in a scrapyard and bought a “new” back seat to replace it.
Whilst at University I managed to lose the back end whilst driving out of a Tesco car park in the dark with steamed up windows and not only bent the rear subframe, but also, somehow, the solid cast iron stub axle arms. So I’ve had the rear subframe off twice and replaced it once. Then 2 years ago I made a fancy repair to the roof, with a chopped up Evian bottle and some bathroom sealant, which actually worked quite well.
Anyway, photos of the Mini in its before state will follow when I next post something, probably “Day 1”