RF Generation Message Board

I've made this thread to stop cluttering up other ones.


In June this year I bought myself a 1990 Rover Mini.

Here I am, proudly posing at the first service station on the way home from buying it. ;D

[img width=700 height=466]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/Services.jpg[/img]



However, less than 30 miles later...
:(

[img width=700 height=466]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/Roadside2.jpg[/img]


The head gasket had blown, letting water into the combustion chambers. A week later, the seller had come down to fix it for me, free of charge. I did offer to pay for parts, though.

The engine bay with spark plugs removed:
[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SS100018.jpg[/img]

Old head in place, rocker cover off:
The milkiness is water in the oil.
[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SS100008.jpg[/img]

The old head:
The gasket had not snapped but it was letting water through between 2 and 3 cylinders.
[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SS100013.jpg[/img]


New head, nice and clean:
Normally the head from a blown gasket engine would be taken away to have a very small amount of metal skimmed off to make it flat again. The seller brought down a completely reconditioned head to make an easy replacement. i.e. just swap it over instead of taking the old head away and coming back another time.
[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SS100009.jpg[/img]

New head in place:
[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SS100015.jpg[/img]


And so I was able to drive it to the top of the sloped driveway. :)

[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SS100021.jpg[/img]

[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SS100022.jpg[/img]




However, it then failed its MOT a few days later on 14 points. :( It sat in the garage for a while, then I spent a month in New Zealand. Then when I came back I decided to run the engine to charge the battery and keep the thing oiled. But it was bogging down and even cutting out if I tapped the throttle. This was all on the driveway, not on the road. ;)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7PJnLktoUIc


It turned out it had a distributor from a 1275cc engine on it, and mine is a 998cc engine. The bigger engine has a different advance curve so the timing was all wrong. There is a notch on a pulley that lines up with some teeth next to it whenever the spark plug on #1 cyclinder fires. If you use a strobe light to flash when the spark plug fires, it makes the notch look stantionary when the engine is running.

Here is the timing being set with the 1275's distributor.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5PuYXWfxVAw

The notch is supposed to line up with the second small tooth away from the big one at the back. So the third tooth from the back. But as you can see, if it got anywhere near that it bogged down and cut out. If I set the notch so it was revving nicely, it was a couple of inches forward of all the teeth.

I bought a new-used distributor from a 998cc engine and fitted it. The notch got to the 2nd small tooth. But if I reversed up the driveway quickly it bogged down and stalled. Advancing the timing sorted that. But that meant it was further advanced than it should have been. I tested for an air leak by wafting a feather around the manifold and it fluttered a lot at a certain point.

After replacing the gasket between the inlet/exhaust manifold and the engine head, I set the timing to where it was supposed to be. It's now running like this:
This is the first turn of the key of the day. The weather this morning was cold and misty so there was a lot of condensation, which shows up as white smoke once the engine warms up. It bogged down a bit but that's because it was cold with the choke pushed in. Now the timing is right, I need to check the fuel mixture. I think it's still a bit rich.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=m9u43ZSpYFU



While I was sorting out the engine, I was also poking it with a screwdriver. Two of the MOT failure points were "excessive corrosion near the seatbelt mounting points". Like this:
The round hole at the top is where the bolt for the seatbelt goes. The flat hole underneath is where it's rusted. It was like this on both sides and I didn't even realise.
[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/DriversSeatbeltMount.jpg[/img]



So after poking it with a screwdriver I found out I need two new inner sills, two new front floor pans, and two new outer sills.

[img width=700 height=466]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SeptemberRustSmall010.jpg[/img]

The worst bit:
[img width=700 height=466]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SeptemberRustSmall007.jpg[/img]

...which was covered with this:
Mesh and filler!
[img width=700 height=466]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/SeptemberRustSmall004.jpg[/img]


So I now have a welder, grinder and 6 new panels. I just need some courage to start chopping up my car now.

Epic post here James. I say suck in your gut, and go all out on the panel installation. If you wait any longer, it'll be too cold, and you'll have to wait until spring to fix your car. Your choice though... ;)

If you have the parts, definately do it now.  I'm finishing up replacing cam seals, head gaskets, valve seals, etc. on my  car before it gets too cold.  It can definately be a pain in the ass, but you're better off doing it now before it gets cold.

Nice post James, a very informative read I must say. :)

Your car will be freaking awesome when it is all fixed up and road worthy.

Wow, you know a lot more about cars that I do.  I envy you :)

Very informative post and neat little project you're taking on.  You should make this a blog entry and post followups the further along you get. 

Good point. :)

On your first comment - I'm not exactly a car guru. I get a lot of advice from forums. I bought the Mini to learn on, and so far I've learnt a lot.


Update:
Last night I "reset" the carburettor. That means leaning it off until the mixture nut won't turn any more, then turning it 2 1/2 turns open. It turns out all the smoke from the last video was because it needed to be turned four whole turns to close it. :o Very rich.


This is the first turn of the key this morning.
Apparently I won't get the revving problems once it's warmed up. As you can see - almost no smoke. ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT0kHwU2cEg

Awesome. The next vid should be an interior vid where you show all the rust, then you do a start-up with a view of the tach! :P

Very nice read, keep us informed.

The what? Doesn't have one. ;)



Today I took the petrol tank out ready to do some cutting up this week. :) It took me two whole hours because of the clip holding the hose onto the bottom of the tank. It was really tight and in an awkward position. Also, it's not a good idea to syphon out the petrol with a hose and your mouth. It doesn't work and doesn't taste nice. :(

It's illegal to do any welding within 20 feet of a petrol tank. I only found out it was against the law a few weeks ago but it does make sense.

There should hopefully be some pictures of me cutting and welding some time in the next week.

So you did in fact learn stuff in that class you took?! Amazing!

Also, are you going to put in a tachometer (shows revs ;) )?

Normally that should work though. It's simple physics.

You did keep the hose below the tank level, right?

That's why I always use a long and clear hose when siphoning anything. Gives you plenty of time to get the hose out of your mouth.

I do know what a tachometer is. ;)


Yup. But what I had to do was put the hose under the petrol line in the tank and the other end in my jerry can then blow down the filler neck. That pushes the petrol through the hose. Unfortunately when you stop blowing and break the seal of your hand the pressure blows petrol fumes back in your face. :(


I've bought myself a fire extinguisher at last. I'm pretty much ready to start cutting it. But it's been drizzling most of today. When it stops, I'm going to prepare it for cutting another day. That means scraping the sound proofing rubber off the floor, and the underseal off from underneath.





Edit: I've been scraping the rubber soundproofing off but it's very hard and stuck on well after 18 years. I had the bright idea of using a heat gun to soften it a bit. But that was after I had packed away. :-\ I'll try again later today, I'm just having a break and I don't like leaving tools on the drive.

Also - More rust. >_< And now I have a hole in the floor from where the chisel went through. Good job I was replacing that bit anyway. ;)

That looks like it'll be a fun project. I'll be interested to watch the progress.

Errrr... "fun"... yeah. ::)

I started using a paint stripping heat gun on the sound proofing to make it peel off better, which it did. Unfortunately there was a bit of dampness under the pedals. I struck one of the drainage plugs with the chisel and it came out, showing water underneath. "Wait... that's not right. I should see the ground through there!" Someone has welded a sheet of metal directly under the floor pan. All that does is hide the rust from the outside and collect water... hence the dampness and the rustiness.

I had decided to only replace half of each front floor pan. Less cutting, less welding, less effort. But now it looks like I'll be replacing the whole of both front floor pans anyway. It's not too bad because the panels cover that area.

This car has so many bodges that need sorting. :(

yeah but when it's all said and done you'll have a sweet little ride crafted with your own hands.

You should totally put 20" (or whatever the biggest that can fit the car) chrome spinners on it when you're done. It would be awesome in a rediculous kind of way. :D

13". 8)


It would be even more awesome with chrome spinning hubcaps.  :laugh:

Epic. Win.



:laugh:

The weather was good today so I was full of motivation. I stripped just about all the sound proofing off the front but then I had a thought about the brake line.


The red line is the brake line. The green line is where I was going to cut. The blue line is where I could have cut to avoid the brake line. However, I've since learnt that brake fluid is very flammable and burns without a flame so you don't realise until the car is just a smoldering lump of molten metal on the drive. :-\ I now have to find out how to drain the brake fluid and remove the pipes.  :-X

[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/cutbrakes.jpg[/img]








Edit: The brakes are now drained but it's a little late to start cutting the car up. I can't think of anything else that needs doing before I cut it up. I just need to take the doors off (When it's not raining) and weld a bit of box section across the door frame. I'll do that tomorrow in case it rains over night.

Are you going to tack weld some supports on the body to keep it from twisting and getting misshapen when you cut out pieces of the body?

I've cut some floor out on the driver's side. Mainly the rusty bits. I still need to cut some more but it was getting dark and time for dinner so I stopped for the day.



[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/FloorHole1.jpg[/img]


This is what came out:
There should only be one layer there. Someone has bodged a plate of metal underneath to cover up the rusty holes, but all that does is collect water which leads to more rust.

[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/FloorCutOut.jpg[/img]


I had a break to talk to the neighbours for a while. Surprisingly, they didn't realise I had been grinding away despite all the noise I thought I was making. They ended up giving me a tarpaulin to cover the car over night while it has no doors. It should keep the rain (if any!) and dew out. The thing was big enough to cover the whole drive!


[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/TarpCover.jpg[/img]



I shall be welding tomorrow, hopefully.

Good luck James. :)

I started cutting the floor out on Saturday. I haven't got very far now because I keep finding more rust and holes.  :(


This is where the floor meets the bulkhead at the front. There should only be one layer here.

[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/BulkHeadLayers.jpg[/img]


From underneath, looking to the front right A pillar. I'm trying to work out how to remove the rust to be able to weld some new panels on.

[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/CutFrontArchDoorStep.jpg[/img]



Across the inside floor there is a cross-beam. This is how it looks from the outside.

[img width=700 height=525]http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m84/BrokenFlight/Mini/CrossBeamOutside.jpg[/img]





I may have to buy some sheet metal to patch up the bits I don't have panels for.