This may not be everybody's cup of tea but I thought I may as well post this up on here and if the projects section ever gets up and running, this could be one of the first threads?

So, I love my coop to bits but I've wanted a smaller car for a while now. Something that I would feel comfortable leaving in a car park and something which I could park more easily. I've always wanted a Mini and lucky girl that I am, I have a fella who went and bought me one for my birthday last week!!

Now, money being as tight as it is at the moment, I knew that we would not be able to afford a minter and that we'd have to do a bit of work to get her how we wanted. However, we did not originally intend to get one which needed so much work but sometimes things come along that you just have to have!

So here she is - Shelby my 1988 Mini Mayfair




Now, granted, she doesn't look like much at the moment but she's definitely got potential.
For a start she is incredibly solid for her age (and being a Mini). I had given up hope of finding a Mini with no rust at all for our budget! Mr L poked around underneath her for a good while before handing over the cash and she is solid - apart from a rotten sill. She has new subframe and is in generally good condition apart from the obvious mini rust spots.

Now for the main reason we bought her:



She has a bored out 1380 engine with the appropriate modifications i.e hi lift cam, performance head, stainless steel exhaust and a competition clutch. There are a lot of other performance goodies which we have yet to determine.

A lot of money has gone under the bonnet of this car but alas, it seems that a lot of these things have been put there with no real knowledge of how to set them up correctly. As a consequence, the car would not run and thus we got it for a bargain price (the guy literally had debt collectors round as Mr L was handing over the cash so I think that may have been a factor in the sale!)

So we got her home and Mr L got his dad (who is an expert on practically everything) to have a little tinker. The spark plugs were all changed and the starter motor was cleaned up.



One hour and 3 cups of coffee later and she sparked into life!

http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg223/LickyL/Mini/?action=view&current=DSCF3287.flv
http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg223/LickyL/Mini/?action=view&current=DSCF3288.flv


You can definitely hear that she's mis-firing when you rev her. The timing still needs looking at but at least she starts!

We've also got to determince whether she has the right distributor for the engine that's fitted.

Tomorrow we will be buying a carb rebuild kit and rebuilding both carbs.

More to follow . . .

First bit of good news - went out to start her today and she still starts every time!

Picked up a carb rebuild kit today from P & L Mini's (Rotherham) but decided to take advantage of a bit of decent weather to sort out the passenger sill which is in a bit of a sorry state.




Out came the old angle grinder . . .



We found this underneath the sill



Managed to grind back the rust and cut away the worst bits.



Offered up the new sill to check . . .


Weather permitting, should be welding it in place tomorrow.

Even found time to start grinding the wheels arches


Starting to get seriously impressed with the shape this Mini is in!

Going to keep persisting with this thread even though it isn't a coop

Bit of a setback this weekend! Just when everything was going nicely . . .

Mr L went to rebuild the carbs this weekend.




Everything was going swimmingly until it came to replacing the needles. The needle (which is supposed to slide out easily) appears to have actually been glued in place???? The needle snapped off leaving half of it stuck in!! The piston would now appear to be fccuked! New set of carbs methinks . . . .

Quick update:

HAve managed to source a pair of reconditioned SU carbs on Ebay but the bloke is giving me the run around so we haven't been able to pick them up yet which is very annoying!

In the meantime - Mr L got around to fixing the steering wheel bracket to lower the steering wheel so that it didn't so much feel like driving a bus.



My back has been VERY bad this week so unfortunately Mr L has had to spend most of his time ferrying me about to doctors/hospital/occ health appointments and has not had as much time to spend on the mini as he would've liked.

The interior has now also been mostly stripped apart from the crappy front seats which are definitely not staying!



Finally managed to sit in her yesterday (sitting is very painful at mo) to test the driving position. Hmmmmmmmmm it's not designed for comfort that's for sure! The pedals are way too high so you can't rest your heel on the floor! We're going to resolve this by hopefully putting in some kind of raising plate. Also - I really didn't expect it to feel so roomy inside! Only time will tell whether I can get used to the drving position after the luxury of the coop!

Ok. We've not had much time to spend on the Mini in the past couple of weeks. Largely due to my ongoing back problems (another hospitalisation is imminent!) and Mr L having to spend most of his free time on getting the house done. As we have not been able to spend a lot of time, we decided to spend a lot of money instead

You may recall that the Mini came with a set of twin SU's however, the needle snapped off in one of the pistons . We managed to buy a pair of recon SU's off Fleabay but after contacting the seller to arrange to collect them (he only lived up the road) we never got a reply after weeks of trying!! The little toe-rag even had the audacity to relist the carbs on Ebay after I had left neg feedback for them!! They've not had any bids - HA

Anyway - we spotted this little beauty



It's a Webber 40 DCOE with :
One swan neck DCOE manifold for A series engine fitment (58mm deep).
One standard length DCOE manifold for A series engine fitment (95mm deep. Slight upward tilt).
One pair of short trumpets.
One pair of long trumpets.
Throttle linkage kit.
PiperCross foam air filter.

It was fitted to a 1460cc full race Mini and Mr L fell in love with it at first sight!

We also splashed out on these Alloy Minifins



As you can see - even my cat is impressed

And lastly:



A chrome breather filter.

So - Mr L is out fitting the carb at the moment and hopefully we'll see her spark into life later.



I'm even seriously considering painting the Mini Speed red to match the coop!

Well that didn't take too long!

Manifold in:



Carb on:



Fire it up!

http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg223/LickyL/Mini/?action=view&current=DSCF3363.flv


Errrrr . . . we'll try connecting the throttle cable this time shall we?

http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg223/LickyL/Mini/?action=view&current=DSCF3365.flv

Man, she's LOUD!! Going to take a lot of dyna-mat to dampen that howl!!!

Very happy

Phew... so, I notice that it has been almost a YEAR since I last posted on this thread. In that time there's been . . . . . well not much development to be honest but here goes.

So, she was working fine and Mr L decided to go and take her for her MOT. Off she trots happily. 3 Minutes later (I kid you not) the phone rings and Mr L tells me she's broken down up the road!!! We had to tow it home again (I tell you, the sight of a Citroen AX towing a Mini up a hill was one of life's rare treats!!) Turns out the fuel pump has given up!!


Anyhoo, around this time, Mr L finds a mechanic friend who has workshop space and he offers to weld the sills on Shelby for a very reasonable price. Since we didn't really have the room to keep her off she went on the back of a trailer. And she stayed there until last Saturday!!!



Here she is arriving home on the back of a trailer.




Here she is being pushed down the hill and into our driveway (she still isn't running at this point!)




Home at last!!

The day after she arrived home we went to the BMC mini fair where we found lots of inspiration and new found enthusiasm for the project (and where we also picked up lots and lots of bargains!!!)

Anyway, back at home we fitted a new fuel pump and finally got the Corbeau buckets seats fitted (after picking up some runners from the fair!)



She now starts! Still a mountain to climb but we'll get there in the end. Until then I keep looking at this as my inspiration:





Next job: new distributor and electronic ignition . . .

Quick update:

Mr L has not managed to get much done this week due to bad weather!

We did, however, manage to pick up some bargains from fleabay.



123 electronic dizzy (Mr L is VERY excited about this!)



Lucas Gold high performance coil



KAD quickshift



Alloy navigators footrest (although when it got here we were a little disappointed that it was so small)

Weather permitting, the dizzy should go on this week and fingers crossed - the dreaded MOT soon!!