Hi guys,

I haven't posted anything about my project as I only started in March and came to a screeching halt when I found that no-one wanted to do the body work on it. In reality, the body work is in great nick. The only issue is the four seams that run from the roof down the four corners of the car. The floor, roof, door, etc are excellent.

After countless phone calls and meets with panel beaters, I have finally found someone to take on the shell, so things are back on the move again.

I was put onto Wolf Grodd of 'Sleeping Beauties'. He came out today, within a couple of hours of my phone call. and had a look at her and said he would be happy to do the work. He is terribly nice and very friendly. One of the few people my beagle has come straight up to for a pat!

He saw the work I had already put in and was impressed with my dedication and attention to detail. he like the fact that I am happy to spend the time to do it right and that I insisted on a bare-metal respray. He said if I hadn't said that, he wouldn't have taken it on.

I asked if I could could come and do as much of the work as I can such as grinding, sanding, etc, and he was very impressed and happy for me to do this. He said most people just give him a rusted hulk and say "Fix up back to original and send me the bill". He said these sorts of people generally don't really 'care' about the car and then they take the credit for the resto.

He couldn't give me a figure for the work because it is just too hard to tell, but he charges $55 an hour, which is pretty standard for panel beating from what I have seen, and said that every hour I spend working ont he car is an hour he doesn't have to charge me for.

She gets collected this Saturday. It'll be sad to see her go, but I get to visit her on weekends. Wish I could do that with the wife...

I will get some pics up of what I started with, although lost the pics of when she first arrived as a rolling chassis. My wife's film SLR ate the roll that the pics were on. I spat the dummy and went and bought an 8MP Canon digital SLR. Never going to have that happen again!

The idea is to keep the car looking pretty stock.

The intended mods are:

ROH Contessa 10x5 mags
Hi-Lo's
KYB Gas-A-Just shocks all round
Adjustable front camber and caster
4 pot alloy brake callipers
7.5" uprated grooved discs up front
Cooper S offset drums on the back
Braided stainless brake and clutch lines
1200PSI brake booster
Original optional timber dash
Classic vintage bucket seats with head rest (the ones with the lateral supports)
KAD quick shifter
Halogen headlights
Twin tanks (not because I want an 'S' replica, but because I want the extra fuel!) - I AM NO LONGER DOING A RH TANK - I AM GOING TO PUT A LARGER 'LS' LH TANK IN.
Stianless bumbers and grills
Remote bonnet release

In terms of a power plant:

Engineering by MadMatt the Mini Man
Morris 1100S thick flange no side plate donk
Bored to 1360
JP 73mm pistons (the Jack Read specials)
A+ rods
1.5:1 roller rockers
Ported/polished/flowed head
Mild cam grind to a road/rally profile
Lightened flywheel
Stainless valve seats for PULP
Large journal STD/STD crank rated to over 9,000rpm (although I don't intend to take it past 7Krpm)
Weber 45DCOE on a Warner manifold so I don't have to mod the firewall
Alternator
Electronic Pulsar dissy
Electric solid state fuel pump
4 speed synchro rod change box
LCB extractors
MadMatt custom exhaust (nice and straight and sounds HOT without being too loud)

I intend on painting her in a nice deep blue like you see the AC Shelby Cobra's painted in. I couldn't afford to do a Cobra, so I am doing a Mini in the same colour.

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Morphias.
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If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space...

Sounds like a good plan, that mini will be sweet as when your done.

Of course you're never DONE with a mini but you know what I mean.

Congrats on what sounds like a really cool project.


Matt

Sounds great! What do you think your budget will be? I can tell you now (unless you already have the majority of the parts) it's not going to be cheap

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

yeah sounds good
yeah it will be some dollars but by the looks its being spent in the right areas and will be a very solid car one that will last

Brace yourself! I had to when I realised it was not going to come in at the allowed budget. I had allowed $16,000 including the cost of the car itself. Admittedly, I got a bit carried away in some areas...like the brakes. I had budgeted $2000 and ended up at around $3,000 from memory.

The car was $1,400 and at this point I am looking at the pointy end of $22K-$25K. This includes a personal estimate of $4K-$6K in body and paint work.

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Morphias.
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If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space...

still if you sell it in 10 years you will get a decent amount for it where as you can buy a new lancer or such now for 20ish and sell it in a few years and get not much

sell....out you out of your mind?

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no i am not suggesting he sell just saying its almost an investment anyways

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I would sell my wife and the kids I may have in the next few years before I sell the Mini.

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Morphias.
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If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space...

that's the spirit!

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Reminds me of a well known story regarding Larry Adler, the founder of FAI insurance. When once asked by an analyst whether he was planning on selling the company, he replied that there were two things in his life he would ever sell, his wife and FAI.

The analyst then reminded him about his son Rodney (now infamous due to HIH) Alder, Larry Adler's reply was "Make me an offer."

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One should never skimp on the zip ties.

OK...finally got off my arse and set up a photobucket account so that I can post some progress pics.

I do not have any pics of the mini when I first got it or the progress of stripping the mechanicals out of it. I used my wife's film SLR for those pics and had been hassling her for months to get it serviced. Low and behold! It just happened to crap itself with the roll of aforemention progress in it and chewed the role. Needless to say, I was somewhat annoyed (read = EXPLODED and flipped out like a ninja) and put a big dent in the credit card and bought a Canon digital SLR. MadMatt loves me coming round to takes pics of his invetions with it cause the image quality is awesome...and for the money, it f#$%ing should be!

These images have been reduced from 45.5MB to around 250KB, so there is a 'bit' of a loss in image quality

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Morphias.
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If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space...

This is after I have sanded off the top coat by hand. I used a wood block about 50x20x120mm and 1/3 of a sheet of 120 grit sand paper.

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Morphias.
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If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space...

Here is the shell after applying some green goo that could only have come from the pits of Hell! This crap was N-A-S-T-Y! Made the paint bubble on contact, but it is much nicer than wasting metal on wire brushing and sanding.

I used a 40mm wide paint brush to apply, waited 5mins and then scraped it off with a 40mm wide paint scraper.

Added some pics of me doing the work to prove I was really doing it too!

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Morphias.
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If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space...