My 1967 Mk1 Austin Cooper S

[apblake]

It looks so much better now without those plastic wheel arch extensions!

If you want BP6ES there’s literally thousands for sale here in Australia and no sign they’ve been discontinued?

Thanks for the comment and good to know on the BP6ES plugs. I stocked up from minispares - it made me nervous that you basically can't get them in the States anymore.

[apblake]

One more project I undertook over the winter that I forgot to mention was the seatbelts. The seatbelts on my car were from 1990 and so I wan't to replace them with a period correct set. There was just a single hole drilled into the floor to accommodate the floor mounting point so I opted to go with the Kangol magnetic belts since they have the same single bolt mount. I was able to source a pair of used belts from a forum member here (thanks again rolesyboy) and I sent them to FDTS for refurbishment. I know it has been mentioned before, but it is worth mentioning again, FDTS is a truly amazing resource that must be a one of a kind. When they received my belts they promptly sent me back a 12 page detailed report (including photos) of literally every single nut, bolt, washer, plastic part, etc. with a list of options for what I could do to refurbish each and every part. They also have the knowledge of what is potentially missing and how the belts should have been setup when new. As others have discussed on this forum the webbing for the Kangol belts is no longer available so I chose a slightly darker (really a black instead of a gray) webbing as a replacement and had everything either cleaned up, or re-chromed. When i got the belts after a little more than a month of work I could not have been happier with the result.

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[apblake]

I finally finished sorting out the bent tie rods. Once I had the tie rods removed I noticed a huge amount of play in the lower suspension arms. I could easily tweak the front suspension just by hand. So I ordered the poly bushes with metal sleeves in the center as well as new pins (one of my pins had damaged threads). I guess someone upgraded my lower suspension arms to the mk2 arms at some point.

I don't know how long the red poly bushes for the lower suspension arms have been manufactured, but if I had to guess these bushes have been on the car since 1990 which would mean that they have 24K miles on them. You can see in the photos how badly worn they were.

I got everything on the front suspension degreased and looking spiffy, painted the lower arms, and got the new tie rods on with the purple and black bush set. Everything went smoothly except for the fact that I had to place 4 different orders for parts due to slowly uncovering more and more stuff that needed to be replaced. Note that I'm aware the tie rod bolts are in upside down - I just couldn't get the bolt in from the top and I used a nyloc nut so I'm not too worried about it coming off.

Anyway, I took the car out for a test drive and the handling is massively improved! I used to experience a lot of roll, especially when diving into a corner under heavy braking, that would cause the car to get into an oversteer situation a little more unpredictably than I would want. Now with the front suspension all tightened up that excessive roll is totally gone. What a difference.

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[apblake]

I also was able to get to an upholsterer this week. The original gold brocade in my driver's seat started to get a little tear in it and I didn't want it to get worse. The upholsterer was able to take the seat apart and glue sunbrella material to the back of each of the brocade panels and then apply another piece of sunbrella across all of the panels in order to fix the existing tear, to hopefully ward off any future tears in the other panels, and to reduce the stress on the stitching (which was opening up in places). You can see in the before picture how the fabric was torn in a couple of places which was causing a lot of stress on the vinyl stitching.

After restitching the panels and putting everything back together the tear is basically unnoticeable and everything is much tighter and stronger. Hopefully this will last a long time.

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[apblake]

Couple of small updates:

I started getting a bit of a knocking noise while the car was relatively cold at idle (when the engine vibrates the most). I tried to determine what was hitting, but couldn't actually see anything. It almost sounded like it could be coming from the engine steady itself (maybe hitting on the inner sleeve or something).

So I decided to replace the engine steady bushings since that isn't something I had touched. When I took them out I could see that on one side were some poly bushes that seemed to be in decent shape, but the person who replaced those apparently didn't bother to replace the other side. On the other side were some pretty worn out rubber bushes. I replaced both sides with the poly bushes from minispares. Once tightened up it eliminated the knocking noise. I hate the purple color, but for now function will have to win over form (they aren't very visible anyway). I might change them for some black poly bushes at some point in the future if it really bothers me.

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Also made up a new brake servo hose and routed it the correctly beneath the heater air intake hose.

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[MiNiKiN]

Awesome story, I appreciate how stubborn you are in your research - I can totally understand your obsession to research previous owners. I too have this obsession to find out about my Inno's former keepers, but with an Italian language barrier in-between and literally no records of its previous live

side-note: You must be sponored by "Frog Tape"

[apblake]

Awesome story, I appreciate how stubborn you are in your research - I can totally understand your obsession to research previous owners. I too have this obsession to find out about my Inno's former keepers, but with an Italian language barrier in-between and literally no records of its previous live

side-note: You must be sponored by "Frog Tape"

The Frog tape comment got me to laugh out loud. I do in fact go thru quite a bit of that overpriced stuff.

I never expected to be so interested in the car's story, but when it is too cold to work on the car it really seems to pull me in. Good luck in your Inno quest for info!

[apblake]

Another small update. From time to time I would get a smell of fuel in the trunk, and the flexible fuel lines looked to be very old (possibly not ethanol proof). In addition, I noticed some short sections of just plain fuel line (not protected by a metal sheath) under the car that I wasn't thrilled about. Also, at some point somebody changed the clamp for the fuel pump to a incorrect part that was a hard mount (rather than cushioned by the foam rubber piece that went with original fuel pump clamps.

So I replaced all the flexible fuel lines in the rear of the car (that now means that I have replaced all of the flexible fuel lines for the car) and changed the fuel pump mount to the correct type with the pad. Someone installed a fuel filter at some point on the car, but I kind of like having the additional protection so that stayed in place.

Before:

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After:

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[apblake]

I finally completed a restoration of my handbrake.

I noticed some time ago that my handbrake had the incorrect chromed metal button on it instead of the white plastic type. In addition, the rivet that secures the pawl to the handbrake handle had been replaced at some point with a screw and the whole assembly had clearly been painted black at by someone since everything including the zinc plated parts was covered in black paint. It doesn't show in the photos, but the black paint was fairly badly chipped off down to bare metal on a lot of the handle so I decided to restore the whole thing since there was no originality to be preserved.

Removal of the pawl and rod with the button was easy in my case because all I had to do was remove the screw and the whole thing slid out without any need to split the handle (something referenced by another member on this forum). I ground off all the paint, including the paint on the zinced main base where I was able to save a nice patina'd coating under the black paint. I did not drill out the main rivet about which the handle pivots. This part is no longer available, I didn't want to have one custom machined, and I feel I was able to still get a very satisfactory restoration without removing it. The starlock washers (that frequently get ruined during removal) were easy to find, I was able to find a white plastic button, and my assembly was missing the anti-rattle felt washer, but that was also easy to source from a standard hardware supplier along with rivet and washers for the pin holding the pawl.

Very happy with the result. Some before, during, and after photos below:

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[apblake]

Just finished doing a complete rebuild of the rear brakes (the pistons were seeping brake fluid). Refurbished the backplates, the handbrake cable brackets and then replaced the pads/cylinders/springs. Most time was just spent degreasing 40 years of gunk.

Before:

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In process

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After

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[apblake]

Also replaced the bump stops and added the spacers that were missing on my car

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And I replaced the rebound stops as well - the old ones were allowing the radius arms to sag too much

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[apblake]

While the brake system had air in it I also took the opportunity to make new brake lines for the engine bay. The existing ones looked like they had been routed by a drunken sailor. Now I believe they are pretty close to how they would have been routed originally on the car and I put in place the clip that holds them together which had been missing.

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One of the clips to hold the brake/clutch lines on the firewall was missing so I also got that in place

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[apblake]

Finally got around to painting the angled stiffener on the front panel black. I'm pretty sure all of the lip around the edge is supposed to be painted black as well, but I didn't bother since it really can't be seen behind the grille.

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Now you don't see the stiffener, whereas it was clearly visible before

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[apblake]

I also noticed that the inside of the rear bumper was particularly filthy so I took the bumper off and took apart the overriders to clean off what is likely 40 years worth of grease/dirt/surface rust. They just suck the stuff up. Got everything cleaned up and put back on the car. I'm guessing the front bumper has less hidden gunk, but I'll still take it off when I have time to do the same treatment. Also was able to polish and wax the paint in the areas that you can't normally get to with the bumper in place.

Before

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After

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[iain1967s]

Just a saw you posted this great driving video of your car

https://youtu.be/yB_aJUk-Cj8

[apblake]

Thanks for adding Iain - it was fun to make the video!

[Tagus]

Whoa, thanks for the drive!!
I want to add a bit to your story although it's a bit off topic. A few years back a co-worker, who knew I was into Mini's, showed me a picture of an Austin 1800 for sale just down the road from me. I live in the Okanagan Valley, BC, Canada. He thought I would be interested in the car. I wasn't but I could see there were boxes in the back seat with perhaps Lucas labels poking out. I went to see the car and made a deal to by everything in the back seat not knowing what the boxes contained. Turns out they were full of BMC NOS bits. Through some sleuthing I concluded the parts came from probably the closing of the Austin dealer on Church St in Toronto. Seems he/they must have divided up the inventory and headed west.

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On another front I'm working on the big brother to your car, a 1966 Cooper S. I purchased this from Avery of Rust Valley Restorers fame prior to the TV show coming to cable. Here's my progress so far. I had to replace the complete bottom 6" of this car. I'm painting the roof white in honour of the '66 Monte Carlo.

[apblake]

Wow - fantastic car and very cool about the connection to the dealership. I’d love to know what happened to their records. They were the official importer for BMC in Canada for a while. I do know that a subsequent owner of the dealership was a bit of a sketchy fellow who was kidnapped and murdered (possible over some unpaid gambling debts). If you turn up anything interesting from the bits you acquired I’d love to know!

[Tagus]

Wow, this story has intrigue!
Here's a link to the parts. I've taken pictures of most of them but haven't had a chance to chase down the models they fit.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link

[jl46]

Hello Adam,
Great video !
Is there any chance you will be bringing your MINI to MME here in Rochester NY this
weekend 6/30- 7/3 ?
We would love to see your car !

Jim