January 1960 Austin Mini

[TRP]

Hello Gang,

First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Ted. I live in California. I've been a car guy since first riding with my Grandfather in his 1969 Trojan Red MGC GT. My first car was a Signal Orange, 1971 Karmann Ghia. Over the years I've owned and refurbished many VW's, Several 356's, a Speedster Replica, and a 1929 Model A. The latest project makes me to my first British car, a 1960 Austin Mini. I have yet to file for a Heritage Certificate on the car, but from what I can tell it's your standard Austin Mk1, 2 door left hand drive car. The car appears to have left Lionbridge shod in light blue / Speedwell blue over a 'fleck' interior.

I bought the car without every seeing it in person (based on photos and a video shared by the seller). We worked out a price and I pulled the trigger and had it shipped from Washington to California. The car arrived just before Thanksgiving. After speaking with the owner I learned he had the car for nearly 20 years. In 2000 they purchased a 1275 from MiniMania. That's the motor you see in the car today. The receipts that were sent along show new tires/wheels installed in 2004. The car saw very little action over the years. Those tires still show the molding 'whiskers' and nubs. I did some internet sleuthing and found the owner searched the net and asked questions about collapsed brake lines in 2010 or so, which lead to all new brakes shortly there after. The receipts back this up. When I pulled the front and rear brakes they show very little wear from new (I compared the lining to new shoes and the are nearly identical to the naked eye.) All together it's a very dry car. Floors and panels appear to be original. The are very dry and free of rust. Drip rails are thick, sturdy, and free of rust. I'm overall very pleased with the purchase.

The seller informed me that the car was in need of a respray. He mentioned it had been resprayed before he picked it up and now that paint was dry and dull. He didn't mention that the top looked as though someone had danced the salsa on it.

Now that I'm back home from vacation and work trips, I can get to work on the car.

Here are a few photos:

[trevorhp]

Hi Ted
Welcome to the forum
Very Nice looking car..............enjoy.
Lots of advice and support on here always
Trevor
THP

[CMC]

Nice car! The license plates are Dutch, from 1980, probably issued when imported into The Netherlands then.

[TRP]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Trevor & CMC!

Refurb has already begun! When I picked up the car, the previous owner said the radiator was the original unit from the 850. He mentioned it was a little small for the 1275. So the first thing on my agenda was to pull the radiator and swap it out for a more efficient one. The other items on the menu were to swap out the front drums for some 7.5 discs and install a proper set of hi/lo springs and trumpets.

Well, as you all know, projects like these tend to snow ball. What was two simple tasks turned into a lot of little things. Before pulling the radiator I noticed that someone had beaten the crank case breather with a hammer to give more space between the fan and the breather. A fan spacer would be in order. Upon finding that, I figured I'd better take stock of the state of the engine bay. I found the exhaust manifold was cut and sectioned together down by the tail pipe joint. There was a clear hole/crack in the manifold. The car had a home made 2" straight pipe into a long blue glasspack. That would have to go! The two lower motor mounts were dry rotted and cracked. The mounts in the top motor to firewall brace were missing. Needed to order those too!

Before I could actually get to any of this, the fan self destructed (shed all of it's blades) when I went to start the motor one day. So the Radiator and spacer quickly became, Radiator, Spacer, and Fan. I then noticed that all the hoses were suffering from dry rot. I ordered up all the necessary parts and while waiting I shifted over to working the Discs.

When I pulled the wheels off I found 57 years of grit and grime packed in and around the suspension. Once that was cleaned off I noticed that all the rubber bushings had given up the ghost. All of those were ordered and arrived the other day. Those need to be swapped out before I can put everything back together. I also found both of the front control arms had a slight sway to them. One was more of an S than the other. Both of those have are to be replaced as well.

So several large orders of parts have been placed over the past few weeks and the final bits have arrived. I will begin reassembly this weekend!

What you are all here for - the photos!

[UHR850]

Very sad this very nice Mk1 left the Netherlands, never seen it before.

BUT enjoy your Mini Mk1

Kees.

[TRP]

Very sad this very nice Mk1 left the Netherlands, never seen it before.

BUT enjoy your Mini Mk1

Kees.

Yeah, sorry about that. I'll post photos here so you can drop by and see 'er any time.

Today I will begin reassembly! I'll share my progress.

Ted

[UHR850]

Thanks Ted no records found from your Mk1

Kees.

[ricardo]

Hi Ted, that looks like a 1959 car
You should ask the Heritage certificate.

[mk1]

I absolutely love that colour!

[steve1071]

Looks a beauty, and an early one. What's the FE number on the inner wing next to the radiator?

[bill773mini]

Hi Ted

Great looking car, it's a pre December 1959 Speedwell Blue Austin 850 De-Luxe.

Would you share the chassis number via PM? Can you photograph the FE number too please. The original slam panel is in place so the Austin body number should still be there stamped into a spot welded tag to the left of the centre (clutch side).

Can you photograph the front floors too please?

Bill

[Pandora]

Looks very nice.

Is it fitted with an Alloy head?

Al

[TRP]

Looks a beauty, and an early one. What's the FE number on the inner wing next to the radiator?

Oh! I saw that this weekend. I'll get it and post it. Is that the 'body number' ??

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

Ted

[TRP]

Hi Ted

Great looking car, it's a pre December 1959 Speedwell Blue Austin 850 De-Luxe.

Would you share the chassis number via PM? Can you photograph the FE number too please. The original slam panel is in place so the Austin body number should still be there stamped into a spot welded tag to the left of the centre (clutch side).

Can you photograph the front floors too please?

Bill

Will do. I get the photo tonight. Except on my car, it's on the radiator side.


Ted

[TRP]

Okay! I made some great progress this weekend.

I installed new the new motor mounts, the roller U joints, the front Timken rollers, new bushings all around the front suspension and the remote/rod change shifter, the 7.5" discs & hubs (photo below), stainless steel lines, the Mainflow header, center exit exhaust (photo below), and started to fabricate the seat brackets for the Corbeau classic buckets. (phew!) Busy weekend.

Everything went very smoothly except:
One of the former custodians welded the left hand steering arm and bolts to the steering hub. (photo below) Not sure why someone would do that. I pulled out the grinder and death wheel to try and salvage the MK1 arms. After careful cutting I managed to extract the arm from the hub. I cleaned it up and hit it with a coat of paint. Good as new. the bolts did not fare as well. I ordered new ones today.

I couldn't get the top motor stabilizer bar off. I later learned that this is s 'shoulder' stud. It looks like I need to remove the top firewall bracket get that out. I'll look into that tonight. The bushings I ordered were the wrong size (too small). I had to go back and order the right 'pre 62' bushings.

With the new shiftier bobbins the shift housing bracket bumps up against the first can of the mainflow exhaust. I may need shorter bobbins to pull that up and to the right a bit. The older bobbins were almost completely torn through. This explains the rather sloppy shifting I was having. (photo below)

The seats, with the adjustable slider brackets, while nice, they sit much higher than the stock seats. I'm not sure I like the seats. The seat back angle is odd. Maybe I need to rethink how I made the brackets.

Thanks for letting me share,
Ted

[TRP]

Looks very nice.

Is it fitted with an Alloy head?

Al

I'm not sure. How would I tell? it doesn't seem like it's cast iron.

[AndyPen]

Thanks for sharing - great to see such a genuine looking car that has been kept alive all these years

[smithyrc30]

Looks very nice.

Is it fitted with an Alloy head?

Al

I'm not sure. How would I tell? it doesn't seem like it's cast iron.

Use a magnet. If it is iron it will stick, if it is aluminum it will not.

[ricardo]

It's one of these heads, look at the core plug on the clutch side. https://shop.aseriesspares.co.uk/shop/e ... ree-seats/

[TRP]

I'm BACK!

Sorry for the long delay between updates. The holidays kept me busy. I have made some small progress on the mini. The clutch has been giving me fits so I decided to let that sit for a bit and shift my attention to something else that had been bothering me... the dash. As you can see the car has some sort of yard sale of gauges mounted on some black plywood paneling. The gauges don't match and half of them don't work.

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The first thing up was to take out the existing eyesore:

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With a few screws removed I was able to flop down the 'dashboard' and see what horrors lurk in the dark:

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Lots of extra wires. I'll be tracing those back to their source and removing them.

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In the end I was left with this:

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Need to cleanup the screws and stuff that poke through and get a standard 3 instrument binnacle. All that will have to go in after paint and body. The gold speedo only goes to 80. Not sure if it's a true Mini part or if it's Morris Minor / etc. I'll try to source a black face speedo and Smiths tach'o.

Next up?... address the peeling roof!