January 1960 Austin Mini

[TRP]

Oh those bloody floor plugs. I have a story about those.......

....I may have told it before.

Well?... you going to fill me in?

[TRP]

Question: When painting the roof of a mk1 mini white, is this example correct? I've painted the entire interior of the rain gutter white. Only the outside lip is body color.

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If it's not correct, what is the proper way to mask the white from the body color?

Thanks!

[Peter Laidler]

I say yes.

[TRP]

New windshield arrived today. Can't make this stuff up...

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I'm afraid to open the box.

[Peter Laidler]

I can see a reflection in there. So if it's a toughened, you're OK as you'd hear it shaking around in the bottom!!!!! If it's laminated - and chipped or cracked...................

[TRP]

It's alive! It was packed really well.

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Makes my old Mk1 rear windscreen look like garbage.

[TRP]

The body shop called today. She's almost completely stripped down. They wanted to talk options and possible colors.

Here are the photos of the car:

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Little damage under the right front blinker and some bucket head ( I need a really good British insult) decided to cut up the front apron and bend the body lip up a bit. We'll get those corrected.

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Little spot of damage under the right rear tail light.

All in all, not too shabby. No rust to speak of. One of the doors has a spot under the hinge.

Ted

[TRP]

Another batch of images from a visit to the shop today:

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Not too shabby!

[TRP]

The last bits I took today:

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MINT!

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Not mint.

I just realized I didn't get a shot of the drivers door or passenger rear corner. I'll get those tomorrow.

Thanks for letting me share!

Ted

[mk1]

What a fantastic shell!

[Polarsilver]

If like me your Pilkinton Screen is laminated it will need the later screen rubber due to the glass thickness.
Their Heated Screens are excellent in my early car with a Fug Heater but then i am not an originality specialist

[TRP]

If like me your Pilkinton Screen is laminated it will need the later screen rubber due to the glass thickness.
Their Heated Screens are excellent in my early car with a Fug Heater but then i am not an originality specialist

Ah! Good to know. I purchased the seal for the early mini, I may need to return it. Thank you for the heads up.

Ted

[TRP]

The shop had a "Pub Night" on Friday. They invited a bunch of people to come in, share some refreshments, and talk about the status of their projects. I tool the opportunity to come in and check on the mini. They have completed stripping the interior and exterior of the car and got it in primer / guide coat. They will start welding up any of the odd holes and then the body work starts.

Here are some simple updated photos:

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Clearly the nose needs the most love. I have no idea how they will get that passenger side wing /hood aligned properly. The front apron will be addressed as well. Someone cut the grill opening and beat the center section flat so they could place an oil cooler there. Looks like hell.

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The roof looked like someone danced a jig on top of it. They will spend a good amount of time on that one, I'm sure.

I will keep the updates coming as they evolve.

Thanks for letting me continue to share.

[TRP]

We've made some progress on my Mini!

I have lots of photos from over the past month. I hope to post them in the appropriate order.

front.jpg

- fixed the lower grill opening to correct the places where someone cut the and flattened the opening for an oil cooler. It was at this point that we also noticed that the hoot latch/slam panel was tweaked a bit. This area was squared up and the bonnet was shrunk, hammered, and dollied to get a better alignment with the wings.

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- reworking the badge area and front of the bonnet.

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- started fitting the grill and mustache to see how everything lines up after all the metal work.

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- Starting to look at how the wings were attached to the slam panel.

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- Note how the left wing isn't quite squared up with the front apron/grill opening. We're correcting that.

Many more updates to come!

[TRP]

We went in and welded up a ton of holes / splits and cracks.

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- Drivers door crack from years of the wrong seals. Causing the door to have to be slammed to shut.

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- Welded up the GIANT antenna hole along with both wing mirror holes in each wing.

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- Welded in all of the boot board brackets for the S type boot board. Also welded up the hole/split in the boot floor.

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- Welded up every hole we could find that didn't need to be there. This meant no less than 5 holes per corner where someone had installed flares at one point in time. You can also see the only spot other than the bonnet where we found filler.

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- We went to town and hammer and dollied out this corner to get it as straight as we could to keep filler to a minimum.

[TRP]

More welding...

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- Wheel flare/arch holes

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- random holes where someone had installed a silly "Wink" mirror.

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- more 'winkey' holes

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- braised up the crack in the drain hole on the left side.

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- Old English White and Island Blue. That's where this is headed.

[TRP]

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- Tools of the trade. The guys spend a good bit of time on restoring the brass hinges.

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- First shot of primer before block sanding could start.

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- Just another shot of the car in the booth

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- The front. Notice how much nicer the wings fit after we cut the slam panel corners and adjust ted the fit of the wings/slam panel. and front apron. Muuuch better.

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- Das Bootlid.

[mk1]

Looking great.

Sadly though, that crack behind the drivers door is not due to badly fitting seals, it is pretty much a standard feature of early Mk1's. It's just how they crack. Later cars received more stiffeners.

[TRP]

Looking great.

Sadly though, that crack behind the drivers door is not due to badly fitting seals, it is pretty much a standard feature of early Mk1's. It's just how they crack. Later cars received more stiffeners.

Can I buy stiffeners and weld them in to prevent this from happening again?

[mk1]

Someone may have a suggestion, I don't.