RYL775E 998 Austin Cooper project

[hanlminiman]

Looking good.

[colonel mustard]

Thanks Cliff (sorry)
As they say, everyday is a school day!
Certainly getting to know how a mini is put together, many times I have bolted something up then a week later have to undo to fit something else (pedal box being one example!)
But certainly loving it at every stage of the build!

[colonel mustard]

A bit progress over the last few days. Managed to clean up the rear quarter windows, including grinding and polishing out the flaking chrome and rust from the rear quarter window catch (the bit sandwiched within the window frame) took a few hours but really pleased with how they have come out.

Managed to get hold of a complete roof lining, incl C pillar trims and evening the small section under the rear window still in one piece! Spent a few of the fine sunny days giving the C pillar trim and section under the rear window a good deep clean, pretty happy with the way they have cleaned up, although the C pillars trims were a bit saggy, so a bit of unpicking and isolated glueing got these looking good as new!

Question, rear parcel shelf, are these screwed down?

Still waiting for the wiring loom (yes I have run a plumb line down the C pillar) on to the doors or door. After masking the door and body reveals managed, after a lot of buggering around, to get the passenger door in, even managed to get the door lock on, again really happy with the way this coming together!

Will start the drivers door over the coming days then it’s onto find missing bits of carpet and sorting the hand brake out.

On the handbrake, what stops the spring located in the handbrake from dropping down, is there a washer meant to be in this install?

Thanks again for looking, if there is anything not right just let me know
Thanks.

[Old English White]

That is looking great now!
On my car the rear shelf piece was held in place by 2 rivets which looked to be original. I don't have a photo to show the position I'm afraid.

[g111mds]

Making great progress. I’ll be a collecting a new to me mk1 in Almond Green soon.

[colonel mustard]

It’s been a few weeks since last update.
Since the last post I have managed to find all of my door handles, which the chrome was pretty bad, so I have sent these off to be rechromed along with the gear lever and some other bits from the sunroof.

So.. after reading many ‘our projects’ threads I thought it wise to have a go at the doors trims, windows and channels. After digging around I managed to find all of the chrome upper and lower trims in one piece and pretty straight albeit really tarnished and scuffed. Rather than sourcing new I decided to have a go at wet and drying the bad sections with oil and then use a chrome polishing compound on the angle grinder fixed into the vice. Considering how bad they were, they came out pretty good, nice and original!

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Then onto the rivets that hold the surround in place, many thanks for all that helped here, finally understood the rivet locations and the two different types, not complicated and pretty easy with a bit of Vaseline on each rivet, all popped in pretty easy.

Onto the window glass and channels. Found the felt channel in the door frame was not to back once the technique of pinching the channel then pushing it into the frame was worked out. The lower channel was a lot easier once I had read to pre-drill the channel and chrome trim with a small pilot hole in the door lugs, and also bedded on CT1, as per Marks suggestion in one of his posts.

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The glass cleaned up well although a bit scratched in places, hopefully this will be something I can resolve further down the line!

Had a play with the bonnet and trial fitted along with the Austin badge, which after a bit of touching up the black, has come up well.

Next was the existing grill and moustache, a lot of masking tape and measuring went on here and after a few evenings, eventually took the plunge and drilled and fixed in place. The grill needs the black bits touching in, save that for a rainy evening.

Next on the agenda is the whiskers, all initially place just need to take the leap of faith and drill and fix.
And
The wiring loom arrived at the end of last week!! The rear loom has been run in place, the front is sitting on the table carefully being labelled up before it goes anywhere near the car.

Hopefully will update over the coming weeks, thanks again for everyone’s assistance and help!

[colonel mustard]

And a few more

[hanlminiman]

Looking really good.

[Dearg1275]

My, my, so very nice.

D

[colonel mustard]

Many thanks
Yes coming along nicely!
Quick question.
I have labelled all the tails up on the loom and triple checked against the workshop manual. As the car will have a servo fitting, and referring to the Parnell bible, the 35amp fuse box is located on the bulkhead, with the control box fixed to the inner wing (vertically fixed) behind the stiffener strut, based on this, is the below photo correct?

Yellow - fuse box
Green - flasher unit
Red - control box

Also assumed the flasher unit will be fixed to the front of the strut. The earth strap can be attached to any part of the bodywork?

[hanlminiman]

I had the same problem and suggest you trial fit the fresh air hose before fitting the control box. There should be a self tap screen hole on the bulkhead for the fuse box.
I fitted my control box vertically with the connections facing the strengthening piece where the flasher relay and earth wires are fitted, above the brake switch.
I need clearance through the subframe mount area as well to adjust the Hi-los.
It's looking better and better.
Cliff

[colonel mustard]

Thanks Cliff
Yes getting there just a tad hard when I have never done anything like this before plus I did not strip the car down previously!
I have concerns that the Cooper loom I have does not allow for a servo (ie the wiring is pushed around a tad) as I have noticed the stop light cables are short.

Will get on to ordering a fresh air!
Thanks

[hanlminiman]

here is an image of my front loom before fitting the control box. The flasher relay covered loom and wiring is in front of the strengthening bracket. Also check out the latest "WTH E-bay post" today (white & black Mini) as it has some interesting reference photos including engine bay of a Mk1.

RadfordEng20 - 1 of 1.jpg

[colonel mustard]

Thanks Cliff
I think another night of investigation this evening

[colonel mustard]

Pretty sure the loom does not allow for the servo location.

[hanlminiman]

Looking again at your image ECB.... the wiring colours on the wire hanging down look like the ignition switch other than the solenoid and I can't see if you have the front loom under the front panel. It should include solenoid, horn, headlamps, side lights, and distributor/coil wiring connections. Also I can't see the brake light switch wires (2).
If you pm me with your e-mail address I'll send you images of my front panel area loom.
Cliff

[colonel mustard]

It’s been a few weeks since I updated.
Since the last post I have managed to get all the wiring completed up to engine bay, dash pod and backing panel installed with gauges I cleaned and refurbished last year installed.

Job for this week is to complete the oil gauge pipe install along with rerouting the washer pump pipework before I install the grey trim panel.

Managed to clean up the foam backed dash rail and stuck this down, this stopped it buckling up when I tried to put the grey fascia panel in.

Rev counter fully wired up and pod fully secured down.

Twin tanks were very tricky, the LH tanks went in like a dream, the RH tank not so! After a few days of trial fitting, making a larger body grommet for the fuel tank neck (as the bodywork hole was oversized!), it finally worked and could strap up the tank knowing the neck seal was water tight.

Overhauled the rear number plate brackets as they were rubbing against the number plate when folded out, once ground back, re-coated in satin black and installed on the car. Also made the decision to have vinyl sticker number plate rather than individual letters on the rear, I quite like the font type and something different.

After many months experimenting on photoshop, I eventually went and bought some rose petals from Acespeed,
Along with some 165 Blockley’s, they look cracking!

Then onto the carpets, many thanks to AndyPen for providing the heal board and the wheel arch sections as these we’re missing from the set of carpets I had. I had sourced a roll from BAS light grey, has a green undertone. Managed to trim out the new pieces, with some additional trimming to the existing set, they have gone in well. (Also got the original carpets shampoo’d, which took a good week of drying but have come up well!)

Hopefully get the two panels of carpet cut for the cross member this weekend and glue down and start with seat brackets.

Currently waiting for the handles and some other bits back from the chromes (quoted 5 weeks, currently we are at 10!)
Waiting for the almond green spray can to paint up the door strap brackets.

Looks like September will be the month to start the engine!

Thanks for reading.

[colonel mustard]

And another

[colonel mustard]

And another

[kevs 1961 mk1]

really stunning mate, the attention to work and detail says it all ,loving it