From the external view the conversion seems to be done and the hard work is over. But in reality the internal modifications and the detail work is sometimes even more challenging. To make the new modified body stiff and strong causes a lot of head scratching.
First the aperture of the rear screen. To cut out the correct aperture was easy. But usually screen and seal are sitting in a recess, except on 59’ Minis
. To form the recess like that, it’s the job of a beadroller. But therefore the panel is separated from the body shell. And as I had to weld several panels together to form the rear screen aperture, there was no way to use the beadroller before welding.
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Thus I had to form the recess after the cut out was made. To make matters even more worse, the bead sits very prominent in the visible area and therefore had to be perfectly shaped
. My creativity was challenged quite a bit to perform that task. Finally I took one of my welding clamps and modified it to a homemade hand held beadroller.
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With this it just took me 3 minutes to form the recess around the whole aperture, without the time of taking this photos
. I would never have expect that myself. But it worked in just one go.
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