1972 Innocenti Cooper 1300

[MiNiKiN]

After some time with you here in the mk1-forum I thought it is about time to share what my son (aged 19) and I (considerably older) are working on.
It is a rather rare Innocenti Mini Cooper 1300 B39/6 - i.e. the pre-export model without all the Leyland branding and different to the Export in many aspects.
Only 9992 B39/6 were built between Feb. 72 and March 1973. It has the 1300GT-based engine with remote gear-change. Colour is 'blue notte' (nightblue) with 'sabbia' (sand) roof and tan interior.

I bought it about 7 years ago, as quite a complete, but partly dismantled car (previous owners deemed it a parts-donor, so price was a steal). Most of the rare innocenti-specific parts are present, and the shell mainly needs new panels in floor and boot, but generally the condition is good - probably due to it being stood somewhere in Italy for most of its life. This is supported by its low mileage of just 30,000km.
More or less just before and during lock-down 2020 we started to restore it as a father-son project, so I can pass-on some of my restoration skills to my offspring Nicolas, who is apart from being a gaming nerd more into japanese cars.

We try to re-use and restore as many original parts as possible and the aim is to stick to original looks, etc. only allowing us some period correct modifications to the engine and suspension.

This is what we started with:

Inno_2013_#2.jpg

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Inno_2013.jpg

More pictures of the progress we since made to come soon .
Cheers
Marcus

[66Traveller]

I used to own one of those - I bought it from a man in Sicily _ really nice specification - much finer details than the 1300 export! I sold it to the Innocenti registrar of the MCR - wish I'd kept it!

[MiNiKiN]

Very nice car and colour combination it seems from the pictures.

Yes, the subtle differences to the Export make it more desireable I think. And the B39/6 is much rarer at only 9992 cars built in total.

Some more photos of the previous and current progress can be found in my album
https://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_mini ... 4101789798

Our 'philosophy' is to also finish little jobs on smaller assemblies, whilst we carry on cutting out and remediating the tin-worm on the body. The aim is to have little in-between success stories by doing so.

[66Traveller]

Excellent - nice wheels. I had a set of Cromodora Fergat for mine which went with it when I sold it. The Cosmics are very nice (although not a fan of the Minilite centre cap in the 4.5J one!).

[mk1]

Now that does look like an interesting project.

I have always had a soft spot for the "superior" Innocenti Coopers. It's good to know that another one will be finding it's way back onto the road before too long.

[surfblue63]

I used to own one of those - I bought it from a man in Sicily _ really nice specification - much finer details than the 1300 export! I sold it to the Innocenti registrar of the MCR - wish I'd kept it!

I have seen that car, it is still with Foster.

[66Traveller]

Excellent - glad to hear that

[MiNiKiN]

A quick status update - what happened in the previous series and episodes:



We (which is my son Nicolas and me) cleaned the subframes and had them sandblasted. Once back, I straightened all the dents and kinks of the frames, which I suppose were the result ofthe car beeing rallyed in its mostly unknown past life.

Then I added quite a lot of seem welds to reinforce the rather poorly welded FIRSAT frames (originally the rear had 1! spot weld every 7cm) and I replaced some rotten section of the longitudinal girder.

Finally we coated both in 2 layers of Hammerite black (in hindsight I wish I had sprayed the paint rather than brushed on)

Subframes_#1.jpg

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We sandblasted, primed and coated all suspension and brake components.

Front_susp.jpg

2B cont'd

[MiNiKiN]

cont'd:

Neg_Camber_MiNiKiN.jpg

The engine compartment is completely emptied and the engine itself dismantled - except for the bores and pistons (which heavily stuck together, because the engine was stored with the head off for decades) the internals showed little or no wear, which is commensurate with the low mileage of ca. 30k kms.

Engine_#1.jpg

Engine_#2.jpg

Remote_#1.jpg

Remote_#2.jpg

[MiNiKiN]

cont'd

We then cut out all the metal affected by the tin worm. Which means: both outer sills, front floor pan, cross member, rear subframe mounting panel (partially) and the majority of the boot floor with valance and so on and both A-panels.
Stripped the car from all the crappy seam sealer and underbody schutz.

Body_#1.jpg

Body_#2.jpg

Body_#3.jpg

Body_#4.jpg

[MiNiKiN]

Cont't

As fillers we restore all the odds'n ends like the steering rack, the ashtrays, fuse box - every bit gets the necessary and VERY time consuming treatment. In particular as my motto and aim is to refurbish as many of the original parts of the car.

steering_column.jpg

NB: The torn seam will be repaired - probably filled with liquid leather..

Seat_cleaned.jpg

innocenti
Seats in not so good condition - but we have bought a set Corbeau replicas which will be covered in a matching Innocenti cream fabric and vinyl

Heater_Unit.jpg

Re-designed and 3D-printed the Innocenti pedal rubber

Innocenti_Pedal_Rubber v2.jpg

The chassis is going to the sandblaster tomorrow - so we are going to further focus on the engine rebuild

[mk1]

Looks like a cracking project!

Let's see what the sandblasters uncover

[MiNiKiN]

Looks like a cracking project!

Let's see what the sandblasters uncover

Nothing the angle grinder hasn’t uncovered already .

[MiNiKiN]

Steady progress - Many hours of hard labour went into:
• porting the head, now 90% finished, except combustion chamber measurement and correction [~12h in total]
• Lightening and polishing conrod No. 2 [4h]
• refurbishment of clutch- (19mm) and brake master (18mm bore) cylinder [4h]
• cleaning, disassembling, blasting and painting the original Lockheed brake callipers [another 4 hours roughly]
Times are net, so no overthinking over a glas of wine included.

Head_ported.jpg

Conrod_weighing.jpg

Conrods.jpg

Master and Callipers.jpg

Got to thank my girlfriend Susan for letting me spend so much time on this my obsession

[MiNiKiN]

Finally got the chassis back from media blasting, readily primered in 2K-epoxy. Will start welding over Christmas holidays.

In the meantime I have refurbished some of the plastic and rubber parts - put the plastic stuff in the dishwasher and the rubbers with some fabric conditioner in the washing machine. The parts turned out really nice - the rubber in particular. Finished it off with tyre foam.

The con-rod balancing and weighing did not work with the "tool" shown in the last post - so I had to make a real balancer from stuff I had in the raw-material -drawer. A bit of PTFE , steel and a few roller bearings and hurray - Bob's your auntie!

Con_Rod_Balancer_#1.jpg

Con_Rod_Balancer_#2.jpg

I should actually quit my pen-pusher day-job and become a Youtube maker - and he lived happily ever after (impoverished though )

A big MS delivery is due to arrive this Friday along with plenty of stuff from other sources so we can carry on with gearbox and engine overhaul and modification.

Some nice Cibie Iode45 spot-lamps will at some point round-off the period racer look I am trying to achieve.

Cibie_Spotlights.jpg

[davidnutland]

Nice project, having owned Cooper Exports and a Cooper 1300 I loved the 1300, unfortunately so did rust and it was broken for spares many years ago I do still have my first Innocenti though, a 1972 Cooper mK3, it has been with me since 1979.[img]

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[img]

[MiNiKiN]

The weather is too miserable, wet and snowy to get the body shell out of the garage and do some welding.

So instead we carry on sandblasting, cleaning and blackening small items. As an anti-boredom and encouragement to carry on, we starteed re-assembling the front subframe and carburettor assy.

F_Sub_Assy.jpg

Carbs_#1.jpg

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For some unexplainable reason, during strip-down I was convinced that the upper arm shafts and bearings are in good order. Judgment must have taken place after the 2nd bottle of Zweigelt or so I suppose. I think I should consider replacing these...

OMG_#1.jpg

[MiNiKiN]

After finishing both subframes, i thought I have a go at fixing the leaky tank.
Mind you, there is no option to buy a new one, because the sender unit is bolted not bajonet.
At first I noticed a few pin holes in the bottom, pushing with the fingers revealed these holes to be for pretty big pins
Anyway, nothing a bit of welding and lead loading couldn’t fix..

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[Stopped-again]

Hi there, admire your repair on that tank, from past experience petrol will find the slightest flaw in any welding, but I would imagine the lead loading helps with that. I have got, if you are interested, a really good second hand Innocenti tank complete with sender unit. Probably not practical to post it to you in Austria but if you ever manage to get this side of the English Channel contact me and we should be able to get it somewhere in this country for you. I don’t if I’m stupid but I’m converting an Inno. into a normal Mini but when I got it there were too many bits missing to put it back to standard. Loving reading about your project.

[MiNiKiN]

Hi there, admire your repair on that tank, from past experience petrol will find the slightest flaw in any welding, but I would imagine the lead loading helps with that. I have got, if you are interested, a really good second hand Innocenti tank complete with sender unit. Probably not practical to post it to you in Austria but if you ever manage to get this side of the English Channel contact me and we should be able to get it somewhere in this country for you. I don’t if I’m stupid but I’m converting an Inno. into a normal Mini but when I got it there were too many bits missing to put it back to standard. Loving reading about your project.

Thanks for your offer, shipping the tank would be horrendous and then customs but should I visit my friends in Northampton once, I could as well go up a bit further and visit the sherwood forest again

To be honest, one reason for saving this tank, apart from being to skint to buy a used one of questionable condition in neighbouring Italy (might be available for an arm and a leg - or a kidney nowadays), the actual reason for saving it was: It still has its original car paint code sticker on and a yellow factory brush mark to confirm it's tight. Very nerdy I know.

You are right, I lead loaded it because it was difficult to get the weld imporous, given I dont have TIG and the adjoining areas are wafer-thin and rusty from the inside.

But it is not leaking any more, and I have started to de-rust it internally with citric acid.