1965 Morris Mini - From NZ to the UK!

[Peter Laidler]

Couldn't you Kiwify the car by putting the NZ number plates back on with stickies just for the show. Would look great like that and it'd be a talking point too especially if there were Kiwis in the crowd. Its come a long way to be here.....

The broken screw in the fuel bowl should be an easy fix. I think that they're UNC threads

[AndyPen]

I'd call that success Looks lovely and you still have things to tinker with -s so the fun continues, lol

[W1NG3D]

Hiya, big follower of your build thread, and as I was wandering around the “pre 66” car park on Saturday I thought “I recognise that” . Looks good in the metal and well done for getting it finished in time, cheers Mark.

That's awesome, it's nice to hear you recognised the car and encountered it at the show!

Couldn't you Kiwify the car by putting the NZ number plates back on with stickies just for the show. Would look great like that and it'd be a talking point too especially if there were Kiwis in the crowd. Its come a long way to be here.....

The broken screw in the fuel bowl should be an easy fix. I think that they're UNC threads

I have still got one of the metal NZ number plates which I did cable tie to the roof rack for a bit of fun, and up until I fitted the UK plates I had a sticker for the NZ reg fitted to the bonnet, but this was a permanent one that wasn't particularly re-usable once I peeled it off. So I'll definitely be keeping hold of the metal one which I could fit to the rear of the car very easily for shows (the holes still exist on the hinged bracket), and maybe get a magnetic one which I can re-use on the bonnet more easily to have the old GUF815 registration able to be displayed at shows Hoping that the twin carbs are pretty easy to sort as you say, a local friend has offered to take a look at them for me as he reckons he can get the broken screw out quite easily.

I'd call that success Looks lovely and you still have things to tinker with -s so the fun continues, lol

It'll never quite be finished I'm sure - I still want to do a few other jobs apart from getting it running on the twin carbs, such as improving the interior, repainting or powdercoating the wheels & roof rack, and other bits and pieces. At least now it's a running drivable project which I can enjoy in the meantime

[W1NG3D]

I haven't done an awful lot with the Mk1 since attending the Revival, but have started to make some headway with the interior and have been buying a few bits.
 

 
After my dumb a** sat on my old plastic Mk1 binnacle and cracked it to pieces, I managed to find a second hand item on eBay in good nick and have re fitted it to the 3-clock cluster. I was quite tempted by a brand new item from Nippycars but this eBay purchase was half the price of a new one, and its small imperfections and "patina" match the rest of the car quite well.
 
I'm going to go for a stripped down look with most of the floor pan exposed as you can see in the photo, with just some fitted mats in the footwells rather than a complete carpet set. I seem to have ordered mats for a LHD car given the heel mat is on the passenger side, but oh well  the floors themselves are solid but a little bit tatty after years of use, so I'm going to try and find a bit of time to prep & repaint them ahead of Brooklands this Sunday (hopefully I can also find some petrol!). I also have a couple of gaping holes to address, with a lack of rubber gaiter for the gear shifter, and the old cutout for the original magic wand box being completely open to the elements - it's quite fun watching the road surface whizz past but it does let through an awful lot of noise! Somerford Mini have come to the rescue with a speedily delivered box of bits which will help me plug those holes and complete the interior...
 

 
You might also notice a new V shaped speedo bezel which I plan to fit in place of the current later-style rounded bezel, along with a new 80mm gauge pod containing a Smiths flight tachometer - the gauge itself was another eBay bargain I managed to nab at the last minute for a fraction of its retail cost, happy days! I doubt I'll get this wired up this week but I can certainly try to get it mounted so at least it'll look the part for photos and whatnot.
 

 
Aside from this I also need to look at the new exhaust and sort out the fixings for attaching the manifold to the Y-piece - it slightly fell off the other day  fortunately I was surrounded by Mini owners with tools aplenty when it came free so was able to get it sorted in the car park, but it wants properly looking at before attempting the couple of hours(ish) worth of back-road driving up to Brooklands on Sunday.

[W1NG3D]

Been having a bit of fun and games with the Mk1 over the past few weeks, including an impromptu repair being required at Brooklands when the exhaust fell off during a hillclimb attempt! Luckily there were traders stocking brand new exhaust fittings so I was able to get it sorted before driving home, and the fire brigade kindly offered to use their fancy airbags to jack the front of the car up for me (I think they were a bit bored and fancied something to do!). A little overkill perhaps, but it made for a good bit of entertainment for all the onlookers

I definitely need to look at fitting some additional engine steadies to stop this happening again!





Apart from Brooklands I've tackled a couple of small jobs, including fitting the rubber boot for the shifter, and the blanking plate for the magic wand hole.



I also mocked up the rev counter to work out how I want it positioned, just to see how it looks. Very happy with this as the Smiths flight dial really looks the part, now I just need to bolt it up for real and wire it in.





The main thing at the moment though is just trying to enjoy driving and getting out while we still have fair weather. I've been along to a couple more Midweek Mini meets local to me here on the south coast, and will hopefully get along to a few more before the weather gets too grim and cold.

[W1NG3D]

Not much to update on the Mk1 since last month. The daylight hours have become sparse and, with a recent promotion putting extra work on my plate, I've had little time to enjoy driving the mini let alone get any jobs done! That said, I did make it along to the Port Solent car meet last Sunday after quickly cleaning up the bodywork in the morning. The overcast autumnal weather made for some nice photos, including some of the engine bay which I've neglected to photograph properly since the engine swap!
 
This may well be one of the last events I'll attend for a while, with the inevitable return of salted roads to come very soon. I am hoping to come along to the British Mini Club's event in January though and have submitted an application to exhibit in their '60s display, fingers crossed that comes through.

[W1NG3D]

Finally, some sunlight! Started off the morning with the Mk1's first outing of 2022, parking up alongside lots of other Minis and classics at the Port Solent car meet.
 

 
Then it was back to base, with a quick photo next to its much younger sibling...
 

 
I then proceeded to spend the remaining daylight hours doing some tinkering - by the time the sun started to go down, the engine had gained an extra carb  It still needs some fettling and fine tuning, but I'm pleased to have the twin HS4 setup finally fitted and looking smart!
 
I'm not sure if it's possible to embed a video on the forum so here's a link to watch it in action (sorry I didn't take any photos, just the video!)
https://vimeo.com/664028857

[W1NG3D]

Well I'd call that a successful mission! Spent today sorting out the choke cable to get that working properly, and it now operates the choke linkage as it should. Then performed a baseline setup on the carbs, and got them balanced and adjusted to an appropriate mixture and tickover speed at idle, so it now starts up easily and idles happily once it's warm. Before an initial road test I did some checks and noticed a fuel leak had developed on the LH carb float bowl, the needle valve seemed to be sticking open so this was quickly cured by swapping a spare into place which resolved the leak.
 
A quick blast up the road then proved to be very satisfying!
 
The acceleration, throttle response, noise, and sheer grunt from the engine is all vastly improved, more so than I was expecting. The engine has well and truly come to life now, it just goes to show the single HS4 was nowhere near enough carb for the application which was why it was always fitted as a temporary arrangement. The needles are customised for another engine so I wasn't sure how suitable they'd be for this one, but the fuelling seems to be very good with no noticeable flat spots throughout the rev range and nice behaviour under part and full throttle. No doubt I could get this optimised further with a rolling road session but, at least for now, it's driving nicely and putting a big grin on my face!
 

 
I also thought I'd give YouTube a go so I filmed a brief video of starting up the engine after all this - please excuse the waffly commentary 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGC1wjRfK7o

[timmy201]

Twins look great!

[W1NG3D]

Twins look great!

I agree, I love how they look, it feels like the engine bay looks a bit more "complete' now

My friend got a few short video clips on his phone from when we took it out for an initial test drive, which I've just managed to upload to YouTube. Combined with the straight cut drop gears, it's quite a racket!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3KjEEUP6t4

[timmy201]

They do really fill up the space behind the engine a lot nicer don’t they?

It sounds awesome in the video too

[Kay1]

I agree, sounds great. Maniflow right?

[W1NG3D]

They do really fill up the space behind the engine a lot nicer don’t they?

It sounds awesome in the video too

Definitely, the single HS4 with its little cone filter looked a bit lost!

I agree, sounds great. Maniflow right?

That's right, it's a Maniflow 1 7/8" single box exhaust system, with their stage 2 medium bore LCB manifold. I debated between getting this or a 2" system which would've been knocking on the door of being full-blown race spec, but I'm glad I went for the 1 7/8" in the end - it makes a great noise and on paper it's a good match for the engine.

[W1NG3D]

I'm feeling much happier with the Mk1's interior now! It was long overdue a deep, deep clean.

Most of today was spent taking almost everything out of the cabin followed by cleaning up the floorpan with a wire brush (to be painted when it's warmer), scrubbing all of the door cards & interior trim, and hoovering the mats along with loads of guff that'd collected on the floor itself.

Then I fitted new seat belts and Smiffy's Bits extended seat brackets, bolted the seats back in, and mounted the rev counter - the wiring can wait til another day though! The exterior was given a bit of a once-over to match the fresh interior, and the engine bay was treated to a bit of a spritz too, albeit not quite as thorough as the rest of the car

Can't wait for warmer weather and longer days to get this out and about and along to a few shows and meets!

[W1NG3D]

I came across an original Mk1 Morris bonnet badge on eBay the other day, and had to grab it. These original items are so much nicer than the reproduction badges, the detail is far more intricate and this particular example is in good nick with a nice patina to it. I'm very tempted to fit this and "de-Cooperise" the car's badging - not necessarily to satisfy purists, but more so to make the car a bit more of a sleeper
 
I've also had an engraved red on brass version of the Bodgewell rocker plate made up, surprisingly this wasn't too expensive and I'm thinking I might fit this to the boot as an external badge. Have also got a "Mini-Minor" boot script badge on the way courtesy of another eBay bargain but that's yet to arrive...
 

[W1NG3D]

I took advantage of some fair weather yesterday, and attended to a couple of cosmetic jobs on the Mini. With the Mini-Minor boot badge having arrived from the eBay seller on Friday, I had a full set of original Mk1 Morris badges ready to fit and replace the Cooper S replica items.

First up was the bonnet badge, luckily the holes are in the same location for the Cooper badge despite it being narrower, making for a simple swap. You can clearly see here the difference between proper original badges and the much poorer quality replicas you can buy brand new - the intricate detail of the bull motif is completely lost on the modern recreations.



The little S then came off, leaving two small holes behind. I'll have to do something about this, but for now, I'll leave them be - fortunately these holes don't seem too noticeable if you aren't looking for them!



The boot on the other hand involved a little more work, as unlike the bonnet, there are more holes and they're in the wrong place as you can see when comparing the Mini-Minor badge to the four rusty clips holding the Morris Cooper script in place.



After marking up and drilling three new holes, the new badge popped straight on, but annoyingly when removing the old one a bit of paint chipped off around the hole



The paint on the whole bootlid has gotten pretty bad anyway, so it'll eventually be getting a respray, but in the meantime I've still got some leftover touch up paint which will at least disguise the chip. As another temporary measure, I also figured I could blank off the outermost holes with a couple of bolts, and used the same touch-up paint to disguise them in Almond Green so they sort-of look like they should be there. I'm not worried about keeping the boot watertight as I don't take the Mk1 out on rainy days any more, so this'll do the trick for now!



Like the bonnet, the removal of the small "S" on the bootlid left another couple of holes, but I was able to cover these up by sticking my brass Bodgwell badge over the top which I figured would look better on the rear than the front.



Overall I'm quite happy with the result of this de-Cooperising exercise - on one hand the "new" badges are truer to the car's original identity (no more "pretend" Cooper S), and on the other hand, it'll now be even more of a surprise when people look under the bonnet You'll also notice the roof rack is missing from these pics, more on that in a minute...





One of the things really letting the car down was the flakey paint and bits of surface rust starting to show through on the roof rack, which has seen a good 8 years of use and abuse. So the next task of the day was to take it off the car for a budget repaint.



I attacked any rusty bits with a wire wheel attached to a drill, before sanding to key the surface ready for primer and paint.



Anywhere I'd taken it back to bare metal was treated with some zinc primer, this is the same stuff I've used before for touching up the Mk1's bodywork. It's a bit hard to see in this picture but you can just about make out the grey bits.



After allowing the primer to dry and cure, I started spraying some Old English White from a custom mixed rattle can I'd bought a while ago from an online supplier.



However, annoyingly I'd gotten through more of the paint than I expected, and ran out before being able to apply enough for complete coverage! I figured it would be tricky to find another OEW spray can available locally to get the job finished on the day, so I went for the next best thing and tried to find a close colour match at my local Halfords. As it turns out, their Rover Arum White is a near-on perfect match for Old English White, and I was able to finish the job with this!



It was getting a bit dark by the time I was able to bolt the roof rack back onto the car so it's hard to see the results properly, but in person it now looks far nicer - not a perfect paint job by any means, but a marked improvement from before.





I'm trying to decide whether to go down a similar route with the LP883 wheels which are also in need of refurbishing, or whether it might be better to get them powdercoated instead and replace the tyres at the same. But that can wait til another day!

[UHR850]

Question, why those horrible bolts on the back besides the badge. Some flat rubber or plastic caps painted green would look so much better.

Kees

[AndyPen]

Nice and honest car

We have a 970S in our Austin SDL, and was wondering about fitting an S badge at the front funnily enough. I think that would still look OK and retain the 'honesty' of the car???



Is that white a little whiter on the roof rack??

[UHR850]

Or the B from Bodgewell on the bonnet

Kees.

[W1NG3D]

Question, why those horrible bolts on the back besides the badge. Some flat rubber or plastic caps painted green would look so much better.

Kees

Because the horrible bolts were all I had to hand, and looked better than a couple of very obvious holes which were much more noticeable than the two little ones on the bonnet. As I said, only a temporary measure, the boot lid will be coming off for a proper repaint at which point the holes can be filled properly.

Nice and honest car

We have a 970S in our Austin SDL, and was wondering about fitting an S badge at the front funnily enough. I think that would still look OK and retain the 'honesty' of the car???



Is that white a little whiter on the roof rack??

Simply keeping the small S badge on the front did occur to me, and to be honest I've never been worried about the car masquerading as an S - I've always been upfront about the car's "true" identity with anyone who asked the very common question of "is that a real Cooper S?". If anything the main motivation behind the removal of the Cooper S badging is to make it even more of a surprise when people see into the engine bay or hear the car accelerate with the straight cut drop gears, loud induction noise and fruity exhaust note hinting at something a little bit quicker than a standard 850

As for the white on the roof rack, it's probably hard to tell from my photos as these were taken on my phone in subpar lighting, but the colour actually looks bang on in terms of matching my OEW roof by eye. A nice surprise given that the Halfords Arum White tin only cost 8 quid!