Mk1 Austin Mini 850

[sugarhiccup]

Hey everyone,

Albeit belated, it feels great to be introducing myself after following this forum on and off for what must now be the best part of ten years…! It’s been a real treasure trove of information and discovery along the way for me, and I must express my greatest appreciation to all of the friendly faces and individuals I’ve met along the way that give up any and all amounts of time to dedicate to this important community.

I’m originally from the U.K., hailing from West/East Sussex areas, with also a stint in Northamptonshire and have since moved to Brisbane, Australia (having parted with a 1960 Austin Mini project in the process to save the funds to get over here!)

I’ve long dreamt of getting another Mk1 since arriving in Australia, and eventually found a very solid project which has been a slow work in progress with plenty of learning along the way…

The U.K. issued heritage certificate shows very early 1965 as the date of build AND date of despatch, is this normal and/or expected to see matching dates? The car is a CKD, and assembled in Blackheath, S.A., having spent most of its life in South Africa until being imported into Australia in early 2021.

It’s great to have an Austin-badged Mini in Australia, as to my knowledge it seems as though they were only badged as Morris here until Leyland came along? Also, apologies to the purists who will spot all sorts of unexpected findings in this dear little car. I’ve collected most of these parts over many years, of which many were destined for the previous project, but such is life and I have made do with what I have access to here in order to build something that I personally enjoy and hope you do too!

As you can see, there are many bumps and bruises in the paintwork and on the body, all of which make me worry much less about driving this very regularly. I have tried to preserve as much of this as possible and work sympathetically around it to preserve what I can, where possible:






P.S. AWB633 belonged to my late grandfather on a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, which was then handed down to my father and put on his MGC GT many moons ago. I thought it was fitting to carry on the legacy, so that explains that.

P.P.S. Please enjoy this picture of me looking thoroughly thrilled to be replacing the rear window aperture rubber seal!



There’s also what appears to be an original decal on the rear window for ‘Sydney Clow — Krugersdorp’, could this be the original dealership? The following image is all I could find thus far on the matter, and any further information would be most welcomed!



Cheers and chat soon,

Thomas

[whistler]

Lovely project. I guess that CKD kits of that era didn't come with hydrolastic suspension as a UK assembled car would. One distinctive item points to it being a 65 car and that's the sun visors. I have a December 65 made UK car and it has the same visors, the corner hinged variety with a swinging chrome hinge. I believe that they were only fitted in or around 65 and some parts books don't even show them.
Enjoy.

[sugarhiccup]

Lovely project. I guess that CKD kits of that era didn't come with hydrolastic suspension as a UK assembled car would. One distinctive item points to it being a 65 car and that's the sun visors. I have a December 65 made UK car and it has the same visors, the corner hinged variety with a swinging chrome hinge. I believe that they were only fitted in or around 65 and some parts books don't even show them.
Enjoy.

Hello there, and thank you so much for the kind remarks. I believe that this car was converted to dry suspension at some point in time as there’s some evidence of hydrolastic hardware having been underneath. Although I couldn’t say for certain, it’s my guess that it was probably assembled with hydrolastic suspension in the first instance.

[mk1]

What a cracking little car, and with a great history too!

Great find.

[sugarhiccup]

What a cracking little car, and with a great history too!

Great find.

She’s great fun, and thank you personally Mark for helping both knowingly and perhaps unknowingly in many details great and small along the way…

[Tim]

Yes, pretty special to have an Austin Mini in Australia. All of the Australian assembled Mk1s were badged Morris for the Australian market, but they did badge some Minis and Mokes as Austins for export. If you see an Austin, it usually means a private import.

Tim

[timmy201]

It’s a lovely looking 850! How much have you done to it since you bought it? Have you got many plans for it?

[sugarhiccup]

Yes, pretty special to have an Austin Mini in Australia. All of the Australian assembled Mk1s were badged Morris for the Australian market, but they did badge some Minis and Mokes as Austins for export. If you see an Austin, it usually means a private import.

Tim

It’s a lovely looking 850! How much have you done to it since you bought it? Have you got many plans for it?

Thanks very much to you both!

I replaced the manifold and exhaust with the Maniflow (UK) small bore offering and chose to install the twin 1 1/4” SU carbs at the same time, rather than cutting through the original cast iron inlet/exhaust manifold to separate.

The interior overhaul was one of those projects that you start by pulling a thread and wind up unravelling more and more work for yourself as you go! I had already set aside the Les Leston steering wheel, Austin cream speedo, and early straight chromed magic wand gear lever for a previous project that I unfortunately had to part with, so they’ve been leveraged and I have kept the well used original items aside for safe keeping.

Brakes were serviced and overhauled, but still running drums all around happily. Suspension cones replaced, and Hi Lo’s refreshed (which at some point in the past appeared to have been fabricated using some traditional threaded bar for the rear rods by the looks of things which had eventually failed).

I’ve replaced all of the door seals and window rubbers which had definitely lived a lifetime and more… Though, I’m dealing with the well known ‘Sailors Leg’ issue and the doors now being difficult to open and close as a result. The passenger side door is definitely worse, in that I actually can’t currently open it from the inside at present using the pull cords no matter how hard I pull, which is a shame. I’m hoping that the seals will compress and get better with age, otherwise I’ll check out the Phoenix Trim offerings that have been recommended in the past…

Standard rims kept as is and new tyres were selected, I chose the Yokohama Y350 GT Specials and so far they’ve been great.

The South African ‘Silverton Engineering’ stamped radiator was recently re-cored as it was leaking enough for it to become a nuisance.

I hope to lift out the engine eventually, as I have a 12G295 head and a Cooper 997 camshaft that I’d like to utilise. My aim is to keep it as an 850 block, and I’ve been offered some flat top pistons to help with the CR if that project becomes a go ahead. However, there’s a lot of positive talk about 1098’s these days… so who knows!

Cheers all

[timmy201]

Where did you get the Yoko Y350’s from? They are a nice looking 145 option

I’ve been very happy with my 1098 engine, you could make a really nice one with that cam and 12G295 head!

[sugarhiccup]

Where did you get the Yoko Y350’s from? They are a nice looking 145 option

I’ve been very happy with my 1098 engine, you could make a really nice one with that cam and 12G295 head!

It’s very tempting… and your car is certainly an inspiration to work towards—it’s beautiful!

The tyres were a less than straight forward affair… (my own fault, however!)

I purchased the Y350’s from Mini Spares and had them shipped initially to relatives in the U.K., and then later had them shoved into a crate together with some other personal effects I had to ship here anyway to make the most of the cost hit. I wonder if any tyre specialists here in Aus would be able to import them easily enough? In any case, they seem to be a great all-rounder and definitely look the part.

For anybody else wanting to take a look, here they are:

http://minispares.com/product/Classic/W ... YRE34.aspx

[sugarhiccup]

Fitted a new Autosparks front and rear wiring loom last weekend and a new Minispares six screw fuel sender, as for some reason I thought it might be a ‘fun’ challenge having never done this before!

What was left of the original loom was lovely but was pretty rotten and damaged in multiple areas as well as having had evidence of some dodgy alterations made over the years…

Turns out the whole exercise wasn’t too bad, though I had to make a few modifications, such as running separate wires to the double filament front indicator bulbs for the sidelights (South Africa spec) and extend the connector for the speedo oil filter light at the filter head assembly side which wasn’t quite long enough sadly on it’s own, despite the positioning of the loom seemingly being in the right position?

There was also some initial trouble with sparking when the earth was connected back to the battery, and after some troubleshooting and double and triple checking this was found to be an issue with the original type floor starter button. It seemed that the threads were able to turn somewhat as I was tightening the nuts holding the battery leads underneath, causing the terminals internally to spin as a result. It seems that some Bakelite inside had broken away which held them still… Anyway, with all that resolved and the button put back together, she’s back to life and I’ve been for a blast today in the sunshine!

In retrospect, it wasn’t until I was in the thick of it that I realised getting the original roof lining back in properly without sustaining any damage was probably going to be one of the hardest parts of the whole surgery! But with a lot of patience and gentle/forceful wiggling , we reached a successful outcome thankfully!

[roger mcnab]

hi mate
when i lived in woy woy nsw a friend had an austin mini from new how that came about i am not sure but he started to race it but built a proper race mini and his wife drove it it had a trick cam and a big weber carb on it and went like the proverbial it idled very lumpy so what could expect from a race motor on the road she could show the souped up holdens a clean pair of back wheels
well cheers roger mcnab

[sugarhiccup]

hi mate
when i lived in woy woy nsw a friend had an austin mini from new how that came about i am not sure but he started to race it but built a proper race mini and his wife drove it it had a trick cam and a big weber carb on it and went like the proverbial it idled very lumpy so what could expect from a race motor on the road she could show the souped up holdens a clean pair of back wheels
well cheers roger mcnab

Heya Roger,

That’s an awesome story, I’d absolutely love to have seen the faces of those who got left for dust by an unsuspecting car and driver! Those Holden’s aren’t exactly slow…!

My plan with this car is to breathe some life into the 850cc engine with a better cylinder head and camshaft, in combination with the twin 1-1/4” SU’s to achieve something that resembles what many tuning outfits were offering in the early 1960’s. However, there’s certainly another part of me that wants to build a big nasty motor for this car that is so unruly, just like you mention! As if owning one mini isn’t expensive enough, I guess I’ll have to find a way to get a second to live out both scenarios!

I’ll keep dreaming… thanks for sharing!

Cheers, Thomas

[Philsa]

Hi Thomas

Cracking car you have there.

There’s also what appears to be an original decal on the rear window for ‘Sydney Clow — Krugersdorp’, could this be the original dealership? The following image is all I could find thus far on the matter, and any further information would be most welcomed!

Yes that is correct, Clows Garage as it later became known was indeed a car dealer here is SA for some time. They supplied, serviced etc the minis and also peugeot cars for quite some time. Krugersdorp is very near Johannesburg on the West Rand.

There was quite a few classic mini dealerships that is no more, Mini Centre (pretoria), Haaks Garage (pretoria west), Kingsley Marais (central pretoria) to name but a few.

Cheers
Philip

[roger mcnab]

hi thomas well my mini project is a mini clubman with rover 3.5 v8 it is on the forum with some pics in the early posts but a lot of work has been done since those pics i am having trouble getting pics to send to timmy 201 to put up for me
i am hoping to get the motor running by end of year either with 500 weber or 4 idf webers depends on dollars
cheers roger mcnab

[sugarhiccup]

Hi Thomas

Cracking car you have there.

There’s also what appears to be an original decal on the rear window for ‘Sydney Clow — Krugersdorp’, could this be the original dealership? The following image is all I could find thus far on the matter, and any further information would be most welcomed!

Yes that is correct, Clows Garage as it later became known was indeed a car dealer here is SA for some time. They supplied, serviced etc the minis and also peugeot cars for quite some time. Krugersdorp is very near Johannesburg on the West Rand.

There was quite a few classic mini dealerships that is no more, Mini Centre (pretoria), Haaks Garage (pretoria west), Kingsley Marais (central pretoria) to name but a few.

Cheers
Philip

Heya Philip,

Thanks so much for your kind compliments, and amazing insight! That’s really wonderful, thank you.

Pretoria is on a lot of receipts in the history file, so I’m sure it must have spent some around this area many moons ago!

I’ve taken a quite rubbish photo of the Sydney Clow decal on the rear window, which is somehow amazingly intact after all these years…!



Really appreciate your comments and will definitely be doing some more digging on the South African mini front, as they definitely have some unique little features!

Cheers,

Thomas

[sugarhiccup]

hi thomas well my mini project is a mini clubman with rover 3.5 v8 it is on the forum with some pics in the early posts but a lot of work has been done since those pics i am having trouble getting pics to send to timmy 201 to put up for me
i am hoping to get the motor running by end of year either with 500 weber or 4 idf webers depends on dollars
cheers roger mcnab

Hi Roger,

I just found your build topic and I am thoroughly impressed to say the least. It is bonkers in the best way possible!

You’ve really got a great audience watching hotly with anticipation as you go, and I can’t wait almost as much as you (no doubt) to see it finally hit the road… What a day that’ll be!

Keep up the amazing work and I am excited to see where things turn next…

As for image uploading, I found a really helpful guide made by one of our forum members here:

https://mk1-forum.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=29888

And for anybody else who wants to follow Roger’s Rover V8 build, I’ll leave a link here so you can find it easily:

https://mk1-forum.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18661

Cheers mate,

Thomas