Crayford Convertible In For Restoration @ Mintec

[999 ORX]

its really good when a good historic car falls into the path of someone who will restore it properly! its great to see the work your doing. The cars is lucky it has fallen into your hands.

[Tupers]

its really good when a good historic car falls into the path of someone who will restore it properly! its great to see the work your doing. The cars is lucky it has fallen into your hands.

I feel honored that someone would think of this in such a way.


While checking the edges of the arches before fitting the floor in place I noticed some thinning of the metal at the back of N/S arch.
I didn't want to try and repair it with the boot in so chopped it out flushed in a nice fresh piece of steel.






After a little tinkering we got the battery box welded in.


It took a bit of heaving and levering but we got the boot floor in a popped a few bolts through the subframe mounts to hold it.


The trunnion holes lined up perfectly with the original gussets and I did a plug weld on each one to hold the floor up.




I added a few to the bumper rail as well.


The bottom of the seat back need a little tweaking as it had sprung out when I removed the original floor.
I used the porta power to pushed it back a few millimeters before holding it in with a couple Celcos.




I also got the heel board lined up and held in so I could check my measurements, thankfully it's all lining up the with factory drawings.

[Matt_Tupman]

You've been a busy bee! cracking work as usual.

[nick@dunsdale]

excellent workmanship, and great images as well.

hope you keep this thread going all the way to the end result

[JC T ONE]

hope you keep this thread going all the way to the end result

That shouldnt be too long ?

with this speed, it should be ready for the paint shop, by the end of next week

[Tupers]

You've been a busy bee! cracking work as usual.

Well I've got to do something to distract me from working on my estate.

excellent workmanship, and great images as well.

hope you keep this thread going all the way to the end result

Thanks very much, all the picture so far have been taken on my iPhone. I fully intend on keeping this thread going until the car is back on the road.

That shouldnt be too long ?

with this speed, it should be ready for the paint shop, by the end of next week

I do need some sleep you know!!
To be honest as the rest of the panels trickle in it should start coming together quite quickly.


No huge mass of picture this evening as I've spent most of the day going around the car pulling off the last little pieces of floor and sill ready for when the half floors arrive.

I did however get the back end off the axle stands as I'm always fearful for damaging new floors.
I made a pair of frames from 30MM box that bolt to the front and rear damper mounts and sit the shell at a good working height and keep the weight off large flat panels. So far they're working really well and I think I'll probably end up making a few more for our other cars. All they really need now is a centre spar to join the two.




The only really noticeable panel removal today was the old section of from floor pan joined to the toe board. It's now all cleaned up and in zinc, just need something to replace it with now.

[Craig]

Just love watching projects like this !,
Keep up the great workmanship. Can't wait to see the finished car!,,,

Craig

[Tupers]

Just love watching projects like this !,
Keep up the great workmanship. Can't wait to see the finished car!,,,

Craig

Me too, it'll be a lovely car when it done.

While removing the last section of seat crossmember we found the exhaust tunnel had corroded quite badly. After treating the area around the rust I squared off the holes and started looking at how to repair them.




Fortunately we had a complete floor we'd cut out of another car so I took a piece of tunnel from it and traced the sections I needed.






A bit of trimming and it was ready to tack in .




Then some grinding and a lick of zinc (still need to clean the rest of the tunnel up with the wheel of terror).




The rust on the inner sills had also crept up the A-pillar so after some cutting I got it back nice and solid.




The heel board closing panels arrived from Mini Spares so I set about checking the fit. The heel board was already set in place so I clamped the closers in and everything lined up as it should.




Knowing this I popped the heel board out and welded the closers on before putting it all back in as one unit.


After some wriggling, a few final measurements and some Clecos the heel board and closing panels are in.




Next job, half floors.

[Tupers]

The first job on Monday morning was to fit the wheel of terror to my grinder and clean off the passengers side of the exhaust tunnel. You've got to cling onto it for dear life but it does a fantastic job of stripping off everything but solid steel.




Then it was time to pop the half floor in after a little fettling around the heel board to make it fit in nice and tight.


From then on in it was just a case making all the plug welds and carefully seam welding the tunnel an inch at a time to avoid any warping.






The new floor is slipped under the exhaust tunnel and will be seam welded on both sides and also plug welded. I will then linish down the weld on the inside so that it and the exhaust tunnel look like on piece.


We also made sure to add plenty of welds to the heel board to floor brackets.


All of that welding took rather a long time but before the end of play I got the other side of the tunnel cleaned off and checked the fit of the second floor panel.

[Pandora]

[quote="Tupers"]This is the O/S sill/A-pillar boxing section that we had blasted along with the shell of other pieces. It was held in with a rather interesting selection of blots, self tapping screws and stitch welds. This made taking them out rather entertaining and my current task of tidying up and repairing them less so.


I've often wondered what was added to stiffen the shells by Crayford. Is this the only additional stiffening they put in to replace the rigidity provided by the roof?

How / where does it pick up on the shell? along the floors, to the front arch, the rear companion bins and along the top of the inner sill? In effect a 3rd sill along the length of the door opening?

[NotNormal]

Love seeing the updates on this thread. Top work.

Used one of those wheels of terror on my own resto, they are great bits of kit despite the mess they create.

[guru_1071]

Love seeing the updates on this thread. Top work.

Used one of those wheels of terror on my own resto, they are great bits of kit despite the mess they create.

your only a real man when you have know the terror that occurs when a 'hairy cup' grabs hold of your jumper and you panic and cant turn the grinder off!!!.........

[Mk1Lover]

Nice Car!

Guessing these are rare?

[Tupers]

How / where does it pick up on the shell? along the floors, to the front arch, the rear companion bins and along the top of the inner sill? In effect a 3rd sill along the length of the door opening?

Yeah It's pretty much a second sill from the A-Pillar to the bin and then a small folded section inside the bin. There's also a large plate that goes from the seat base to the floor pan between the bins. Both were held in place with bolts and stitch welds.

Love seeing the updates on this thread. Top work.

Used one of those wheels of terror on my own resto, they are great bits of kit despite the mess they create.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the build, they do kick a lot of dust over the place but they do a good job.

your only a real man when you have know the terror that occurs when a 'hairy cup' grabs hold of your jumper and you panic and cant turn the grinder off!!!.........

I keep my sleeves well and truly tucked into my glove when the wheel of terror's out. I've had it catch the edge of panels and kick back at me a few times, not fun.

Nice Car!

Guessing these are rare?

You certainly wont be tripping over them at Mini shows.


So more welding has been done and the Crayford now has two floors and the arches are attached to the boot floor.






I thought I'd get some of the inevitable grinding out of the way and flushed off the repairs of the rear panel and plug welds along the bumper rail. The corners still need getting into with a burr but I've left that for another day as I was going deaf.






I also did the step sills while I had the die grinder out.




The next major step will be to fit the flitches so I set about unpicking what was left of the the old ones and the A-panels.




Now all that's left to do is a few final repairs to the toe board flanges plus some treating and priming and I can start lining up a mass of panels.

[scott6058]

Top Notch work there.
I'll be at it when the weather gets better.
Thanks for sharing.

[llmikeyj]

Wow, great work there.

I'm in a similar position at the front end of my mk1. If you can, could you take some photos of how the trailing edge of the new inner wing panel is supposed to attach to the A pillar? Particularly at the top - as shown in my poor picture below?



The curve fits well lower down but diverges towards the top of the A panel...

Thanks -

Mike

[susan downs]

How good to see my dads mini finally being done, i remember her from when i was small she was a great car , all my life shes been hanging around waiting to be repaired wishing you lots of luck Sue Downs

[guru_1071]

How good to see my dads mini finally being done, i remember her from when i was small she was a great car , all my life shes been hanging around waiting to be repaired wishing you lots of luck Sue Downs

you must be pleased to see such a quality job been done on the car!

any period photos that you would be willing to post up for us to see

[JC T ONE]

I've left that for another day as I was going deaf.

Why dont you have a spot welder ?

I have only done 5 Mini resto jobs, but if I ever do another, will I get one of those "thingies" as it saves TONS of work hours - pain - noize - dust - grinding discs - etc

This goes for the painter aswell, as his job will be a lot easier too = money to be saved


Kepp up the good work - looks really nice

[susan downs]

I do believe the hole in the roof was caused by me and my mum putting a donkey in the back my Dad was going mental