1963 Super Deluxe Project

[guru_1071]

Hahaha, as I quickly scrolled down the page and that image loaded up it looked like a picture showing the aftermath of an awful accident Mini skidded to a halt across the road, a body on the floor!

I thought that as well....

[NotNormal]

Hahaha, as I quickly scrolled down the page and that image loaded up it looked like a picture showing the aftermath of an awful accident Mini skidded to a halt across the road, a body on the floor!

I thought that as well....

That's the trouble with single piston drum brakes all round, you get in the way and that's your lot.......

[BRI MK1]

Hi there is a mini car show at Shoreham rec this sunday not to far for you to come, hope to see you there as the weather looks good cheers Brian.ps there is a show and shine .

[NotNormal]

Hi there is a mini car show at Shoreham rec this sunday not to far for you to come, hope to see you there as the weather looks good cheers Brian.ps there is a show and shine .

Many thanks for the heads up. I've already planned to go up to Luton with it on the Sunday for a gathering at the Vaux heritage centre with Pistonheads so can't make it i'm afraid this time round.

[minidean]

Hi, where did you get the seat belts from? do they do rear lap belts to match. Great car by the way!!

[NotNormal]

Hi, where did you get the seat belts from? do they do rear lap belts to match. Great car by the way!!

Cheers.

Seat belts are not specifically for a Mini but you can have a look and see what works for you.

Website is https://www.seatbeltplanet.com/seatbelt ... cessories/

Hope it helps

[rich@minispares.com]

looks great in mini mag this month!

[Blue Mk2]

really super looking car

what tyres are you using please and what do you think of them

many thanks

[Ollie78]

What a fantastic car and a great story, it must be really special having had the car in the family for so long. Not quite the same but I have the aftermarket internal door release from my Grandfathers mini so I'm going to use it on mine.
Thanks for taking the time to post your progress its really inspirational, and congratulations on the great pictures in the magazine.
Ollie

[NotNormal]

looks great in mini mag this month!

Cheers, taken a while to hit their pages and not quite made the cover despite prior discussions but hey ho.

really super looking car

what tyres are you using please and what do you think of them

many thanks

Tyres are Falken SN807 Sincera 145/80 R10 and they are absolutely fine for the use I have with the car.

What a fantastic car and a great story, it must be really special having had the car in the family for so long. Not quite the same but I have the aftermarket internal door release from my Grandfathers mini so I'm going to use it on mine.
Thanks for taking the time to post your progress its really inspirational, and congratulations on the great pictures in the magazine.
Ollie

Cheers, glad it has been of interest. Car is soo cool and yes being a family owned car certainly makes it that bit more special.

[NotNormal]

Thought i'd post a little update to this thread as its all well and good doing the resto but what happens afterwards......

Well all is good i'm glad to say , had a few niggles early on with the fuel gauge sender not working(needed a new one), the horn push working loose (now corrected), and the steering wheel not quite sitting straight (corrected) but they are fairly minor and easily sorted out. The main niggle I have is the water temp gauge reading a tad high, I now have a new gauge in there and tried a number of different sensors including NOS item and the gauge still sits just below the red or just into it on constant 60-70mph runs so not sure if that's normal or not but will see how it goes. Interested to hear what other people see the temp gauge sit at?

We both managed to use the car quite a bit this year as we were graced with a great summer which is unusual for the UK these days. Attended a number of Pistonheads and Goodwood meetings including just runs out just for fun and its amazing the reaction you get on the roads. You certainly feel vulnerable when you are so small on the road and with little protection other than a door skin and a bit of PVC covered MDF but cars have moved on a lot in the past 50years and because of it driving is soo much more of an event to the point that the whole speed thing is irrelevant. The car is certainly able to buzz along without holding people up and in fact its others that tend to slow progress and with overtaking an impossibility you just sit back and enjoy the ride. Steep hills are interesting and watching the speedo go backwards while you drop gears is amusing to a point!! Brakes require some forward planning but are fine once you re-calibrate, however twitchy bum moments do come occasionally when cars just pull out on you as they probably have no idea that you don't have the same braking ability as they do in modern cars.

Some pics of it out and about this year:

At a Goodwood Breakfast Club


Local Surrey Car Gathering


With my good friend Dougie's modified Mk2 Mini (also his late Grandfathers)


Modified vs Standard


Out and About


Me on the move..



As also alluded to above you can read a bit more about the car and its background in this months Mini Magazine topped off with some great pics



That's about it for the car this year, its pretty much tucked up for the winter months now but looking forward to hitting the roads again next year

[minidean]

Update time.

Just a note to start off by just mentioning that when changing my phone recently I found a pic of the car before we started work on this resto wise, so have added this pic to the start of the build thread .

So while the paintwork is being sorted attention turned to the interior to keep the build progressing. This is what we had originally (Minus front door cards as these were stored elsewhere when I took the pics).











As can be seen above front seats were a tad tired and although the rear seats scrubbed up pretty well there was always going to be an obvious missmatch in colour added to the fact that there was no original carpets either. So I decided to bite the bullet and renew the lot which meant a call to Newton Commercial.

They sent through some preview patches and I was pretty impressed with the match (taking into account the fading of the original seats)



Order was placed over Christmas when they had their sale and pleased to say it all turned up this week. Must just say I have been really impressed with their service and they have been very accomodating and friendly on the phone with all the stuff that was discussed for this order












I know some people may have a strong views in the Mini world about originality and pattina of an old car but got to be sensible about things and its how we want it to look that counts so that we can enjoy the car for many more years to come.

What colour is this?

[NotNormal]

What colour is this?

Powder Blue

[minimissions]

Stunning top work looks perfect

[NotNormal]

Cheers.

As the thread has been resurrected might as well give a bit of an update as its been on the road 2 years now since the resto. Well we got to the bottom of the temperature issues, ultimately resulting in an aborted London to Brighton run in 2014 as the head gasket failed. Turned out that the rad was blocked so when we replaced the head gasket we got a new core in the rad and its been as good as gold since with the gauge readings accurately reflecting temperatures.

The change in the displaying of tax discs was a great opportunity to put a period one in its place


Been used quite a bit when weather allows (as it is a toy) and a return to this years London to Brighton run resulted in another win in class so very happy and very unexpected tbh.

Love driving it, massive grin factor and lots of attention when out and about



PS. If anyone is at Goodwood this coming Sunday, see you there



PPS. In answer to some concerns raised when work was being done

There will be no more chopping of the outer A panel area from you can see in the pics. We've cut about 1/2 inch away from the door shut line as this will remain to keep the right lines as you say. The outer panel pieces are cut to fill the gap you can see in the pic but havn't got a pic yet but will take some once its fitted.

ive never seen anyone do the outer a panels this way, on paper it looks like a neat solution to keeping the door gap original, however i think that once its done, filled and painted you will have problems with the filler cracking - a lot of load goes through the a panels and the door hinges have to be really nipped up tight (on factory cars the a panels will deform around the mounting holes) - i do wonder that, in trying to save work, your going to make more work later?

lead loading may work, i dont know?

Notnormal,

I for one will be very interested to follow the progress of the A panel repair. I haven't seen your method before but it looks like it could be a very elegant solution to a tricky problem.

Bodywork remains flawless including all the hinge areas on both A pillars.

[MiniGuy]

I've just been reading through this from the start!

Stunning car and brilliant to have that family history.

A real credit to the OP and his father.

If I sent you my mk1 auto over, could you do the same with it?

[NotNormal]

Haha, my time has been filled with the rebuild of another toy which I finished this year, these projects certainly are all-encompassing.

Mini still going well and still brings a smile to my face when out and about.

[miniminor]

Another mini?

[MiniGuy]

Haha, my time has been filled with the rebuild of another toy which I finished this year

Tell us more!

[NotNormal]

Haha, no not another Mini, one is enough for me.

The latest toy is in complete contrast, as although mildly similar in weight to the Mini, this one instead gets down the road with over 400 ponies.

It's a Dax Rush that is fitted with a heavily modified Vauxhall C20LET turbo engine. Not been simple as it's all been pretty much engineered to make it fit and work reliably. Started work on it back in 2016.