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I have fitted a M-Machine full floor before. It all depends on whether the lapped joints bothers you. I prefer to avoid them. It’s more work and time but quite satisfying to have it looking just so. I can’t fault their floors for fit and alignment. The only problem with the M-Machine pressings is that the foot wells are not wide enough for the early cars. Might have to do something about that.

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I hid the lapped joints up after running some little stitches along them to prevent risk of movement and cracking.

Yes, the foot wells are a little different, I'd agree

I’ve been mulling over how to start on this shell and come to an odd conclusion. I have dropped plum line marks to the floor from all the mounting points, checked and cross checked and found that the shell is actually straight. What bugs me is the extremely poor repair of the accident damage to the drivers side door pillar and front footwell.

Rather than start hacking the floor out and replacing that first I’m going to redo the repair with a new part door frame and hinge stiffener etc. That and be sure the door is straight and sound. If I get the door hanging and shutting nicely all should be plain sailing from then on in. Well it’s a plan and something I have not tried before. But before I start I will strip the rear quarter panel of paint to discover any distortion.

It might be cheaper to buy secondhand jigsaw puzzles to keep me entertained. It amounts to the same thing.

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I think that your plumb-line idea is absolutely sound David. I did exactly the same, using the drop marks shown in the workshop manual onto a couple of old 6 foot tables attached firmly to trestle legs. You're right that if you keep referring to these datum points you will always be on the money. I accurately bolted a couple of rough but useable and accurate sub frames to the tables as mounting points too. As I have often said, I made a couple of exact 'door' silhouettes from shuttering ply to help alignment. They were a godsend but the drop points clinched it for me.

Great thread

Time to hack. Conscious that I could loose dimension integrity if too much was hacked away, I kept the inner and outer sills but cut them below the join to the door step. Further forward I held on to enough inner wing to support the windscreen A post so that the rest of the door frame doesn’t move.
The quarter panel has been damaged with score and scrape marks and some inevitable distortion. I can probably live with that as the steel is sound. If it offends me later replacing the quarter panel will be straight forwards with the door frame repaired already.
Why the sill has been filled with foam heaven only knows. The door has been reskinned poorly so that’s the next job.

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hi d
heaven only knows why some people do strange things to their cars a friend bought a vauxall ute here and looked ok a bit rough but passable but after a short while the sills started to leave the rest of the body thats when he found they were shaped out of brick mortar
the moral do not buy a car from a brick layer he had to scrap it as the body was shot
cheers roger

Minor rust damage fixed this morning. I’m tidying things up as best I can while I wait for panels.

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A bit more panel bashing. The toe board on the driver’s side was badly rippled and had a thick weld across it where the drop in repair floor panel had been bodged in. After tediously grinding off the weld a degree of directed brutality shaped things up a bit.
It’s ready now to replace the missing flange for the new floor to sit on.

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A nice big parcel of panels arrived from M-Machine yesterday. So action. First though there were fiddly bits to sort as a result of the previous mutilating repairs.
The heritage door frame repair is trimmed to the good original metal and screwed in place together with the hinge stiffener.
All still perfectly adjustable once the new skin goes on the door and it can be hung.
It will all be very nice if it all just sits nicely first time but that’s as likely as porcine aviation.

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hi d
what a pity some people do such sloppy work when with a little more care and time the job would be a lot neater and last longer you are doing a great job
you are lucky getting your parts so quickly as it takes ages for parts to come here in australia thats why i have so many projects that i will get some thing done one day
cheers roger

With the door re-skinned it was time for the acid test
Now the door May be twisted as it was the original and took part in the accident but two issues arise. The window frame gaps are pretty good and even but the rear gap gets larger towards the bottom. Now it may well be that the bottom of the B post has been twisted back. As mentioned earlier its leading edge is flattened and the quarter panel has some distortion. It may be best to just accept this and make good the appearance with lead or alternatively replace the quarter panel later once the new floor is in place and solid.

The other niggle is that the waist line of the door rises towards the front. I just don’t know my mk3s well enough to know if this is correct. It does match up with where the A panel will sit so I guess it’s OK.

I am pretty happy to weld up the door frame and A pillar/hinge post and move on to sorting out the floor. However if anyone has any bright ideas on how to improve that B post do share.

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hi d
well my clubman is different to yours asit has external hinges flush door handles quarter vents in the doors i am not sure about the waist line but will check tomorrow also has burst proof door locks which are no longer available got mine off a kimberly rear doors also has round front corners
it would probably be a good idea to redo the b pillar as it will be stronger and in the right place and the rear quarter was slightly damaged
with the door not sitting properly the b pillar must have moved in the shunt it is a pain when a repair is not done properly
happy welding cheers roger

It's going to be hard to suss out door alignment until you mock up the A panel, wing and scuttle.

Nothing is straight on a mini so I would not assume the swage line down the side runs in a perfectly straight line like your tape is showing.

In particular the swage at top of the door skin has to align with the rear quarter swage at the rear and the scuttle/wing seam at the front, so without the scuttle in place there is no forward reference. This would need to be checked in order to establish if the panel is poorly pressed or if it's purely a door or door skin positioning issue. The door skin could even be on the door frame slightly wonky as the upper frame alignment looks spot on. You really need the A panel in place to check front gap to confirm this.

hi d
do you have a door from another car that could be used as a further check the trouble with cars that have been in a shunt they need to be checked that all is square and in alignment so that may be a good place to start before going to far and have to go back so the datum points need to be sorted
also the door opening may have moved when all the rot was removed the a pillar may be a few mils forward that would make the b pillar opening gap bigger well good luck cheers roger mcnab

minibitz wrote: ↑Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:47 pm It's going to be hard to suss out door alignment until you mock up the A panel, wing and scuttle.

Nothing is straight on a mini so I would not assume the swage line down the side runs in a perfectly straight line like your tape is showing.

In particular the swage at top of the door skin has to align with the rear quarter swage at the rear and the scuttle/wing seam at the front, so without the scuttle in place there is no forward reference. This would need to be checked in order to establish if the panel is poorly pressed or if it's purely a door or door skin positioning issue. The door skin could even be on the door frame slightly wonky as the upper frame alignment looks spot on. You really need the A panel in place to check front gap to confirm this.

No assumptions made. Thinking laterally i checked the swage line against my mk1. It does the same. As to the A panel its position vertically is governed by the sill trim flange so it is only forwards and backwards that can be adjusted by inner wing position. A straight edge on the B post edge does show the bottom portion to have moved back a tad. The B post flange is at a less sharp angle. This I will remedy once the floor is solid and the shell has a degree of strength back.
As to today’s fun. There are a few bits to fabricate and areas to mend but it’s nearly ready for the floor.
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Still concentrating on getting the drivers side floor in. The cross member needed fixing.
I welded from inside the cross member to minimise the grinding back on the bit that shows.

Then there was modifying the floor panel.

Continued.

It is all about those narrow foot wells.
The hole was filled in three stages. First the two missing angled edges then the flat strip. Once finished I thought it may have worked out better to cut the whole flat base out and weld in a new piece around the stiff edges. As it is the flat bit is less than flat. I might just try plan B befire the floor goes in.

Was it worth the effort? Probably not but a nice little excercise and learning curve.

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It niggled too much. I went ahead and re did the footwell.
Welding form the underside once it was tacked in place made the finishing off easier. That did take an age and a lot of Roloc discs in the recessed corners. The flat bit is now flat.

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All stopped as I ran out of welding wire. Time therefore to pick up on some earlier bits of the project. Wonky door cards. I decided to try re-backing them using 3mm ABS plastic. It’s not the cheapest stuff known to man but it’s nice to work with and should remain in shape for many years.

The downside of this scheme is the vinyl covers themselves. Some idiot in the past has brushed them with an oxy acetylene torch while “fixing” the sills leaving a melted edge on one side and a scorch mark on the other. As these are the dark navy trim for the blaze cars I don’t have much choice but to use them.Newton (bless them) only do black. Some vinyl die might make a difference.
The ABS needed scuffing up to help the glue grab but it seems to have bonded down well.

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hi d
well that abs plastic would have to be a huge improvement over that cardboard bmc/leyland used mine are all buckled and twisted so they need sorting i was going to use 3mm ply for the repair
will look into the plastic though should be able to get it some where price could be a problem as pension is not that big and has to cover lots of things
well enough winging cheers roger