mk1-forum.net

Good afternoon. Having a coffee to calm down. In the process of restoring my mini seven.
Theres been a few awkward things thrown my way but todays work was a right tw*t !
I'm on about the removal of the split pins that go through cotters that hold the pedals to the master cylinders
What made things worse is that i cannot open both doors fully in the garage.
Has anyone else encountered this ?
End of rant !

Gary Co Durham

Easy, get a 17 year old in there to do it for you. They are both small & flexible.

Short of that, roll the car out of the garage, remove the drivers seat & give yourself a fighting chance of getting in there. No magic tricks to get split pins out I'm afriad, but some folks will swear by replacing these with "R" clips on rebuilding. Not that I would recommend this as I think they come out TOO easily.

take the seat out - you then might be able to get better access with the doors closed??

If it's any consolation, I once got stuck in a Lotus Eleven, upside down, with my head facing upwards in the footwell and my legs on the rear body, and my hands up under the scuttle and ended up thoroughly wedged. Eventually I had to cry for help and have someone pull me out by my ankles. All of this was in the showroom window.....

That was something to do with the brake pedals, so you have my sympathy

Al

Long handled long nose pliers make it much easier. take the seat out and get comfy on your back!
I lost a cotter pin last time I did it so replace it with another and the lost one dropped out onto Whizzos foot as we were leaving the paddock at Blyton. I thought that was the end of him driving my car but he wasn’t bothered at all! He didn’t even have a look if there was one in there! He just said ‘don’t worry about that’ and off we went!
I would have been straight out checking if it was safe!

Agree to remove seat and then put some padding on the floor Tunnel otherwise that bit Hurts your Helper who has been conned into the job & they will later complain about their Ribs ,Back & Arms their pains all depending on the body contortion that was needed to carry out the Job
If you find a better solution please let us know ?

Had to do same bastard job several times earlier this year. Agree with all of the above. Seat out, padding on floor, long nose pliers at the ready and something else too......... Take the bloody steering column out too. It's an absolute doddle. 2 bolts and an electrical plug. Use R clips but simply push them right through to the loop at the end.

To think that when you were 17, you could kneel down in those footwells and get up to all sorts of tricks. In the dark too!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the messages.
R Clips ! Forgot about them. Would have tried to put new split pins in and bend the ends !!!
As i say to my kids " if it was easy - everyone would do it ! "

Gary Co Durham

For refitting, get the tool:
https://www.minisport.com/tolspt001-clu ... -tool.html
And plus one here for clevis pins pushed right through.

Snap on 90 degree pick, not the small one
Should pull out unless the pins been bent excessively
If it has use the hook to stop the pin rotating whilst you straighten out the split pin out enough to pull it out

[quote="mk1"]Easy, get a 17 year old in there to do it for you. They are both small & flexible.

Mark if ya can get him off is mobile phone long enough

Re the special tool I made one by bending part of an old door panel,saves a lot of swearing !
Replaced clutch master and didn't even take the seat out. Couldn't remove the R clip with long pliers
as it was already missing so split pin now

You can use a slightly modified fork (as in knife and fork...) to replace the clevis pins in the clutch and brake levers. Cheaper too. But remember to straighten it before you put it back in the cutlery drawer of she will be pissed off - again! Idea; thanks to an Aussie forumer and used on my car too.

I've been inside, into the under-bowels of the clutch and brake pedals again. Even rotating the clevis pins and R clips while the pedal is in various positions, I can't see anything that's going to touch the leg or the 'R' to push them out. Maybe I used shorter R clips (from a £6 assortment box from Sydenhams incidentally)

Try to bend the split pin straight as much as possible with anything that works and then decent pair long nosed pliers, twist split pin so you can get on the flats of the head and pull the bastards out.

Replace with suitable sized R clip (renew clevis pin at same time as they always wear).

Have used R clips for 30 years and have never had one come out.

That said, if you cant get the door open, its not easy - usually the complete list of known swear words are heard when doing this job

I had one where the pin was seized in the master cylinder ‘forks’, the split pin came out ok but the pin would just not shift. Ended up cutting through it holding just a hacksaw blade.

Long pliers are a must for the split pins.

You can also use one of these hooks to go through the eye of the split pin when removing. Second one down - surprisingly strong too.

https://www.toolstation.com/draper-mini ... IcQAvD_BwE


As for that clevis pin tool, absolutely fantastic time and fiddle saver!

Just make sure the R clip does not bottom out on the bulkhead before push rod returns fully, took me months to find the reason for an intermittent slipping clutch

Catmint wrote:Just make sure the R clip does not bottom out on the bulkhead before push rod returns fully, took me months to find the reason for an intermittent slipping clutch

Yeah, this size is definitely too big! Mine actually fell out and so did the clevis