[Mini] mini question.
Mike Rambour
lists at dinospider.com
Tue May 30 15:33:23 MDT 2017
Hi,
My son-in-law purchased himself a mini (mini cooper, not spridget) and
right away ka-bloomed the motor, to be fair the motor had issues when he
bought the car so it was already on it way out.
So, I reluctantly volunteered to rebuild the motor and pulled it out
of the car, with his help of course, he needs to learn this stuff. We
did this by dropping the front sub-frame, suspension, motor and all on
my 2-post lift. That was a mistake :) we found rust that was
previously well hidden under the sub-frame components and he decided we
needed to remove this rust, ok, I can live with that. Next he decided
we should drop the rear sub-frame and check for rust, ok, did that,
found no rust. The car is amazingly solid and with very little rust.
Then he decided, we should fix the very few rust bubbles in the paint
the car has, oh might as well remove the glass so we can get that rust
under the rubber molding, might as well remove the interior and all the
wiring and re-wire the car from scratch. Oh wow, there is a lot of
bondo on the car (I personally think its factory bondo) and lets remove
ALL the bondo to make sure no rust is hiding under it. I went away for
a 2 week vacation and while I was on vacation he got the car to bare
metal. I got home and found out I am doing a bare metal restoration of
a car and I didn't plan on that, but too late now.
He has decided to cut off the front end and make it removeable for
future ease of working on the motor. Now I have a problem !!! He
initially looked into getting a fiberglass flip front, but found a web
site where the guy cut off the front, made some brackets and bolted the
front on the car. That keeps it a steel front and not some flimsy
fiberglass front, its not flip front but still removable if needed.
I am against cutting off the front period, no flip, no cut, leave it
as-is. Is cutting off the front ok ? besides better engine access is
there a reason to do it, but more importantly good reasons NOT to do it
? Its not original anymore anyway since it has a 1275 in it, upgraded
brakes and other go-fast toys from a previous owner, but its a
remarkably rust-free (as rust free as these cars get anyway), appears to
never have been hit 1959 Mini, so its a first year car. I am trying to
talk him out of it, but its his car I can't say no, i suppose I could
lock up the plasma cutter and TIG, but he is the kind of kid that would
get the kitchen shears and cut it off anyway.
mike
--
A gun is like a parachute, if you need one but don't have it,
you'll probably never need one again.
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