[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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