[Spridgets] mini question.

[bmwwxman .]

Mike,

First let me offer my sympathy...   Sounds like the kid is a go getter, but
maybe a bull in a china shop too.  ;-)

Talk with him about the uni-body construction of a Mini.  You know, about
the egg shell properties which would disappear if the front were
severed....   Glad to see you copied the mini-list where you may get better
answers but honestly I never heard of doing this to an Austin Mini and
smell disaster along the way....

Cheers!!
Jim

On Tue, May 30, 2017 at 4:33 PM, Mike Rambour via Spridgets <
spridgets at autox.team.net> wrote:

>  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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-- 
-- 
Cheers!!
Jim Johnson
UHI Aviation Meteorology <https://www.facebook.com/MET105/?ref=bookmarks>
Adjunct Professor
E-Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology <http://www.ejssm.org/> - Chair

"Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they
look forward to the trip."
Winston Churchill
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