Mini40 progress

Last weekend I finally got to spend a bit more time in the garage again. The first job was to clean and degrease the Mini engine. As the subframes will be completely overhauled – I just cannot drop the engine back into the car looking like a dirty & rusty piece of junk. The pictures below are just before using the wire wheel. After this I applied rust converter.

Powder-coating the mini suspension parts turned out great. The radius arm looks better than ever. Unfortunately, I could not find anyone who had the correct reamer. When I restored my Mini a workshop close by was able to help me. But one of the mechanics left and he owned the special tool. While I do have a reamer that fits in size – it is much better to have one that is guided from the side where the needle bearing sits. Luckily, I found a cheap used guides radius arm reamer on Ebay. Should arrive around Christmas. I have no idea how many times I will use it – but having one is better than needing one.

The needle bearings on the front upper arms went in easily. I used a piece of threaded rod and some nuts to pull them in. New wheel bearings for the Mini should hopefully also arrive this week. The new tumbler which I bought to “polish” the SU carburetor parts, also turns out to be great for cleaning the dirty screws from the Mini engine.

While the tumbler was doing its job, I quickly changed tires on Miffi. Initially I did not want to drive Miffi too much in the winter, but as there might be an upcoming car change in the family – she will be my daily driver again. And as I have a set of “Polarbear” winter tires, I might as well use them. With the Mini parts I also picked up the first batch of MGB parts from powder-coating. The rear brakes, the pedalbox, the gearbox crossmember and some brackets turned out OK. Some areas were rusted and pitted quite a bit. The surface therefore isn’t perfect.

Last but not least I took the Britax sunroof from the garage with me back home. Taking it apart and giving all parts an overhaul is a job that can be done over Christmas. I contacted a friendly soul from the MGB forum, and he was so kind to send me the original Tudor/Britax fitting instructions as PDF. This is an interesting read and it is clear that a few things were not done in Mildred – for example, the corner reinforcements that should be welded in are missing in the old shell.