It's a Mini project!

Soldato
Joined
25 May 2008
Posts
4,246
Location
North Wales
My grandmother turned 92 the other week, while i was over seeing her she mentioned she was going to stop driving as she thought it was probably time. After a talk with my dad about it and him basically wanting to get rid of it with as little hassle as possible for her i agreed to buy it.

£200 for the car, £241 for a years insurance (not bad as i didn’t have any no claims to use on it) and it was mine.

Its a 1998 Mini Classic MPi (Multi point injection :eek: ), 1275cc, half leather interior which is immaculate, 46k on the clock and one lady owner from brand new.

Mini just as we got it home, as you can see my missus is very impressed by it.
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Gave it a good clean with some snow foam and then jet washed off all the green slime that was on the sills etc. Gave the rest of the ‘fleet’ a wash too while i was at it!
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There’s quite a bit of rust on the drivers side door, i wire brushed it back and turns out there’s a fairly sizeable hole in the door, there’s also a patch underneath the drivers side headlight but that wasn’t as bad so that should fill. Overall the bodywork isn’t bad, a few other small patches to rub back and fill but nothing major. The paint on the other hand is pretty shot, the lacquer has peeled off the passenger side wing and has crazed on the drivers side so it’ll be going for a full re-spray once i’ve finished with the mechanical bits.

Nice big present to myself from MiniSport.com
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Lots of shiny things plus a drivers side door skin which isn’t in shot.
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Battle with locking wheel nut, the removal tool worked a treat and got the nut off in no time at all but getting the nut back out of the socket was a right headache. Had to crack dremel out and cut 2 slots in it so i could get a bar slotted in and un-wind the socket off it.
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Had to start somewhere so started on the rear drivers side, took the suspension off and rebuilt the radius arm as i was there. One of the seals on the arm had broken and there was grease everywhere so no idea if any grit had got into the moving parts hence the rebuild, plus the whole rebuild kit was only £9.72...

Lots of life left in the rear shoes, in fact the braking system is all in very good condition.
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Cones in good condition so a wire brush to remove some surface rust and a lick of paint
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Going to underseal the whole car so wire brushed it all back and the frame was in better shape than i suspected just the edges starting to rust so gave it a good coat of underseal. Gave the drums a coat of high temp paint to make it look fresh.

Before: Wire brushed back to remove road grime and surface rust.
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After: but still yet to fit the shock absorber and cone back in
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Got a set of 12x5 minilite alloys on the way for it to replace the rubbish rover alloys and to fill the new arches better, got a few shiny bits for the engine bay and bushes for the steady bars.

Will update when i get chance to do more, if the weather is ok i hope to do a bit in the evenings when i get back from work otherwise it might have to wait till the weekend.
 
I wanted to give her more money but it but she won't have any of it.

I don't actually have the money to do it really as i'm just starting to build my own house and a 4th car between 2 of us probably wasn't the best idea, but at that price i literally couldn't refuse it! Especially as its actually in such good condition when i started poking around underneath it.
 
Nice. I missed my opportunity with Minis before the prices went silly, but I did get to drive a fast one - loved it :D

Engine. Get the engine fast!

I'm REALLY trying not to tune the engine as i want to enjoy it for a bit but then will more than likely sell it to fund the building of a proper man cave in my new house given the rather stupid prices these seem to fetch once in top condition.
 
Thought there wasn't really much you could do with MPI's in terms of tuning...or so I've been told.

Enjoy it and wish you best of luck against rust! :D

most i've seen on reading up is about 85-90bhp with a stage 3 so modified head, 1.5:1 rockers, exhaust etc. Any more and you need a mappable ECU to take advantage of things like hotter cams, bore to 1380cc and if you're really flush a 7 port head :D

To be honest at that stage for the money you'd have to spend to get 110bhp i'd have just bought a custom front subframe for a B18 VTEC conversion and had 180bhp for quite a bit less!
 
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