New Tires

Did not realize how long it's been since I did an update.  Only two items have required attention - changed out second CV joint boot plus installed four new tires.  Tires were interesting - Tire Rack refused to install tire on one wheel because the alloy minilite had a small leak through the aluminum.  Ordered a tube and had it installed a few weeks later, works just fine.  Tire rack thought this was an indication of a crack in the wheel, but no signs of crack.  Older castings like this sometimes have porosity issues, which I believe to be the root cause.

Thought I'd post this picture, really like it.  My son Joe is in rear view mirror of my MGB, he caught the rear end of my Jaguar in the foreground plus the Mini in the rear view mirror that my other son Pete is driving.  All on our way to the annual local british car show on 9/19/15.

Interior Color Change

This car had it's seats replaced at some time in the past, the original interior color was brown but they put in nice black/dark gray seats.  The seats looked great, but the brown carpet and door panels clashed with the black.  Here's a picture of where I started from:

They did have small pieces of black carpet sitting in the car as an attempt to mask this issue.

After some research I decided to use vinyl and fabric paint to change the brown color to black for door panels and carpet.  Here's a door panels in process:

That's a small wire holding the pocket open so I can get the inside black.  And here's the carpet in process:

Here's the finished product, I think it turned out real good.  Time will tell how well the paint holds up.  But this cost about $35 in spray cans, a lot less than new carpets and door panels.

CV Joint Boot Replaced

This job was not easy.  It's a bear to get the CV joint off the end of the half shaft without having the half shaft get pulled out of the inner CV joint in the middle of the car.  Takes two people, Ray Graham came by to help me out.

Here's a mediocre picture of the CV joint:

I then found out the new clips used to hold the CV joint boot to the joint were way too big, the supplier of the boots messed up.  So my parts supplier had to send me new clips.  Also had to buy a unique tool to crimp the clips in place.  Finally completed.

Next issue has the noisy valve lifters.  Removed the rocker cover and found all valve clearances were over 0.022 inch.  Normal spec is 0.010, with aftermarket rockers it's OK to be up to 0.014 inch per my sources.  I elected to set them at 0.016 inch for now, and will check them again in about 400 miles to see if they moved.  I also called Koch Automotive in Fort Smith Arkansas who installed the current head gasket last fall, replaced due to leakage.  Jerry Koch was surprised at the excessive valve clearance.  I suspect they put in a thicker head gasket and did not come back and adjust the valve clearances accordingly.  Valve clatter much reduced.

I also waxed the car, it had spent too much time out in the sun and was a little faded.  That original paint cleaned up nicely.

The Projects So Far

As expected, there are things that need attention on any British car over 30 years old.  I have replaced the wipers, leaking heater valve, and broken steering rack boots, and changed brown coolant, all very typical failures.  Yesterday while working on steering rack though I found the driver's side CV joint boot was leaking it's grease pretty badly.  This is an area of a front wheel drive car that I have no experience with, but it looks like I will get the experience now!  Parts are on order.

Here's a set of seven pictures my insurance company required, thought it would be a good thing to document them here.

One more car off my bucket list!

I have had a classic mini on my car bucket list for a long time.  After selling the 1952 MGTD in January I decided it was time to pursue the mini.  It took me about four months of searching on Craigslist, EBay, and several other forums with classic minis for sale.  I eventually found "the mini guy", aka Michael Lewis, who is a consignment seller of classic minis in California who had a yellow mini listed in Fort Smith AR.  It took two months then for Michael and I to work out the details with this difficult seller on the yellow mini, at one point in time we had walked away from the car.  But finally the deal was struck, and on April 9th I drove to Fort Smith with an enclosed trailer and bought the car.  Here's a shot of the car in the trailer on the way home:

I've had the car for a week, and I am having a blast with it.  The last four British cars I bought did not run for 6 to 12 months after purchase, so it's kind of nice to have one that runs when I get it!  It's a 1979 produced Canadian mini that spent it's life since new in California until 2012 when it went to Arkansas.  No rust, basic mechanicals are very solid.  I've done some minor things so far (flushed yucky looking coolant, re-aligned steering wheel, plugged holes in body from prior Canadian bumpers).  It's got original paint and interior except for seats (seats are from a newer car).  Some nice modifications had been done several years ago (phase 1 performance package, oil cooler, front disc brakes, alloy wheels, motolita steering wheel).  The banana yellow color sure gets noticed, and I love the cloth sunroof.

Here's some pictures of the car with my two granddaughters.  Today I added rear seat belts so I can install their car seats, they sure loved the short ride we took.  My four year old granddaughter Sophie has come up with the name that I suspect will stick - Papaw's Clown Car!

One project will be to get the interior color right, the panels are brown while the seats are dark gray/black.  But for now I'm just going to drive it, enjoy it, and fix things as they break!