You spin me right round, baby!
Matt gets ready to turn his Mini project on its head
Yes, at long last, my barn find Mini, which sat lingering in a garage since 1977, is finally getting the attention it deserves. I took the project on back in 2017 after being alerted to its potential doom at the hand of the scrap man, by an old schoolfriend who was in the process of clearing their late grandfather’s house. A day of hard work got it rolling before it could be exhumed from the single garage it had called home for forty years, but once back to the safety of PC HQ it joined the back of a queue of projects. As lockdown struck, my (dimensionally) smallest project, the Austin Seven, jumped the queue to become my ‘at home project’ after the supercharged Minor was completed, and has remained my focus for the past year and a half.
The Mini worked its way into the workshop some months ago and I removed the incorrect 850cc engine that had been fitted after it was taken off the road (I was told that engine failure was the catalyst for it being laid up), ready to be replaced with a period-correct 998cc unit I sourced back in 2019, however this is a project which requires a great deal of care to get right.
Aside from the incorrect engine being fitted, the car is remarkably unmolested. As such, I have been slowly working around the outer body panels locally repairing any frilly bits with the intention that, although the underside and engine bay will be painted and the subframes restored, I will retain and polish as much of the original exterior paint as possible.
Time to rock and roll
However, I could procrastinate no longer having been given a rather impressively over-engineered rotisserie by reader Terry Gibbons, who had built it to restore his Sunbeam Tiger (PC, September 2021). And so, having purchased a set of heavyduty castors and long lengths of L- and box section, and with help from Clive Jefferson, I set about creating a set of brackets that would pick up on the Mini’s strongest points and allow it to be attached to the rotisserie.
First, having fitted the castors, we connected the front and rear sections of the rotisserie together with a length of 50mm box, into the ends of which we fabricated a pair of 37mm
square male fittings. While Clive welded the ends onto the bottom brace, I removed the Mini’s rear doors (only once channelling Michael Caine) and stowed them safely in the workshop’s rafters. Then it was out with the tape measure. A length of L-section was cut and drilled to join the rear damper mountings and act as the primary pickup point at the rear, which necessitated the removal of the dampers. These were in remarkably good condition with even their original rubber thread covers still in place, so should require no more than a thorough clean and paint in their original grey before refitting with new bushes. Two lengths of 50mm box, welded to the L-section across the damper tops and to the rotisserie, established the position of the rear end of the frame, so it was soon round to the front. The front subframe came out without much fuss, track rod ends and dampers having been detached from the suspension and ten bolts slowly removed from the body.
Bracing work…
More L-section was employed to fabricate a pair of mounting brackets which could be bolted through the front crossmember using the original subframe mounting bolts, to which box section was welded to join up with the front pivot frame. Two lengths of L-section were used to pick up from the subframe mounts in the front valance before the weight of the shell could be transferred from trolley jack to rotisserie. I still need to add a secondary brace at the rear, with my concern over damaging the car’s original paintwork somewhat limiting my options. However, the effort put in now will make life far easier when it comes to the small amount of welding work and considerable amount of prep and paintwork that the underside will be receiving over the coming months. matt.tomkins@practicalclassics.co.uk