Welcome to my website dedicated to a Mini restoration project I decided to take on. As a very keen petrol head who enjoys getting his hands dirty I came cross a local chap who was selling his Mini which needed some TLC. The paint work looked sorry for itself to say the least, it was the first ever car I have seen that featured leather 'look' paint work!
Thankfully as bad as the paint work was there was no signs of any rust.
The previous owner had spent a lot of time cutting out the rot and professionally welded in brand new sills and fitted new panels that needed replacing. The standard of the work was second to none.
1980 Austin Mini1275cc Cylinder Head1000cc block with valve relief machiningKent High Lift CamshaftBalanced conrodsBalanced and lightened crankshaftBalanced and lightened flywheel
The first job on the list was to remove the paint so that I could inspect it for any rot/rust and to prepare the body for a respray. This meant removing all the body parts and also the windows. The front and rear windows were also removed as the old seals weren't in the bet condition.
After the hard task of rubbing down all the old paint I was pleased to see that there was no rust or rot anywhere on the bodywork, even in the most common places, ie, around the headlight seams and rear arch seams, there was no rust, there was very very small bit of surface rust but this was easily removed with no problems. The sills as you can see in the pictures were new with no rot or rust.
Once i was happy with the bodywork the next stage was to get the mask the body and get a good layer of primer on. For this i used some very expensive primer to ensure the end result was as high quality as possible.
The next stage after the priming stage was to decide on a colour to have the car painted. After looking at lots of colour ideas I eventually decided to stay with purple.
The purple I went for was called Amaranth Purple, this was the paint used on a special edition Mini in 1993. The paint I used was a 2k paint that is extremely high quality and gives a great finish. I also decided to give the Mini some more character and gave it a white roof.
The body at this point looked absolutely fantastic, the quality of the paint finish was simply perfect - thanks Bez!
Next stage of the project was to spend some more money on new parts ready to build the car back up, the following new parts were bought from Northwest Mini's who provided excellent customer service: Chrome Bumper - Front & RearWindow seals - Front & RearChrome Window InsertsRoof Guttering TrimArch and Body MouldingClutch Slave CylinderWing MirrorsNew headlightsNew Halfords BatteryNew Clutch Slave CylinderNew Door Seals
All the above parts where then fitted to the car and the next stage was to complete the oily mechanical bits, this involved:
Oil and Filter ChangeBrake Fluid Change
The stage was to put the Mini through the MOT, the brakes needed adjusting to pass but apart from that there was no other issues. 12 months happy motoring!
Here are some nice pictures outside showing off the paintwork, the pictures really don't do the paint finish enough justice!
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