'79 mini 1000

Before I forget, these are the Altissimo rear lights I restored years ago. They're lighter than the usual Lucas ones and have a different lense pattern


Compared to a Lucas one. A BL one at that.


And lastly, in the interim years I also restored the instrument cluster.
It's just rolling over to 60k

skodacious

Either way at £500 it'll be one of the last jobs to get done.
Maybe I'll be able to get a body chop from a scrap car that's useable

ivangt6 go into the advanced search and take a look at the sold items - this will tell you the sort of prices that are more realistic.

Sounds like they're either ridiculously rare and never come up for sale or they don't sell at inflated prices.

Yeah I can find little bits like lenses and stuff but no whole units. And to be fair the ones on ebay aren't perfect. Mine are as new. No marks, perfect chrome and new gaskets. I'm pretty sure that I got the light units with no lenses as new old stock in the blue British Leyland boxes. I should have kept them. The lenses were brand new and the last one of the big mini spares shops had along with the new gaskets. The units are slightly different to the lucas ones and you can't fit lucas lenses to altissimo body's or Viceversa.

If they are worth a bit it would help out with the project massively. Not sure if I can even post anything at the moment though

So today was earmarked for doing the boring job of flatting down plug welds and seam sealing.

This is the underside of the back-rest showing the penetration I was getting. Good penetration but a fair bit of grinding


I'd forgotten a couple of bits inside the boot and this welded seam in front of the LH wheel arch. This is a welded seam from the factory so I didn't grind it down afterwards



With those final bits of welding done and grinding done I could crack open the seam sealer


And in the boot


And the back seat.
Seam sealed the lip underneath the seat but only got as far as hitting some hydrate 80 onto the seam at the bottom of the seat-back.


The rest of the day was spent ordering wood to make a carport as SWMBO has decided we need to be cracking on with the t25 which is currently outside.
She's even bought a new front quarter panel for it.

I'll document the carport build in my garage thread and then it looks like the bus thread will be making some progress

Work will not stop on the mini though. There's plenty to be cracking on with without forking out loads of money

*Disclaimer* - I haven't actually done a lot, this is more of an update to work out my best way forward.

Most of my time over the weekend was taken up by a large erection. I had wood all weekend. Wood that needed a good lick of paint.
That's right I've been putting up fence.


Partly to keep this little a**hole away from the postman and partly to make our back garden a bit more private. But mainly to stop said a**hole chasing the b***dy cat onto my car.


Also I've been hanging my bell outside but were getting away from the point now


I know what I need for the boot now. Will start ordering bits as and when. I'm still not decided on whether to order genuine or pattern bits at this point. Or a mix of the two

In the meantime I've been stripping my wheel arch.


It's a slightly thicker gauge than the bodywork. And there is some pitting but nothing deep so I'm saving myself some hassle and keeping the majority of it
This is what were dealing with


I've given it a good dose of bilt hamber hydrate 80


I did have a go at making this area but failed miserably. Due to the amount of curvature it's beyond what I can do with a hammer and dolly without resorting to cutting and welding it into some sort of frankenstein monster.
A magnum pattern wheel tub is about 30 quid plus postage so I'm going to order one of those and cut out the front and rear to sort these areas




More as and when.
I hope everyone's doing OK

tidy repairs

M-Machine panels are a good midway point between Magnum and Heritage.