Micra K11 - Mandy goes to a new home

Just caught up on this thread. Nice work man! And love the personal connection.

I got given one of these about 5-10 years ago. Was an old lady's my friend was helping care for who just wanted to get rid of it. I tried to give her some money but she wouldn't have it so I gave some to charity instead. Drove it around for a bit then sold it on for £350. No idea whether it was a 1.0 or 1.3, but I can see why you like them. They've got that thoroughly endearing 'little tin can' feeling my mate's 106 had.

I hope you keep the convertible for a bit to enjoy the novelty of it. Also hope the window glass is easily sourced! Found one over here going cheap, though prefer the colour of yours ... www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353615631619?hash=item5255225503:g:5A0AAOSwISlh~fuj

The Trade Me car looks good. For very little effort the headlights could be easily polished. I recently used a 3M kit with loads of the pads remaining, so quite good value. Came with lacquer wipes for minimal mess of spraying and hopefully a long lasting finish.

Update time before the weekend when our stable of k11s is reduced to 2.

Mandy first. We stripped her down, removing both guards. Only needed to remove the drivers side to fix damage but as we've learned they all collect a load of dust/dirt at the back bottom of the guard so its worthwhile removing to clean it out. Took off the bumper and the headlights.

It looked like this behind the bent wing.. (I took no photos. These 2 following pics are screen captures from a video I had sent my brother. Yes. He's that lucky)





I then used many various tools including hammers, slide hammer, dollies, vice grips, pliers, blocks of wood, long lengths of steel etc to carefully reshape the inner guard front until it sat where it should. Lobbed some black zinc on and fitted the white guard we had scored from the parts car at the wreckers.

Then I had to fix the bonnet corner. Same again.. lots of tools and some patience rewarded me with a bonnet that you'd hardly tell was damaged but for black paint and some dents.

Classy.

The headlight next. Turns out the back of it was smashed more than I thought and its not one that's so easily found locally , the car having facelift 2 lights, among other 'updates' (even though on the tintop cars facelift 2 updates didn't happen for 2 more years. Maybe the cabs were used as a test bed. Or maybe they were seen as extra special, got these new upgraded bits and then the thought to fitting on the tintops 2 years later? Very interesting I know! I can tell you're impressed )

So the headlight. It got some Barry levels of diy plastic welding using a big soldering iron, plus some riveted on alloy brackets. Shame I did not get a photo. Its beautiful. I earned extra milk arrowroot biscuits for that effort and was talk of the blokes shed that evening.



So now the front end looked straight and the headlight pointed in roughly the right direction we swapped the alloys over onto Minky and Minkys steels went onto Mandy. Then we went for a drive to town. I spotted another local k11 and nabbed this shot to the amusement of the other carpark dwelling folk..



Cute k11 - nice colour and PFL2D ! I shall add it to the list of k11s I could have in the future when its elderly owners die.

But for now I was happy with the look of our yard...



Now I turned my focus to the mirror. Luckily the mirror housing is actually the same as a tintop item. They just fitted a different stalk. So I striped down the wreckers one and swapped bits, after having cleaned out a family of spiders. I had to fabricate a special tool to hold down the large spring and remove a clip. Prick of a thing but got there in the end.



While I did that Hannah cleaned out the interior. She found the coin one should usually find in such jobs, so knocking the purchase price down. By how much I don't know as it depends on inflation...



There was also this unit under the passenger seat. Some sort of television control? Figuring this car must have had the very latest in car entertainment back in the day...





Next major job was to make a side window. I had rang about various wreckers all over NZ looking for one but no luck I even emailed the main garage in the cook islands where there's apparently loads of these cars but no luck there.

So a plastic window it is. Anyway- its a convertible. The windows shouldnt be up when you're driving. I got a bit of plastic big enough from a Nelson outfit (bendy stuff that doesn't crack - not sure what) and we removed the passenger window.



Actually a really easy and quick job which was a relief. Used it as a template and traced around it, cut it to shape plus measured the curve depth.



Dropped the plastic back in to the specialist and they heated it up and formed the curve. It turned out good. Fitted and now a window we have.

Next job to do before we can go for a wof is replace the cracked windscreen. But it had to wait until we had some decent weather because for seemingly 2 weeks it rained. Finally it was back to the wreckers to (carefully) remove the screen (inc as part of the sale) from the ever diminishing parts car...



This we'll gloop into Mandys aperture, probably with the help of our friendly tame window fitter person. For now we are driving about ignoring the crack, which has not grown but it just too long to get pass a wof test with.

Meanwhile the other two k11s were probably sulking because until we sort out the tears in the roof Mandy gets to stay inside.

Minky got Mandys alloys as a treat although we are not 100% sold on them. They just seem a little bit too big. Really nice from some angles but from others just wrong..





So we'll keep looking for 'the wheels' and probably just sell these on. We actually really quite like her with the steels so possibly some 14" steels with 60 series tyres could be spot on.

Martha has found a new forever home and we are super stoked about who's getting her. She will be picked up this weekend. A few weeks ago we decided that the ripped passenger side CV boot needed replacing. I bought one of those really stretchy universal items but jeeez it was tight and I ended up having to remove the axle to fit it. Sorted now and also good to know that the drain/fill plugs on the gearbox aint seized in place , given the fiasco we had removing Minkys filler plug.

So that's that for now. Get Mandys windscreen swapped asap and then go for a wof...

"on keeping this car forever as we've enough cars and more projects on the way."

ooohhh , what , when ?

We use to own a 1.3 k11. Was the most reliable, cheap to run and most fun car, the later being totally unexpected
We don’t name cars, just something we’ve never done, but “Tilley” was the exception. 😁

Ps I think my wheels would look great on the micra 👍🏼

Sure you can’t be tempted into 15’s?

www.autostarwheels.com/new-wheels/sprint-15.html

meltdown - 15 is too big on a little car like a k11 imo. We tried those 15s out that came on the droptop and they almost start to give it a mini donk look.

14s are fine. They are almost 13s but worth the clearance I need for bigger primera discs and calipers.

@clement - hey there!! How ya going? Yes a convertible k11 would be a rare thing to see in France I bet!!!

I can imagine 14’s being troublesome to locate.

I know a guy you could talk out of a set of 14" Maserati BiTurbo wheels.

98mm instead of the 100mm you need, but that could be taken up with wobblebolts.

I assume that is what this Golf owner did.