So much has transpired in the last six months, I don't know where to start.

Unfortunately, due to the house purchase and a family member recovering from spinal surgery - my Mini has been neglected and probably wouldn't recognize me, even if I had the time to visit. It's been waiting patiently in my father's workshop all winter (and my dad has managed to acquire many bits to complete the work) but soon it'll be on the move; the workshop will be sold along with my dad's house and the Mini will be coming to stay with me while my father and his wife move to the East Coast.







I'm grateful it's been in good hands, though - my father has been slowly working on the body, and aside from purloining the fuel pump for a neighbour's tractor (pictures below), all is progressing well.

The tractor turned out to be an old BMC - even had the old British Leyland Unipart stickers still on. Unfortunately for my Mini, this meant when my father needed a fuel pump for the tractor, the one on the Mini was a match...

New Edition

Back in August, my dad and I travelled to the docks in Montreal to pick up his Anniversary Edition Mini which was shipped from the UK. I did get some shots of it being driven out of the shipping container, but the batteries in my camera had died and the pics were taken with my dad's cell phone camera - and he still hasn't figured out how to upload them to his computer. So, instead I bring you some exciting night pictures taken a couple weeks after he brought it home:






We had hoped to take one or both of the cars to Mini Meet North but since buying a house this summer, I haven't had any time to work on my car or money to plan any trips. If I can get enough work done over the winter, next summer we can make a decent showing for the 51st Anniversary...

A few more pictures can be found here.

Hiatus

I've been taking a break from the Mini for the last month or so while I go through the process of buying my first home - hopefully I'll have the keys in my hand tomorrow! If all goes well, we (the Mini and I) will be all moved in and settled for August 1st. Until then, posting is going to be sparse.

Additionally, my Flickr Pro account (picture hosting site) is reverting back to a free account as of July 1 (instead of unlimited pictures, I will only be able to save 200). As much as I like to write, this blog would be pretty boring without pictures - so I'm also in the process of finding a new hosting site for all the blurry shots I'll hopefully be taking soon...


Stay tuned!

Restoration Day Four - WD-420

Continued deconstruction - this week I tackled stripping the engine bay.

I started with the wiring on the passenger side and removed anything bolted down along its path. This included the windshield fluid reservoir and tubes, parts of the steering mechanism, the clutch and gas lines (the previous owner must have filled the gas tank before he delivered the car - I had to wait about 20 minutes for it to drain into the large white cannister in the photo below), the passenger-side headlamp and casing and, finally, the plastic air intake tube.

I'm slowly developing my skills; getting better at remembering and judging the imperial sized tools, learning to "tap-and-turn" when removing stubborn or stripped screws and generally making some connections bewteen the work I'm doing and the functionality of the car.







Also, some good news - my dad has caught the Mini-bug again and may be acquiring his own classic Mini in the next few weeks! This means we may have a presentable car for the 50th Anniversary this year at Mini Meet North.

If all goes as planned, this also means the 1275 engine my dad picked up at Mr. Mini in March will be free to go into my Mini's engine bay. Vroom vroom! And of course, with more speed I'll need some serious stopping power so we're on the lookout for disc brakes for the front end.

There was also mention of some 7x13 rims


which would require the Sportspack wide wheel arches


This pleases me greatly as I love the chunky look and the wider arches will be perfect for the custom design I'm planning...

Bits!

I work overnights and have been trying to convince my employer (since they changed our schedule around eight months ago) that they need to give me my 4-day week back. I put through a proposal this week outlining all the benefits of not making me work 5 nights a week - added coverage for vacations and emergencies etc - unfortunately, the quick and polite reply was, "No."

This seriously screws with my plans for working on the Mini this summer; with only 2 days off a week, it makes it difficult to adjust my sleeping patterns to not only accomodate getting stuff done during daylight hours (appts, socializing), but also to allow enough time for me to drive the 5 hours (there and back) it takes to get to my dad's workshop.

So, while I try and figure out another way to convince the soulless capitalists it's worth their while to appease my 4-day work-week needs - here are some (blurry) pictures of the parts, panels and bits that my dad picked up last month at Mr Mini:

Driver's side front panel


Right floor panel


Gas A Just


Less blur, more bits!


Rad, totally.


Canuck bumper holder things


The support braces for the Canadian front bumper were an amazing find - these are original late 70s parts, still in the packaging. Although they didn't have a price marked on them, my father tossed them in with all the other stuff he was purchasing knowing that I'm dead set on keeping the car as Canadian as possible (even though he thinks the original bumpers are ugly and very un-mini).

When he took everything up to the counter to pay, the owner saw the bumper supports and told my dad he was one of only two people that had ever bothered to look at them. Apparently, over the last few years a man has come into the shop several times; every time he picks up the two supports and debates out loud whether they're worth the price, trying to elicit a discount. The owner has never waivered and the man always puts them back on the shelf and leaves without making a purchase.

Now that the store is going out of business, the man-who-wants-a-discount is sure to be back to finally buy the supports at the price he wants. So, just to have the pleasure of telling the man that they're gone - the owner gave them to my dad for free.

Restoration Day Three - Front Subframe

The weather has finally turned its face towards spring here - the lack of freezing rain, high winds and frozen fog (cold fog, btw, much harder to drive in than freezing rain), makes for a much less stressful drive to my father's place (2+hrs) to work on my Mini. Hopefully over the summer I'll be able to make more frequent trips, but it looks like it's going to be about a year before "Nacho" is on the road.

Yeah, I named my Mini "Nacho". Once the restoration is complete I have another name picked out, but for now this is Nacho Mini. As in, it's "not-your" Mini, it's mine. The final name won't be so cheesy.

This trip up I got my hands dirty. My father's machine shop business is now in full force and keeps him pretty busy, so while he works, I get my own "kid table" within yelling distance of him in the workshop. This also means I get to do all the grunt work needed before my dad helps again with the major work next winter.

I'm finding it amazing how quickly the hours go by while I'm trying to get 30 yr old rusted bolts out of their holes. And I'm learning at every step - leverage, torque, resistance...physics is phun!

Here are some exciting (and over-exposed, still working on taking decent pictures) shots of my work on the front subframe:

The front subframe - before:

And from the other side:

My tools of destruction:

Mid-destruction:

All apart:

And from the other side:

Mini Money

Back in October, when I saw the ad for my Mini, I didn't actually have any money to buy it (I'm pretty much perpetually broke - a situation that probably wouldn't change even if I had millions). A couple weeks before, my dad had come with me to look at another Mini that was twice the price and although we lost that one to someone quicker, my dad had agreed to help me secure a loan.

The day we looked at the first Mini, my dad was actually on the way to the airport to start work in Darfur for a few months so we couldn't work out any finances - I thought it could wait until he came back to look for another car. But, only a couple of weeks later I spotted my Mini and the price was just too good to pass up.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get in touch with my dad - his only contact was through e-mail and his satellite connection wasn't always reliable. I needed to know if he thought it was a "good buy" and I needed to sort out how to pay the seller, but the longer I had to wait, the more chance there was that someone would get the car before me.

Once I went to look at the Mini, I immediately fell in love and did not want to miss out on a second chance at owning one. I figured, even if I managed to buy it without my father's approval and it turned out to be horrible, I would still have the chance to work on the car and learn - and most importantly, I would be a MINI OWNER.

I waited as long as I could (three days, thankfully the seller was as interested in selling to someone who could appreciate the car as I was in owning it) to hear back from my dad but it was looking like I might lose it to someone with cash on hand.

Bemoaning my predicament over coffee with my friends, Andrew and Emilie, Andrew suddenly offered to loan me the money until I could work out the finances with my dad. I don't normally like to borrow large amounts, especially from friends, but goddamn, IT WAS FOR A MINI. I had the cash in my hand the next day, got it out to the seller and my Mini was delivered a few days later!

As if this wasn't enough AWESOME - they also gifted me with a digital camera so I could document the whole restoration process. They are the meat beneath my wings and I am forever in their debt. (But not literally, once my dad returned I was able to get a bank loan and pay them back.)

Here they are in all their zombie glory: