For those interested in old cars.

[boxbrownie]

22 hours ago, MrWolf said:

At a guess the tuned engine either went bang, (or more likely, the gearbox did a good impression of a grenade) or is now in someone's competition car with a manual box.

 

I have also learnt from experience that it doesn't take 21 years for the firewall, A pillars, sills, heelboard and boot floor to disappear in a cloud of orange dust. (Plink, plink, fizzzz, two Minis in a puddle) It also doesn't take long for a chimp to stick on bits of old fridge with a £20 Argos arc welder and hide the evidence with seam sealer.

 

6 hides was always the costing yardstick based on a particularly awful MkVII Jag.

Would the headliner be West of England cloth? I usually allow for that, even on pre 1955 mass produced cars.

The engine might have been er.....retrieved for something else as you surmised, the 940 head on the 998 was an easy way to increase compression and would make a nice Cooper Mk1 install, the headlining I would think could easily be WoE cloth, it was the “chosen material” back then.

[peanuts]

9 hours ago, russ p said:

 

Every time I see an older car I always think it will get smashed up.

Cars in that program were a bit odd there was a jag from mid 2000s I think with a 60 numberplate for some reason. And the saab was just odd as it was mint but its owner on the show didn't seem like she would spend hours polishing it or debating down the pub the different developments stabled and BL did to the slant triumph engine! 

the production companys are well known for buying scrappers to blowup/crash/drown some yards keep interesting rare stuff specialy for this .deliver to a props studio at Ardwick few years ago they were doing a road warrior film featuring Billy Zane they had a mint Brown volvo estate plus two tired ones that had been tarted up for action shots . the two tarted up ones were later at the back of the carpark in a very sorry state 

[boxbrownie]

15 hours ago, peanuts said:

This slightly tired little beauty has arrived for restoration this week absoloutly original motor 

Looks like there might be a slight problem with the crank though.......

[Hobby]

I'm impressed they got it out without removing the engine... 

[boxbrownie]

1 minute ago, Hobby said:

I'm impressed they got it out without removing the engine... 

it may have made a break for daylight all by itself.......it happens 

[Phil Traxson]

56 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

it may have made a break for daylight all by itself.......it happens 

Wouldn't there be bits of gearbox around it if it had?!

[boxbrownie]

4 minutes ago, Phil Traxson said:

Wouldn't there be bits of gearbox around it if it had?!

Oh...do you know.....I hadn’t thought of that.....

 

[MrWolf]

I remember a friend of mine buying a very flash looking 1275GT when we were about 18. It was all black with black tinted windows. He paid a lot for it at the time (about £1000 or so thirty years ago) and it was great unless you wanted to do more than about five miles, then the oil light came on. 

It wasn't long before it blew up altogether and as he was still paying for it, he couldn't afford the repairs. It sat on his mother's driveway a year or two, during which time the sills fell off and that was the end of it. 

Another friend bought a Mk1 Escort Mexico from a dealer, but thought that it wasn't handling very well. We took it to my uncle's garage and he did a mock MOT test. It failed on no less than forty six counts.

 

So when someone boasts of having just spent £20000 plus on a classic car "Just like the one that they had when they were seventeen" they haven't, or at least, they better hope that they haven't!

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

I'm impressed they got it out without removing the engine... 

 

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

it may have made a break for daylight all by itself.......it happens 

 

1 hour ago, Phil Traxson said:

Wouldn't there be bits of gearbox around it if it had?!

 

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

Oh...do you know.....I hadn’t thought of that.....

 

I had a Mini where the previous owner had put a new clutch in it. Problem was that he omitted the lock washer that kept the clutch and flywheel assembly attached to the crankshaft. There was an enormous bang as I reversed it out of the garage, the bell housing was in several pieces and the back of the engine was sitting on the ground.

[johnlambert]

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

I'm impressed they got it out without removing the engine... 

 

I'm sure there's a joke there about what happens when your mechanic is also a gynaecologist! 

 

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

it may have made a break for daylight all by itself.......it happens 

About 20 years ago I had a friend who owned a Mini that was originally a 1000 (or something like that) but with a Metro 1275 engine installed.  The combination of his press-on driving style and the suspect provenance of the engine saw connecting rods emerge, somewhat battered, into the daylight.  The amazing thing is that not only did he replace the engine once but he blew up the second engine in the same way and the third engine was probably en-route to the same fate when he sold the car a few months later.  Some people never learn.

[MrWolf]

I still have memories of the amount of swearing involved when changing the clutch on the 1976 Mini I once owned. The clutch itself was easy, getting the mounting refitted was not fun at all. It was everything that a Mini shouldn't be, but in reality often was. A wonderful colour called Antique Gold, actually a sort of muddy olive green. Nasty brown vynil interior, no carpets, just a lot of brazed in patches, fibreglass and black hammerite. The engine was in great shape, but only an 850. Naturally, both doors were of the lift up and throw shut variety. The bonnet refused to shut first time and the grille was loose, with the end trims missing. The grille was only held by two screws, because the spire nuts in the front panel were long gone. I remember finding two inches of water inside the car once and had to deal with it by drilling a hole in the floor pan. All the drain holes being welded over.

Any attempt to drive it more than about twenty miles gave me back ache and crippling cramp in my lower right leg. The procedure for exiting the car after a long drive was to fall out. Using the door for support may have resulted in the A pillar giving way.

 

Having recalled all of that glowing nostalgia, I think that I will stick with my motorcycles and occasionally borrowing Miss Riding Hood's Triumph Herald. 

[boxbrownie]

52 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

 

 

I had a Mini where the previous owner had put a new clutch in it. Problem was that he omitted the lock washer that kept the clutch and flywheel assembly attached to the crankshaft. There was an enormous bang as I reversed it out of the garage, the bell housing was in several pieces and the back of the engine was sitting on the ground.

Still got my Churchill “special tool” socket for the Mini flywheel, last year (during a lifted lockdown) my Son visited and I told him to take whatever tools he liked out of the shed, as tbh I ain’t gonna be crawling inside and under cars anymore, so he did a good job of turning the tools inside out which during he found the socket, it’s a big socket and in black iron, he asked what on Earth it was for when I told him he was amazed I remembered even the tool number printed on it............those were the days......good old BL Special Tuning

Edited February 6, 2021 by boxbrownie

[boxbrownie]

2 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I still have memories of the amount of swearing involved when changing the clutch on the 1976 Mini I once owned. The clutch itself was easy, getting the mounting refitted was not fun at all.

The trick was to always buy a new LH engine mount when doing a clutch change, the old mountings were proper rubber back then and after a few years any oil or oily mist made them swell so much that realigning the mount was a nightmare, even then it wasn’t that easy......but just a few bu99ers rather than a series of f***s 

[MrWolf]

3 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

The trick was to always buy a new LH engine mount when doing a clutch change, the old mountings were proper rubber back then and after a few years any oil or oily mist made them swell so much that realigning the mount was a nightmare, even then it wasn’t that easy......but just a few bu99ers rather than a series of f***s 

 

I seem to remember thinking that fingers like ET fitted with four knuckles instead of three would be handy....

I did learn to tighten a big Jubilee clip around Rotoflex couplings fitted to Triumphs and Hillmans fortunately, after nearly getting in a bind with a 1300 FWD.

[boxbrownie]

20 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

I seem to remember thinking that fingers like ET fitted with four knuckles instead of three would be handy....

I did learn to tighten a big Jubilee clip around Rotoflex couplings fitted to Triumphs and Hillmans fortunately, after nearly getting in a bind with a 1300 FWD.

For Mini engine bays British Leland did a set of special tuning “fingers like feeler gauges”........rotoflex were bloomin’ awful, made the Elans feel like being powered by a kangaroo after a couple of years, easily replaced by HS UJs thankfully.

[MrWolf]

I much prefer the Hardy Spicer's fitted to the Herald, rather than the Rotoflex couplings on the later GT6 rear axle, though the altered camber on the latter was better.

I suspect that the reason for the grille being loose on the majority of Minis was the fact that removing the grille was the only way for a sane person to adjust the points. 

The preceding A30 was awkward enough to get at the distributor, but at least you could see to line up the timing marks, undo one bolt and pull the dizzy for a proper sorting out on the bench. As the A30 distributor wasn't a specially designed rain collector, the points stayed in good shape, so you rarely looked at them.

Come to think of it, I quite fancy another Austin "Flying Teapot". 

[boxbrownie]

Mini dizzy..............Mum always wondered where her other Marigold glove went......

[Rugd1022]

For all the enthusiasm and love I've had for Minis since I was little more than a toddler, I don't miss having to replace water pumps, bypass hoses, starters motors and scooping out jugs full of water at regular intervals. I've been lucky enough to have a hand in sprucing up / helping out with some particularly nice ones though - a mate had a very early 1275GT on a H plate which had been passed down to him through his family, it was purple with orange decals, wore a set of JA Pearce mag alloys, a colour matched full length Webasto roof, a wooden Rokee dash and Restall seats in the front, unfortunately he let a mate of his have a go in it and it was promptly written off when he ran out of talent and smacked it into the side of a bridge parapet. My poor mate was almost in tears. Another mate's cousin had a factory black Mk3 Cooper S with similar period goodies, suitably adorned with tinted glass all round and a burr walnut and leather W&P Margrave dash which he'd liberated from a genuine '71 W&P Clubman he came across in the local scrappie.

 

I was down in my garage the other day pootling about, and looking over my Mk2 S with fresh eyes I'm still tempted to go the whole hog and add a vinyl roof at some point. Oh, the horror I here you cry, but I like 'em!!

[big jim]

I had 2 classic minis, both in about 1993, one was a V reg (GED707V) 1000 in beige which ended up with a 1340 bored out MG Metro turbo engine in and painted BRG, the 2nd was a fully deseamed 1275GT clubman in a copper colour, I’ve got no pics of either cars but of the 2 I still wish I had the GT! 
 

of course I’m now on BMW mini No3 

[MrWolf]

Never a good idea to let your mate have a go. It generally ends up proving that your mate was telling porkies when he said he had passed his test. Another mate's Mini, a beige 1969 basic job, got driven straight on at a T junction. The drystone wall opposite took off the gearbox and most of the surrounding tin. I was impressed that the engine still ran, with zero oil pressure.

I remember Restall seats for a much more down to earth products, namely the seats in all those Bedford CA vans with names like Workobus, Utilabus, Utilabrake etc. They were made out of a kind of Rexine / Vynil that bore no relation to anything else bar possibly Mercedes MB-Tec which was obviously designed to survive the apocalypse.

[Rugd1022]

Nostalgia alert  - these are all from 1971....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These adverts are fifty years old and earlier this morning I dropped a birthday card through my youngest sister's letterbox, she was born fifty years ago today (I can vividly recall being woken up by my Dad to see her in her cot as she was born at home)..... where the hell did all that time go....?!!!

 

 

[boxbrownie]

My first Mini was a 1965 850 bought with twin strombergs already fitted and rust installed everywhere.......this was back in 1971 (cars never lasted much more than a year from new before the tin worm started appearing back then, what a difference nowadays) it was soon fitted with a Fibresports Super front which was a sort of streamlined replacement front end, I then painted it in gold flake metallic but....it was early days so what did I do, sprayed the car panel by panel with gloss clear top coat and threw handfuls of the metal flake onto the wet paint.....don’t laugh but the finish was like gold sand paper, the local cops all knew it was me coming, which was handy as I worked on the local paper at the time 

 

I then met a local chap who was a kart racer (a national champion in fact) and he wanted to get into tin top so we bought a Riley Elf stripped every panel off and replaced each one with sheet alloy pop riveted on, fitted the ubiquitous rear beam axle and Longman 1293 inclined valve split Weber super sprint engine.......went quite fast, even back then......but being a Riley Elf it had the extra rear boot and everyone thought we were daft with the extra weight but we weren’t that daft as when we installed the rear beam axle and alloy panels we mounted the axle an inch (just over actually) further back and it just didn’t get noticed by anyone, not even the old fart screw at silverstone who once told us we couldn’t race because the car looked “bloody awful” as we hadn’t yet painted it, that extra inch or so made an amazing difference to the handling and it went round corners unlike any other Mini super saloon at the time, we raced that for a few years until the Gomshall Mini appeared on the scene with a space frame chassis, fibreglass body and 1300 BDA engine.....! Not in the spirit really but it wiped the board.....oh well we then went Formula Ford for a bit, but the best bit was I took the Longman unit out and fitted in the Mk2 Cooper S I had at a the time (I did have to change the cam from super sprint to sprint though as the SS wouldn’t tick over under 1500 rpm.....not good at the lights, every thought you were going to race them ....I had to change the split Weber’s for a single 45 DCOE which used to backlight the speedo cluster each time we had a bit of spit back  great fun!

 

Sold that after a while to someone who wanted the engine, and I bought a Mk3 Cooper S (road going) from a friend who raced and he had already had it “looked at” by his engine builder so that was fun.....until a drunken farmer decided to modify the rear end with his Triumph 2000 one Sunday.......then we had a 1275GT which was a much under rated car I thought.

 

Now I just go out to the car and drive it........what happened? 

[boxbrownie]

33 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

Nostalgia alert  - these are all from 1971....

 

 

 

 

These adverts are fifty years old and earlier this morning I dropped a birthday card through my youngest sister's letterbox, she was born fifty years ago today (I can vividly recall being woken up by my Dad to see her in her cot as she was born at home)..... where the hell did all that time go....?!!!

 

 

Blimey....Club Chronosport.....I bought a watch from them for a few quid, it was a chrono (of course) but really was a bit of crap.

 

edit : and no....I didn’t buy the jacket 

Edited February 7, 2021 by boxbrownie

[Rugd1022]

Good posts David, enjoyed reading those!

 

Something a little more sedate this time....

 

[Bulleidboy100]

As you were talking "minis" -

I did post this sometime ago - but this is my Mini Clubman Estate leaving home (1st September 2018) after twenty nine years sitting in my garage - 

 

I bought a new Ford Escort Mexico in 1973  - it cost me £1171 - those were the days.

 

IMG_0245 (1) by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

 

The same car on the front of November 2019 Mini Magazine - no longer owned  by me. 

 

IMG_0861 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

Edited February 7, 2021 by Bulleidboy100