Dead line day

Well yesterday was another really long one. Managed to install the second brake slave cylinder, thanks for sending me 2 cylinders the same handing and then telling me "you'll see when you fit them they are not handed" square peg round hole/locating roll pin and bleed nipple are opposite way round and diff sized holes on the back plate, so with no time to argue the point drilled another hole in back plate, have it! So all brakes are on  (big thanks to Newtown motors for sorting me out with 1 brake adjuster wedge, no idea if I ever had it or just lost it?) hubs with new longer studs fitted .... grr couldn't press out the wheel bearings, no time left so they have been refitted and will be back off later for that one as I have new ones.

Lets take a random pause to thank the morale boosting duo, oh yes, they have realy helped in those lonely "I just can't do this, its to hard" moments. Worked their magic and then I got back on with it, um super big thanks also goes to the wife for being soo understanding xx.

Rear sub frame fitted, fairly straight forward couple of hours of encouraging. 1 Radius arm fitted and then realised I had not removed the ball joint cup from the arm, brilliant, not taking it back off so will just have to deal with being bunched up under the car to get that little rugger out before the shocker can go in to hold the hi lo and doughnut in place. Stopped there when I realised the radius arm braket for the other side a friend had picked up for me at a auto jumble didn't have the hole for the radius arm spindle ! Thats its purpose, to hold the end of the arm to the car !!! but at 10.30pm the only person I know with a pillar drill, was in bed.

As I had been going back and forth getting new parts to fit on, if I had a spare hand I grabbed a wheel, so cracked on putting the wheels on the front, yep they are so coming back off later to change the front hubs from metro to mini. Passenger side went well, driver side ... oh lovely, brakes seized solid, funny that as I have no master cylinder so they have not been used or under pressure. Found a crow bar and put it through the studs then stood on it, wire brushed the disc, kept turning it more and eventually gave up and turned almost freely, so fitted the wheel. Then gave up at 1.20am

Today managed to haul my self down there for 8 and started to clear out the bits and bobs, whilst I waited for the phone call to use the pillar drill. Got the call and went round with my blank bracket and a broken bracket to use to reference up the hole. Oh yes, that would be a quick run to a shop to get a drill bit, then back home to get a vice and finally did the hole which ended up 0.2/0.3 mm off from datum bracket. Pleasently surprised with that, pic on the right is the revised bracket with borken bit.

After nearly crashing the car on the way back home and then pulling out in front of another car, got home to check with the wifes plans for a charity run I really wanted to go and support her ... and had a bit of a emotional melt down (yes the long hours have got me a little jaded/zombiefied). 2 cups of tea, a big hug and a sit down, feeling a bit more normall and just need some lunch before attacking the ball joint liner and fitting the other radius arm.
Will add a few pics later on today, and boy do those front wheels with no spacers look funny. Food time :)
With the revised bracket I managed to get the second radius arm on and started to fit the hi lo ... which unlike the passenger side did not just slide over the ball joint, so again with all contacts not being around with pillar drills and lathes sat down on the bench in the sun with rolled up sand paper till it did fit. So much for buying new so its easier to install.
I caved in and took off the passenger radius arm to get that bloody ball joint liner out and re fitted that. Then it was on with the 1" spacers and then the wheels. Oh dear going to need some really big wheels to fill those arches.

Got on and cleared the last of my stuff from the garage and then went to open the big door, sigh padlock was solid, soaked it and then went off to get some benches for the scouts.
Having given the still seized padlock and a good wack with a hammer, open sesame. Time to wheel it out and blast it with the air line, as the hoover decided to burn out!
Dispite the worries about the half unseized front wheel with all the family pitching in (chose the lieghtest one to steer) it pushed round to the front quite easily.

New covers on and garage swept out. Time for a well earned bath.

Ugg

Well ..um I've been busy ?!? Sorry, a little bit of fatigue and snow blind, managed to dip my paint brush in my cup of tea that was next to the paint today!
So, I think over the past few days I have filled more around the boot and roof, fine filling all around the car (but not sanded that) and I did paint under the boot.
Incase it wasn't obvious, the recent push was due, but more was intended to be on a more gentle approach. The neighbours asking for their garage back kicked in finding extra hours that would not have normally been used for car time. Then  proper late nights started when the moving out date was a bit earlier than I thought. Woops.
It has to be said, a quick spray round the window frames and passenger door/window openings has (last job of the day, 11.30, so it drys whilst I sleep) really brought it together. This has been done to try and keep any bare metal in a none rust state as it looks like its going on the drive ready or not. A shame as it could have been just another 2 weeks and the doors and bonnet would be ready which would have ended up being a free weekend so would have gone straight to my friends unit ready to spray. Still hoping it can happen that weekend but may end up pushed back due to finishing on the drive with not much light is probably going to be much slower.
So today my rear subframe is back home and all nice and strong again (big thanks to Malcolm) and even managed to get him to dig out a tap to run through the captive nuts, which I brought home and did the same on the car. Yep the mounting kit is out and ready to go down to the garage tomorrow, the radius arms are slowly going back together and the hubs have longer studs in now and will just have to do the bearings later due to needing wheels on it so it can move.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day with still a few bits to buy to pull this one off, so at best it will be a update like this in the early hours of the morning or it will be saturday when it has moved.
So I leave you with a slightly poor picture of the radius arms.

Long day

Yesterdays little up date is tagged on the end of the last post.
Before any body else stirred I was down the garage. With the only interuption today being a trip to Halfords to buy more filler and weld through primer we acheived a bit today, 11 + hours later this had been done.
More sanding on random bits around the car where I was using up left over mixed filler and hadn't got round to sanding it. Ground back all round the boot opening, welded a plate for the boot hinge (looks like the boot had been opened with out the strap attached, partly torn and very twisted with a bit of tin rot thrown in).  Also ground back the bottom vallence, treated and filled to blend in, well nearly done.

Ground the other half of the roof, I had already been nibbling at it around the edges when doing the pillars, so it was another day of looking like a smurf. My hands got it the wurst but my green overalls had a lovely blue tint and my face looked like I had been down a coal pit.

Just about to filler prime the roof so it can finish drying whilst I am at work. Not that much left that I can grind, yay.

Pictures

Well here are some pictures from the last post and up to today.
passenger wing (now one the final corse sand), Rear wing just started, then wow a bit more rust than first thought so ground the sh#t out of it. You can't really see but the roof has had a good grinding but the last picture shows how well the rust has crept under the paint.

Called it a early finish today (just gone 9pm) as I really can't take any more sanding and feeling like a stranger to the family, just doing my bloody head in.
Never seem to put enough filler on first round, so the second and third layers are a night mare as the panel ends up very wavy .... yep front wing and rear wing are at that stage, so very close but so very wavy. Which is hard not to put a accidental dent in what was a flat bit whilst taking out the bumps.
So ARRRRGGGGHHHHH I give up ...for today, left the garage and trod in a dog log !!!!!!! that cheered me up. Hope its not to long before the next up date, running low on mojo :(

16/04/2016 -
Well, dug down the back of the sofa and found some mojo, with some fluff. Front and rear wing just waiting for filler to dry around window edge and bonnet/wing edge.
Back window finally came out today, so ground around the window edge, treated and filled. Tiny bit of work done on the rear a pillars and filled.
Ground back half the roof ... and ended up looking like a smirf, so can't wait to do the other half tomorrow!

up date 3.2

Since the last post ... ? Umm, door and window openings (driver side) primed. Drivers wing/wheel arch sanded, then sanded, filled, sanded, filled ..... finished it today !
Stumbled accross a small problem during another moment of frustration with the arches, the leadeing edge from the wing had ripples. As much as this is the previous owners doing I should have really spotted it earlier. Then I re checked the other arches, Boll#cks, not to such a large amount but more than enough to really show after painting. So dug in and did a evening stint of hard sanding to get that one back on track. Worth it though as it did sort out sanding the ripples away on the outer edge of "that" front arch.

The real nice step forward this afternoon was plugging in my air line to a different neighbours garage to sand back the wing/bonnet rain channel. Result 40 min and done, well had to be really. Even though the sander is only rated at a small 6 CFM it worked that compressor bloody hard, to the point that I had a knock to say it had not stopped and was getting a bit too hot. So really big thank you to him, PS hope I havn't killed your compressor.
So with a bonkers amount of hours behind me sanding arches, the final stage of filling the passenger front arch is under way. Tonight I was able to grind back passenger front wing, parts of the engine cross member, front windscreen lip/roof edge/scuttle panel (not sure if thats the right name, panel with windy wipers through it). 
So with lots of sanding back to bare metal and a good coat of rust inhibitor (to give me a few days to cover it up propperly) should be on for a load more filling :)
With feeling the strain a bit at the mo (3 grr days on one arch and back to work next week) it has been decided to crack out the big guns to really make sure things keep moving forward. So an old mate has had the call to arms/arm up with sand paper. In fact so old, he may be suffering deja vu, he might have been doing exactly that on my last mini "mumble" years ago ! Thanks Jim. Although that means I have to be thinking about more than just the panel I'm working on, so we don't end up spooning whilest sanding! A close friend but not that close.
No pictures today, so they are going to jump forward a little bit next time.

2nd day in a row!

Day 2,
Today was a slow achy start, seemed to have spent a lot of time yesterday kneeling and squating. Well so my legs tell me today, feel the burn !
Having ground back the front wing last night and re fixing the wheel arch .... which worked a treat, it was straight on with a bit (loads) of filler. I just sucked it in and skimed the whole wing and re blended the wheel arch. Did manage to fill a few spots around the side window and door opening. But that was a bout it ... well you can't rush this, I suppose. Just about there with the wing and quite close with the arch.
Hoping to prime side window opening and door opening first thing tomorrow, start the day with a straight forward thing/feel good with quick progress.
Did realise today the tank on the compressor I have here is ... pants. I tried the belt air sander today which only needs 7 cmf but that seems to be still way more than the comp wants to cope with :( Now working out the easiest compressor to blag, I am so not hand sanding the bonnet rain channels. On the pluss side the extraction for the garage aka big fan on a stand blowing out of the side door, worked a treat and having the air line with a blower was nice to blow out the pits in the filler.

Picture time.
Before and after of the wing, also a bidrs eye view .... poop which shows I have a slight bow in the wing fold, nice more sanding.

Back to the grind stone

Yep, FINALLY back on with the project !! Had to take some time out to do the drive way (and the neighbours, as we worked together on them), then had our house roof changed and throw in another big catastrophe with the scout group I help with, top that off with a bit of life and ... well at least I have started again.
So I have a few days off just to do work on the mini. Today started off with fitting another strip light, and digging out the new sander with a load of other tools and stuff to try to speed things up a bit.
Then ... ha, yep had to sand some stuff back as the dreaded rust had creeped back through the un painted parts I hadn't finished the last time I was out there. So a little step backwards, but it was nice to spend the whole day working on it instead of the normal couple of hour stints.
So progress ? Yes, quite close to finishing rear drivers arch. Which may not have been as close to finished as I last thought. I carried on with the drivers side grinding back the rear window reveal and the door reveal/opening. More filling and rust inhibitor on any bare metal ready for a prime tomorrow.
Finished the day with grinding back the front wing and front pillar, then re fixing that dam front wheel arch. Which I had been proper putting off. Stainless screws, tiger grip, a lot of jiggling and test fitting then just went for it. So fingures crossed for the release of clamps/sticks tomorrow ...eeeek, got a feeling I will be doing that with my eyes closed!
Oh did I say ? I havn't been completely off the mini, we now have a 1275 police metro engine, seat belts, carpet, drivers seat and even some wheels. Yes really pushing the boat out.
Just ordered a load of bits, well boaring bits, nuts, bolts, springs, HI-LOWS :) subframe mounting kit in preperation for getting it to the paint shop... with out the use of 4 burly men and 2 pump trucks.

Picture time ...