The final hurdel

 Only having late in the evenings for the mini I pushed on with the door cards, slow and steady saw me remove the old coverings, test fit the cards and then cover them. Ready for the install and handles fitted

It's time to report in. Marmite has gone off for mot..... out up a little fight mind.

With so much going on I finally got a chance to test drive it in the rear alley on Thursday Evening just before it got dark. All went well till a bit of speed was gained. At this point the steering went, well, lively. This did not fill me with confidence in driving it to the mot in the morning.

I rang the garage early and they helpfully suggested I tried the brake down cover for a tow there. So sadly it went on the back of a transporter again, hopefully the last time for a while at least.

It failed, but I knew it would on at least a couple of things which I had already asked the garage to do.  But it's common practice to still do the mot and see if anything else crops up. There was a couple of other things that came to light but apart from a worn steering rack component. Nothing major came up. But proved worth while putting it through a sturdy mot mams shake down, which is what I wanted having done so much on it. And a lot of it over months and some done very late at night.

So there we go, it is sitting there waiting for them to get round to sorting a few bits and bobs. A shame they are very busy, but it has been years getting to this point so a little longer isn't going to hurt.

The garage is looking very weird, has given me the chance to sweep up and then make a mess sorting the big doors. Which is good, but really strange the mini being away from home :)

On it, like a car bonnet

 Well almost, after fitting a new front door and fresh paint on the amended garage door I felt like I had a bit of time for the mini.

Bonnet time. I grab son 2 /assistant and set about bolting it on. A little bit fiddly. Checked alignment, oh look at those lovely huge gaps around the bonnet, yum. I fair bit of tweeking so the bonnet wouldn't rub at the back as it was closed. Found a happy medium for it and moved onto the stay. Quickly stopped playing with that due to there being no plate on the inner wing for the stay to be parked in when  the bonnet is up. Sigh, all I know is I didn't take it off. But also I didn't notice it was missing!

Well the next thing would be the catches. I felt a saga creeping in. Few, i wasn't disappointed! The main catch was fun to bolt on , then it was great to see it was sitting to the right and missing the slam panel catch. More adjustment and a quick change of washers to stop them just falling into the large holes of the bonnet. Close, back to adjusting the length of the bonnet catch ... which needed to be longer than it would extend to. A plan B was formed but would have to wait, so moved onto fitting the saftey catch. Wow what a tw@$, it really did fight it self. Everything was always out of alignment making fitting the pin just a little bit hard. With lots of twisting, a thin screwdriver as a guide, pushing sticks, an extra pair of hands/eyes, extra light and a sprinkling of patience the pin finally dropped in.

So close

 A few more jobs have been ticked off the list and some side tracking but towards the cause.

Completed today was  widening the garage door. Having just 2" either side of the car has been a bit of a pain when pushing it out for extra space to work on it.

With the mini doors on now I realised the battery could be left connected. I connected the battery when I was in the garage and quickly noticed that all was not quite right. The doors where closed but the interior light was on. It almost seemed fitting that the first electrical problem and could be the last. It turned out that the re wiring hadn't quite corrected everything, the feed to the extra under seat lights was earthing. 

I finally collected the clubman sticker for the center dial. With some delicate work the sticker was placed and the dial back together again. It was time to finally fit the dials. The bolts are quite tucked away, I was really glad I had held off fitting the bonnet. It would have been so much harder holding the dial in place through the drivers window whilst fitting the bolts. After quite some time it was all bolted up. A quick check .... when I out the hazards on all 3 dial back lights flashed with the hazards!! This was clearly not right, I had tested the dials and all electrics before mounting. It was time to unbolt the dials and check it out. It turned out to be a quick fix, the loom plug had worked loose. Fortunately it was much quicker re fitting the dials.

The door check straps was a nice quick install, although I am lacking split pins. But for now they will be fine. The plastic cover over the inside of the doors has also been done, I had picked up some I hadn't seen before. The whole sheet was sticky and window/lock holes pre cut which did make it quite straight forward.

Tonight I took the plunge and marked out to drill the fixing holes for the mirrors. Sadly one of the fixing plates to the door was simply rubbish. It wouldn't tighten to the door fully and it also mashed up when fitting the mirror, the second bracket in the kit worked better and will do for now. All be it at a different angle to the drivers one.

The last job of the day was to bolt on the steering wheel... at last. At work I have started making the new door cards so I can  re cover them. Not an critical thing, so for a change won't hold things up. We are all ready for the bonnet to be fitted, yep that means I can make the call, the call to book an mot, woop