Most liked posts in thread: Mini Ecoboost Project

A little pause in the action on the hot rod.....holidays, my granddaughter's wedding in Phoenix which I drove to and so on. I did get the parts I needed to fix my welder and now it works well again, so back to work. I also got pretty much all the extra metal I need to make supports, brackets and other bits.

Now if I can just get Mini Tec to answer the damn phone - I still need my rear coil overs, brake calipers and they owe me some axles.

I did finally get the Ford axles taken apart - I was trying to remove the outer CV's off the axle shafts and they would not budge. The funny thing is they moved on the splines OK, and there wasn't any rust or damaged splines on the ends of the axle shafts. The final answer was to cut the races with my angle grinder so I could get all the balls out, then once the only thing left was the inner race - I took that over to the 20 ton press - it didn't budge! So out came the death wheel again......I thought cutting a split in the inner race would release it.....nope! I wound up cutting 4 or 5 places on the race in two before that final bit popped off! What a pita!

Once I had the axles on the bench I found some interesting differences, so I'm going to re-measure for the lengths I need. My plan is to use the Ford Axles rather than start from scratch. But, if they decide that won't work then we'll get some Cromemoly bar stock and get to making them up - at least they'll have the Ford axles to use to model the inner ends off of....if I can't get a response from MiniTec I may take them out to the guy in Burlingame, tho he warned me that it would be a while before he could get to them.

These are quite a bit thicker than the Miata axles MiniTec uses so there should be plenty of meat to cut the new splines on the outer ends.....once I decide exactly how long to make them. It would help if I had my coil overs so I'd know exactly how much suspension travel I have to account for, but I think I can get close enough.

First pic shows the difference in the inner ends, second pic the size difference with a Miata axle (top)

 

Finally heard back from MiniTec this morning after leaving yet another message, they claim my coilovers will be here on Friday. I need those so I can see how much axle length I need to account for suspension travel. Once I have that I can send off my axles with the measurements and get them started on those.

It's been 1 1/2 months since I first contacted them about the shocks and axles, I must have sounded more pissed off in the last phone message I left yesterday!

While they're doing that I will get the hole cut in the back and start fitting up the subframe into the car.....that will be a big moment in this build!

 

Today the weather was pretty nice, next 10 days it's going to be winter full on again, with snow, really cold days and nights etc, so I got into the shop today to get some work done on the hot rod Mini.

Not looking for them and of course they show up! I spent several days looking for the tips for my welder and could not find them no matter how hard I looked, so I finally found some new ones in St. Louis and ordered plenty of them - they came in in time to do some welding on the Sprite racecar last weekend and today I'm getting ready to weld some braces up for the hot rod, and there they are......in plain sight.....in a drawer I looked in 10 times!

Anyway......today we got started on making a big hole in the back of the hot rod, Don drilled out some spot welds while I measured up some small plates to bolt onto the body, then weld some bars to ....they came out pretty good I think.









I'm not done tho, I need to build some more cross braces in the back of the car too.....

We also stripped the suspension and motor mounts off the subframe to make it lighter and easier to manhandle into the back of the Mini once we get the hole cut out. Still a LOT more to do......I'm really concerned about how rusty this shell is and whether cutting this big hole will cause it to shift around - so I'll be building a lot more bracing in. Of course, any time you add bracing like this you wind up making it that much harder to reach the next thing you need to cut ot weld! I have lots of new sheet metal to weld in but I think if I can get the subby bolted into place it may help to hold things still as I cut out and weld in new pieces.

 

Built some cross braces, but haven't welded them in yet. I built all the braces welded onto plates and bolted in place, so I don't have to cut them out then repair the cut areas later.

Once I have those welded in I'll drill a hole where they cross and put a bolt in to tie them together too. All the braces make getting to the areas I need to work in a lot more difficult, makes me wish I had a rotisserie so I could roll it upside down and work from the bottom - I did that with my Jag, it sure made welding in new panels a lot easier!



Then I'll start cutting metal out of the back, I'm a little concerned about how weak the structure is back there as it's SO rusted out, but we'll see. You can see an example in the lower left corner of the floor, there's a big hole there, but the rest of the floor isn't much better.....I think it's all being held together by the paint!

I have an interesting idea of something to do with the seatback panel, I'll see if it will pan out later.

I have replacement sheet metal for all the rusted out areas that will remain once I've cut out the big hole, and the subframe will bring a lot of rigidity back once it's bolted to good metal too.

 

Pulled all the braces out and finish welded them, then bolted everything back inside - and put a bolt between the two long cross braces. It's a small thing but it really stiffened them up.





Of course, it makes it way more difficult to get where I need to to cut out the back sheet metal....not sure how I'm going to work around that yet. Sure would be a lot easier if I had a rotisserie, then I could just work from the bottom.

After doing a tidy up in the shop and putting away a bunch of tools it will be time to start making a hole......gonna need to wait a couple of days tho, our temps have dropped into the single digits and will stay there for about 10 days. It costs a lot to heat my shop up and it's 38* in there right now.......I may have to wait a bit for mother nature to turn the thermostat up some....

I just noticed the top of the right side wheel arch is really rusted badly so I expect I'll be replacing that too.....something to add to my next Spares order.

 

I made a hole! Next I'll cut out the seat backrest, that should give me pretty good access to see what I need to cut next, and how to get to it. It pretty much filled the house with smoke smell, both from the metal and the undercoating I cut thru. This is going to be a pretty long and involved process. MiniTec sent me some pics of how much they cut out when they did this conversion on one of their cars, I think they went a bit further than necessary but considering they put a Honda V-6 in theirs that made about the same HP as what I'm doing maybe it doesn't matter?



We're headed for a spell of brutal cold, with lows down to -11* and highs around 5*, so I won't be doing anything in the shop till nature bumps the thermostat back up a bit in a week or so......

 

I've been studying my pics above, trying to plan out where/how to cut out the remaining metal so I can start to fit the subframe in. I found that it bolts on where the old subframe did, at the front, and one of those bolts broke off in the captive nut, so I may need to get out the acetylene torch to get that out. I did buy a set of the heel board repair panels just in case, but after looking at them I figured I could have easily made them myself, since instead of using captive nuts in a bracket they simply welded nuts to the back of the new panel - shoot - I could have done that!

The other interesting part is I only need the outermost portion of the heel board, right where those bolts are.....if mine is rusted badly (and it looks like it is) I may do something creative with the new panels to shore up the area a little more. I won't know till I get the rest of the sheet metal out.....

Once the subframe is fit into place and bolted down I can start to replace all the rust with new metal - there will be a LOT of that based on what I'm seeing. Looks like I also need to order a new inner fender/wheel well as the right side has some huge holes in it that I didn't see till I was reviewing the pics. Pic below is of the inner arch, looking up from below.



I'll also need to smooth out some of the sharp edges I left so I don't slice myself to ribbons!

Binky has nothing on this car when it comes to rusty bits!

 

I did a massive amount of cutting out sheet metal and rust today, still have quite a bit to go but my back called it quits. It was so nice today - mid 50's - warm enough to be able to open the back door and run a fan to suck the smoke and smells out so they don't go into the house.

First I cut out the seat bottom, I thought about trying to save it by drilling out the spot welds then I decided that was just a waste of time and used the saw and cut off wheels on it. I put a new blade in the air powered recip saw and what a huge difference that made - I guess I didn't realize just how dull the blade had gotten. I also found I had bought some small fine tooth blades that let me control the cut a little better, the new one of those went thru the sheet metal like butta!





I'm going to wind up replacing a large part of the floors as they've been bent up badly and have rust both on the edges and in various places along the center tunnel. Oh boy! s/

Next I went after the companion bins - again I thought to just drill out the spot welds and decided to just cut them out. I seriously doubt I'll be using any part of them unless it's to build some cubbies or covers somewhere.





Once those were out of the way I went ahead and trimmed up the floor, the only reason to do this at this point is to do a trial fit of the subframe......I'm almost there now. I still need to remove a few brackets and trim up some edges, then I'll see how it fits and what more needs to go.





My current plan is to fit the subby and use it to help locate the new panels and stiffen the shell as I cut metal out and replace it.

 

Today I needed to deal with some rust - almost every post from here on out can start with that sentence!

The new subframe bolts in one place right where the old one did, and the right side was rust held together with paint and seam sealer. So I built a new piece from scratch - I had to make sure it was in exactly the right place so the subframe would be square, I'm guessing that the original pieces were - at least it all measured out good.



So I built the new piece, welded it in, cleaned up all the brackets that didn't need to be there, took off all the pointy rusty bits that were catching my back every time I went in and out of the hole and by the end of the day I put the subby back in and it bolted right up nicely. That done I went ahead and drilled the holes for the rear support in the package tray and also the holes in the floor that the lip of the subby goes over.




There are several places in the back there that will need to be patched, then I can start replacing all the rot in the floors, door step and sills, that should stiffen things up nicely. The inner wheel arch on the right side is more hole than metal, and the left isn't much better. What I do to fix all this will partly be determined by whether I wind up using the big Fortech flares or go with Sportpaks.

But before I do even that I may go ahead and reinstall the rear suspension so I can see where the wheels are going to wind up, and how far out of the body they'll stick.

 

Today was copy Binky day!

I made a tool just like they used on Project Binky to bend up the lip under the arches, and it worked! I didn't do quite as good a job of cutting out the q-panel as they did, you learn as you go, right? The other side should go better.



So once the hole was cut, I used the tool to start bending the lip up, a little at a time, till I got it the full 90*. I had to do a little trimming of some other brackets and in fact I still need to ease one of them about another 1/4" but the inner wheel well fit and lined up nicely with the new lip. Once I'm happy with the fitment of everything I'll weld 'er in place.









Then I'll do the same to the other side and bolt the wheels back on and see how the clearance looks. It should be quite a bit better as I removed about 1 1/2" of metal. Once both sides are welded in place I think the next thing is to replace the rear panel.

With that in place the boot floor lip (only about 2" of that will go back in) and lower valance can go in. That should stiffen things up all across the rear of the car. Then I'll weld in all the filler panels and build the rear braces for the subframe.

From there I'll work forward.....on the door step, floors and sills.

With those done I'll see about bolting in the rest of the cage. Once it's all welded and solid I'll put the motor in and start looking at all the other "to-do's'"

 

I decided to replace the rear panel in it's entirety, based partly on a recommendation from Dan - who pretty much knows about these things! I had another way to go , and I had panels for either choice....

First choice was to simply cut off the bottom, rusty bits and replace them with a panel made for that repair, in hindsite it might have been easier than drilling out all the spot welds and cleaning up that mess, but like I said....I think replacing the whole panel will give a better final result. I hope so at least.



1st pic is of the three repair panels, next pic shows the whole a panel removed.....I need to clean up any left over seam sealer and I'll need to get the flap disc after the remaining bits so I have a smooth seam to weld to. I also need to clean the e-coat off the joining surfaces of the new panel, and spray a little weld tru primer, then I'll be ready to weld er up.



I left a little at the top on the c pillars, I'll clamp the panel up in place then slice that for a clean joint.

 

1st test fit of the new panel....still a little trimming and clean up to do before I drag out the welder. I had hoped to get it welded on today cause the weather's been perfect.....mid 70's and dry. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain!......I also need to make a thousand holes to plug weld thru!

 

So far yet to go!

I also made some short brackets to tie the inner wheel wells to a vertical brace to further strengthen the side of the car.....I'll have pics of those when I weld them all in.

I'm not completely happy with how the valance fits, I may have to do some mods to it. Since I cut out some of the wheel openings, the valance comes too far forward and intrudes in the wheel opening. I don't think it's enough to rub on a tire or anything, but it won't line up so I need to address that.

That's the one neat thing about doing all this in metal, if it doesn't fit, cut it out and weld it up again!

 

Thanks for all the encouragement!

I'll pick up the 67 S today and bring it home, then pull the motor, and get ready to haul it to Tulsa where the other car is.

Then the next step s to find the donor car, seems like wrecked 3 cyl Fiestas have dried up lately......

 

That's my assumption too, but if I don't get a reply to my email I will call them early next week.

 

Fed it some fuel and got it warmed up today.....