Mini Ecoboost Project

A "shocking" development! Only took 7 months to get them.....I have a feeling MiniTec "forgot" to order them......I left the springs off for now so I could measure suspension travel and get a final length for my axles. I'll ship those off with the measurements in a few days if it ever warms up. Currently -2 in KC, headed for a high of maybe 10, but it's supposed to get into the twenties and maybe even the thirties by the end of the week.





These QA1 shocks look to be a well made bit of kit, with adjustments both for compression and rebound.

I've been re-watching early episodes of Project Binky to get some ideas on brackets and bracing the shell.

 

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.

 

Whew! 5* out there today.....no shop work till it warms up a bit, supposed to hit 40 on Sunday, then back into the freezer with temps in the single digits.

Canada - shut the damn door!

 

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......

 

Next I'll cut out the seat bottom, then the companion bins, then the floor....that should get me close to being able to do a trial fit.

I did go ahead and cut out the backrest tonight, but given our weather pretty much all next week I think that's as far as I'll get for now.

 

It took just over two weeks, but MiniTec say they got my axles today

They say they can turn them around to me in a week......we'll see. I hope they return them via FedEx or UPS tho, cause I'm reading that the post office has close to a million undelivered packages, some from before Xmas!

 

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!

 

500 teamsters on strike in Iowa.....these guys drive the mail semi trucks you see out on the highway.....sounds like stuff is really going to stack up now!

I have no issues with either my Fed Ex, UPS or even DHL drivers.

 

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.

 

I managed to get the rest of the sheet metal cut out today, although I see I still have to do some clean up and trimming, but I decided to do a trial fit of the frame first.

It didn't go.

So next I'm going to try something different......but first I'm going to try and get ahold of Mini Tec and see how they do it.

My next attempt will be to go in thru the door cause it simply won't go from the back, unless they have some secret way of doing it that I haven't figured out yet! I'm not keen on that cause it means removing the bracing on one door and the cross brace......I got it almost all the way up, but the forward lip of the frame is supposed to go over the top of the floor, and that wasn't happening.

Here's a pic of the pile of metal I've taken out so far.....

 

all that's left is the rust!

Having a difficult time getting the rear sub into place......there are no instructions of course, except that the floor needs to be cut 27" back from the crossmember - which it is. Other than that they just gave me access to a bunch of pictures of the cars they did in their shop, which I've followed carefully. Still won't fit......scratching my head for a bit now....

 

Ok, so it's in the hole!!!



I did have to carve those rear brackets out of the way, then it went in easily and everything lines up as it should. I still have to do some small trimming here and there and clean up all the sharp edges.

Next I'll start thinking about where to start the rust repairs, I'm thinking the best place would be the rear passenger side where so much metal is missing.....

Looking at the rear panel, I bought an entire new rear panel but the only place its really bad is on the bottom edge, so taking a page out of Dan's playbook maybe I'll just replace that lower couple of inches. Of course the boot floor and lower valance also go together at the same place, and I have new pieces to go there as well. I'm thinking maybe weld those two together and put them in place, then replace that lower edge. Dunno, I'll need to think about it for a bit. There's nothing there below that edge, it all rusted away.....

 

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.

 

So, big day today.....I bolted the suspension back in and fitted the rear shocks and wheels.

The suspension was a bitch kitty as it's held by heim joins that are fairly buried under the lip of the subframe, and of course they ride on shoulder bolts. That's not so bad but there are also a couple of spacer washers, and fitting the shoulder thru the bracket, thru the washer and into the joint, thru the other washer then thru the bracket - and get a nut and washer on the threads was......well, difficult and awkward.





After I managed to get the left one done I realized that If I swung the arms all the way down I had enough access that I could at least see what I was trying to do. So it's all bolted up and I took a few pics to see how the wheels would look in the openings. They're nicely centered, but it's going to sit pretty low it looks like. One pic at mid range of the suspension travel and one at full extension.





It was exciting to see it looking more like a car again!

I have some new inner wheel wells coming next week, but I may need to modify them to give more room for the tire to move up.

 

My inner wheel wells are supposed to be here tomorrow, but we had a blizzard blow thru so it won't surprise me if they're a day late - still, DHL has been pretty good about hitting their delivery dates or even being a day early. We didn't get a lot of snow, only about 2 inches, but with the cold wind it feels more like ice than snow. Lots of downed power lines, big tree branches etc. We lost power briefly several times during the night, and this morning the wind is still blowing hard.

It's interesting that we must have had enough warm days that all the concrete has not frozen over, in fact most of it is clear of ice or snow, all of that seems to be in the yards. I was concerned that the combination of ice and strong winds would down a lot more trees, and while there are some large branches down, it's not too bad.....not like storms we've had before where it sounded like shotguns going off as the trees broke.

So, back to the car......I've decided to work from the back to the front in replacing metal.....to that end I think I've figured out what to do on the wheel openings - it will require a lot of fabrication but should give me the look I'm after. Once I've got those in, I can build all the rest of the metal to them, including the rear support brackets for the subframe. According to MiniTec you're supposed to use where the original subframe bolted on at the back, but I could not get this thing to fit if those were in place, and since they were rusted down to nothing and had no strength I knew I'd be cutting them off anyway. So, I'll need to build those, but before I can I'll need to build all the sheet metal to attach them to, as there's nothing but air back there now!



I'll have to build those brackets so they can be bolted on, to let me be able to get the subframe in and out. As it sits now it goes right in with no hassle. I plan to cut the wheel openings up to within about 1/2" of the holes that the sport pak arches attach to, that should give me enough clearance for the tires. Once those are in place I can start building back all the missing sheet metal. If you look at the last pic, there's no Q panel, sill or anything attaching the inner wheel well to the rest of the car, I'll have to build all of that......there's a lot of rust right where the inner wheel well welds to the q panel, so I'll remove that in the process and I'm hopeful that I'll find good metal to weld to.