Mini Innocenti 1300 Export

Got the hose made this morning at the local hydraulics shop.....it's a little clunky on the block end but it fits and it will allow me to run in the engine on the stand and even in the car till I get the oil cooler hoses sorted. The hoses from Spares are SS braided with nice 90* ends on them and only about $50 the pair plus shipping, but this one hose from them would have been $75 plus shipping by itself! I paid $37 for the one they made me.....for that matter I can buy the fittings really cheap from Spares and have the local hydraulic shop make them up for me.

Now once I sort out a few more details it's ready to run!

I don't know if I can make it considering just how much I have left to do, but the local All British show is Labor Day weekend...….

 

I test fit the new header pipes to make sure everything would clear the shifter, and it looks great. So I took them out, cleaned them thoroughly with both solvent and lacquer thinner and sprayed a coat of silver high temp on them, then hung them in the sun to dry and cure out - it's hot out today so they should cure nicely.





Lastly - don't cha love it when they send you squared off pipes? These are the tail pipe/resonator and the inlet to the main muffler. I may have a pipe expander I can use to round them out again, if I don't a big socket and a 3 pounder will do the trick.

PITA!

 

I don't think it was the shop that sold them that is the problem, I think it was DHL that did it.....when the little guy was carrying the (admittedly heavy) box up the drive he dropped one end and some parts came out thru a large taped up hole. He said he couldn't wait for me to inventory the parts and just to file a claim if anything was missing.

 

IT's......A...….. LIVE!

1st start of the Innocenti engine, fired up and idles without the choke as it's pretty hot in the shop since I had to leave the door open to vent the exhaust. Also the fan is blowing (on me) so there's a lot of background noise, and I chose to put the muffler on it. The squeal is the alternator, it doesn't line up well so the belt is noisy, it got better as it ran.

Engine took a bit to crank up oil pressure - I had to pull the line to the oil filter and put some oil down the hole, then it cranked up quickly and held about 70psi on the starter motor. When it started it ran at 70, then faded to 65 as the oil warmed up - which is fine. Idles at 50 psi hot, just as it should.

Once it was warmed up I blipped the throttle a few times and it sounds really strong! Can't wait to get it in the car and put some miles on it so we can get it on the dyno too. Mediocre video taken with my 25 year old Canon Powershot.

I ran it for the recommended 20 min at 2K RPM, it only got up to about 185* by the end of the run, it mostly ran at 180* which is the thermostat I have in it. After I shut it off, I stuck it in 4th gear and started it again just to see the axles turn!

 

I built the test stand about 3 years ago for the express purpose of running in the engines I build....it's just made out of scrap I found, but I did put in a full compliment of new gauges. It has tach, oil pressure, water temp, and volt meter. The volt meter is kinda overkill, but it lets me know that the alternator is working properly before I drop the engine into a car or send it home with its owner. So far it's been really handy - I've restarted some engines that sat for many years, determining that they were OK to use and of course I run in new engines, so I can make sure they don't have any oil or water leaks and set the timing and initial mixture on the carb.

I think I did a thread on the build, lemme check.....yep, here it is....

https://www.motoringalliance.com/threads/mini-engine-test-stand.30479/

Here's a better, more complete thread on Restoration Mini

http://restorationmini.com/forum/index.php?topic=994.0

 

Today's project - wiring harness. The last 6-8" of the rear harness that were in the engine compartment were in bad shape, with cracked insulation and bare wires everywhere, so rather than pull the entire rear harness out I decided to just cut off the last 12 -18" of the rear harness and splice in the same amount from the new rear harness.

While planning this out (I don't want to cut anything till I'm dead sure of what I'm doing) and studying on where the wires all go and what does what - I wondered why those wires go out to the engine compartment in the first place? Is it just accessibility of the connections? What I think I'm going to do is simply run them along the inside of the bulkhead, that should tidy up the engine compartment side of things nicely. The only wires that have to run out there are the ones for the wiper motor and the wires I'll have to make up for the reverse lights switch on the engine. For some reason they seem to think here's a switch on the linkage, but I can't find evidence of one in any parts books, and I don't see any place to mount one on the remote housing of the shift linkage, so since I have a switch on the trans that does work, I'll simply extend the wires to the switch.

I did have to remove the dash in order to hook everything up, it just wasn't possible to get my hand in behind the dash with it in place, nor to be able to see anything to know what I was doing. I didn't want to pull it for fear of breaking it but it came out OK and this will give me a chance to clean up both the dash and the parcel tray under it.....as well as repair and route the wiring.

 

The only hard part about removing the dash is that you have to remove the eye ball vent assemblies before you can get the dash out, the hard part of that is getting your hand in to turn them, the hard part of that is getting them to turn at all!

I had hoped to take the dash vents apart so I could repair the silver part of the eyeballs, it's chrome on plastic and it's pitted something awful, and flaking off - but I think the two halves that have to come apart are actually glued together and I don't want to break 40 year old unreplaceable plastic bits.

Dan says they give the car character, but I think they just look bad amongst all the other "new" inside the car...…..we'll see. I messaged the guy in Croatia to see if he had a pair he could sell but no response so far. Actually, on looking at them I only need one, the other is OK.




I also had to find some defrost hose as one side just fell apart in my hands when I removed the heater box. They do have it at MiniSpares (from time to time - the last two times I ordered parts they were out of stock) for like $20 a stick, and it's only 22" long where they claim I need 27", so I went online and found old VW's use the same size stuff in the right size and length and of course there are multiple places to get parts for old VW, only it seems they're all in California! No matter, I bought one there for $20 shipped.

I've laid the harness into the car - no small feat itself - and now I'm sorting out what goes where, and why. (to quote Gene Wilder in Silver Streak! )

I also found and modified the bulkhead insulation I bought a while ago, it has to go on before the harness does.

 

When I took the gauges out to clean them and the dash around the instruments those little o-rings that insulate them from the dash just fell apart into bits, so I'll be calling Nisonger in the AM for some new ones. I don't think they're expensive but the time to replace them is now......they keep the instruments from rattling too.



I also got all the remaining glue off the speedo from the red tape that was on there.....



This is how they looked before....they were grey instead of chrome - I thought they wouldn't clean up but some chrome polish and elbow grease did the trick!

 

I called Nisonger for the o-rings this AM, (they don't list a price for these online so you have to call) and they sell them for $2 each BUT, they have a $15 minimum order, so I told the guy send me 8 of them! He said he'll get them out "in the next few days"

I guess when you're the only game in town you don't have to be like Amazon.

Since they're coming from New York, I'll expect them sometime next week, so that part of the project is now stalled, but I can go ahead with a lot of other stuff.

I also reached the guy in Croatia with the Inno parts hoard, he said he'd nose around and see if he has the dash vents.

 

Thanks! It's been a slog but things are coming along now - slowly!
The Germans do love their tank engines - Russians do too - you can find a lot of these "lets see if we can get it started" diesel engine videos on YouTube!

I love that - "Aussie" accents!

As for my Inno motor, they're supposed to be that way - at least I think they are. I have my test stand setup all pretty well dialed in so there's no issues with carbs or ignition. So if you build it correctly they should start and idle just fine.....but I'm always pleased and maybe just a little bit surprised when they do!

 

More small bits of progress, the defrost vent tubing came in, the o-rings from Nisonger are finally on their way - he wrote my CC number down wrong, good thing he had my phone number. No joy on the eyeball vents. And more bad news, while wiring up one of the brand new glass turn signals, I dropped the lens which promptly broke.....it was hard finding a set of these in any condition, let alone brand new. Dan thinks he found a set of lenses, but they're a different brand, still Italian and it looks like they will replace these - won't know for sure till they get here....fingers crossed. Got most of the under dash and engine compartment wiring done, next up while waiting for the O-rings for the instruments so I can put the dash in and wire it up, I'll install the brake and clutch master cylinders and see about making up the new pipes.

More as it happens......

Oh and I hatched an idea for the speedo, because it's in Kilometers and I've changed the final drive, it will be wildly off. To see just how much, I installed the speedo cable and connected it to the gauge - since it's out anyway. So I'll run the engine in 4th gear and at various RPMs I'll get a reading from the speedo. Once I have it in the car I can use the Garmin to see what number equals what. I may wind up putting a taped on tick at the 50, 60 and 70 mph positions, just as a reminder. OTOH, I can just use the Garmin I guess......

 

Yep, that's a really nice MkII Innocenti - it's NOT a Morris as the title says......

Edit: I see BaT changed the title of the auction to reflect what the car really is. Good for them......

 

Today I got the wiper motor installed and wired up, and now I'm working on the master cylinders and pipes. I bought a tool a short while ago to help put the clevis pins in and boy howdy does it work slick! I'm pretty sure that as long as the clevis isn't rusted in it will work just as well at getting them back out again too and not losing them inside the bulkhead tube.

You can see the pin installed in the second pic ( a little red smear of grease dripping off that I already wiped up) it doesn't help with the cotter pins, but then I don't use those, rather I use "hairpins", after all, all we're trying to do is keep the clevis pin from walking out - there's really no stress on the hairpin to hold the clevis in. I'm just about done with the engine compartment and ready to put the motor back in, I have a few details to sort out but it won't be long now.



Master cylinders all in, working out where to run the pipes to make sure they miss the carbs, air cleaners and what have you. It would be easier to wait till I have the engine in and carbs on so I may wait on the pipes....



I did find a home for the washer bottle and pump that I think will work and look correct. Still have to make sure it doesn't interfere with the booster cylinder or its mount.



Ran my speed test this afternoon, but as I was working by myself the results were inconclusive - It was hard for me to work the throttle, watch the tach and get the reading off the speedo....so it will wait till I have it in the car and can compare it to the Garmin.

I did get the timing set so the engine is ready to go. I have two small oil leaks that may set me back a few days tho while I sort them out.

I think my bulkhead insulation turned out nice tho…..

Last thing I did was find the brake booster servo and mount it up to help see where the brake lines will go - and in doing so I realized it's been leaking fluid internally. After doing quite a bit of sleuthing, I found out it's the same as used on the Alfa 105 cars (GTV etc) and there were rebuild kits available - two kits that added up to $200. Or.................I could buy a rebuilt servo for $242, but there was a $50 core charge, and I wasn't planning to ship it back as it might cost $50 to do that. Then I found you could get a brand new servo for $255, plus shipping! Done deal. $286 to my door and now the brakes will work correctly.

 

I pulled the brake booster servo off the shelf to clean it up and get it ready to install in the engine compartment. I noticed some weird white powdery sort of stuff on the vacuum pipe fitting, when I removed that fitting it was packed solid with this stuff, as was the port into the servo - it was soaked with brake fluid too - RuhRoh...

So I started digging around to see what I could learn. I found that it was an Italian made version of the Lockheed servo used on the MkI Cooper S, however - it was just that much different that the seal kits for the Lockheed wouldn't work.....but now at least I had a brand name..."Benditalia"

I could use the Lockheed style servo that MiniSpares sells for about $325, but shipped that would run close to $400, and we've spent a lot of money on this car trying to keep it original, so I decided to look further.

I put "Benditalia servo" into Google and low and behold it's the same servo used on the Alfa 105 series cars (like a GTV) and further sleuthing revealed that I could buy a seal kit from an Alfa supplier in the UK for only about $100. However that only covered part of the servo, the other part was another $100 - so $200 worth of seals and I can rebuild it myself.

OR

for $242 I could buy one from them already rebuilt, but there's a £50 core charge, and sending it back would cost almost that much.

OR

I could buy a brand new one for $255 outright plus shipping!

Guess which option I took? $286 to my door.

it should be here by Thursday afternoon, with any luck I'll already have the motor in by then too (the motor has to go in before the servo bolts onto the inner fender) and I can install it, then I can start making up the new brake lines.

I also got the little O-rings from Nisonger, so now I can install the gauges back into the dash then put the dash back in and wire it up.

Things are moving along...….