Most liked posts in thread: MINI Max has a new little brother, Buzz

Hopefully, anyway. I have an event in Milwaukee this 4th of July, and I'm trying to see if I can make the event at Mid O the weekend before so I need to crack on so I can not only finish the job but get some miles on it too before setting off cross country again.

Today's setback - I can't find rings to fit these pistons. You wouldn't think these would be a completely odd size, but apparently they are. It's no problem to buy new piston sets with rings in the right size of course - it's just mo money, mo money, mo money.....instead of a $50 set of rings, it's a $300 set of pistons.... :crazy:

 

I've sent an inquiry out to a supplier in the UK to see if there's anything that will work economically, otherwise I'm just going to bite the bullet and order the pistons.

 

Paint is turning into a real challenge too.....there is no paint code stamped on the vin tag and I can't find anything on the interwebz that tells me what the hell this color is called.

The paint guy says he can scan it, but then he has to make a quart ($40), and then put that into the spray cans ($10ea x 2) so $60 for 2 cans of spray paint that still might not even be close to matching!

If I could find the correct name of the paint, then I could find a code, then all he'd have to do is make up the cans.

It's always sumthin.....:crazy:

 

Ha! that's a friend of mine, but no we took the seat bracket out on the other side and laid a thick towel over the edge...

 

Well, DryMartini.....this is a 1980 Mini made by British Leyland I'm working on, those are for cars made under BMW ownership......

LilPig, there are codes stamped on the vin plate under the hood, or IF I can figure out what the name of the color is then I can correlate it to the lists. My brother in England thinks it's Champagne, but I'd like to get confirmation from someone who has one with the paint code still stamped on the vin plate.

I do have a workaround for this issue, I'll tell you all what I did once it's complete.

 

Today I went down and picked up the block from the machinist, left my wallet considerably lighter! They did an excellent job and I'm confident in everything they did, the rest will be up to me. I got the whole shebang - line bore, cylinder bore and hone, new cam bearings, crank turned and micro polished, rods straightened and honed round on the big ends, and the whole mess balanced to within 1/10 of a gram.

For those who want to play along at home let's see if you can spot the differences between the Mini and the Sprite block - excluding the fact that one is shinier and has freeze plugs in it!

In all these pics the Sprite block is on the left - by the way, they have the same casting number , tho there are some machining differences. It's rainy today and I don't have any gaskets or bearings or other parts yet so I really can't do much with them, but I have lots of other projects still to do. Tomorrow it's supposed to be warm and dry, so I'll at least get a good coat of paint on it.

Top

Back

Front

Right side

Left side

Bottom

 

Today I took the block up to school to do a final bit of machine work, the oil pick up tube on the Sprite is threaded in and just goes down to the sump, where the Mini sump is the transmission, so it's just a port between the two. Also the Sprite port is 1/8" smaller than the Mini, so I decided to match it up. The engine machinist said it wouldn't matter but I figured the factory did it for a reason.....

Here you can see the difference in the port and also the difference in size of the bore......



and here's the hole in the Sprite block up close, you can see it's threaded and chamfered for a fitting



The oil pump fits in that round recess, and the suction port is the large opening in the left side of that recess...



First I used some metalized epoxy to fill in the threads and to neck the port down to the same size as the original, that way the hole I bore will be consistent all the way thru the block.



Then onto the BIG drill press, I had to drill twice, once from the sump and once from the oil pump.....





The resulting holes came out perfect

 

Still waiting for parts, it may be another week or so as it's a bank holiday on Monday in the UK, and they haven't shipped yet.

Till then I'm still cleaning, and painting, and cleaning, and painting.......well, you get the idea......


When I picked up the block the other day I didn't notice they forgot to put the cam bearings in, so another trip back to the machine shop I guess. I could do it if they just wanted to give me the bearings, but I figure by the time I drive all the way down there, and since I already paid them for them.....

 

Yeah, that's the old cam, I just installed the new cam bearings and I wanted to make sure it moved smoothly.

As expected DHL just gave me a robo call telling me they need a signature to leave my parts.....I hope they don't come tomorrow while I'm at school, but you know that's exactly what will happen!

 

Piston rings came in today from Jolly Olde, and I was home when they showed up! yay!

Notice anything interesting about the box they came in?



In some ways it makes sense tho as the pistons are TRW, another US company.....

 

Should be more parts coming in tomorrow and Monday. The rings look really old stock, they are not chrome plated, don't have any bevel cuts on either the inside or out....they look like something I would have installed in the 50's - or earlier. I sent an email to Hastings asking about them.

Working on cleanup today.......