Wound up taking off the big clamp, then pulling the axle out completely. Knocking the pot joint out of the transmission isn't too big a deal, I use a brass drift and a 3 lb hammer, they come out with just a couple of taps... Once out it wasn't too hard to get the old hard dried up seal out and the new one back in....I found a socket just the right size and put a long extension on it then had Rose bump it with the hammer while I held the socket and watched to make sure it went in square. The hardest part was getting the boot secured again, it wanted to pull off the top since the suspension was all the way down, so I got out the floor jack and raised it as close to level as I could, then it went into place. Just took a short run around a few blocks and pulled it back in the shop to see if anything is going to drip....if no puddles in the AM I'll consider it fixed - for now!
Went for a pretty long drive today including some highway speeds and then city, car runs really well although down on power from the old engine. It idles better and has much better oil pressure and starts easily - all things the old engine didn't. Also, no exhaust smell in the car and no oil drops when I stopped. Still puts out a pretty good oil smoke cloud when first started, but the guy following me said it doesn't smoke at all when driving, so I'm thinking some worn guides or stem seals. I have another head ready to go on it so I'll do that after the car show this weekend. I was going to go to Blackhawk farms with it the following weekend but it's going to be in the 90's, so I'll stay home in my air conditioned garage and work instead. Oh, the steering wobble seems much better now that I've done some miles in it - no idea why!
Glad it is working better for you. I'd guess valve seals or guides. Drive it for a while & enjoy its Mini-ness.
That's the plan.....we have a car show this weekend then after that I may pull the head. I'm thinking I could go ahead and have the head redone, new valves, hardened seats and so on, then when I rebuild the engine the head is already done. Or, I have another stock head I could just swap on to replace the smoky one.....it that turns out to be the issue. We'll see.
The last thing I'm going to fix on the Racing Green Mini is the cloud of blue smoke on start up. I'm confident the problem is just dried up rock hard stem seals as it only does it on cold starts and never when driving, on overrun or under hard load. To do that I pulled a head off the shelf - the idea being just to swap it out with the one on the engine. It's had a fresh valve job, new guides and I figured to just pop it on, but.....when I took a look at it I could see it did not have any valve stem seals on it. I got the head from Clancy in part payment for some work I did for him so it doesn't surprise me about the seals as you don't need those or hardened seats on a race engine. So I dug around in all my parts boxes and I came up with a grand total of 6 stem seals. I called Clancy and he had 2 leftovers so I'll get those on Sat. at the car show he's bringing the Moke to. I went ahead and pulled the springs off and installed the six I had, then I decided I should go ahead and clean it up and paint it to match the fresh paint I put on the engine in the car, so I cleaned it all up, taped it off and gave it a coat of etch, and a couple coats of RustyOleum sunrise red.....turned out pretty good I think. After the car show I'll swap it out and send the one on the car now down to the cylinder head shop for new guides and hardened seats and a good three angle valve job. From there I'm just going to drive it, even tho both 2nd and 3rd are pretty grunchy, if I'm careful I can drive around the problem and it drives pretty nice these days, so I want to put some miles on it. Loyal readers will remember that when I had this engine in the engine stand for the first start I was pretty concerned because it had little to no compression on two cylinders and poor compression on the other two. Dan said put some Marvel Mystery down the plug holes, let it sit a few days and see if it comes up, and sure enough it did - on three cylinders, #2 was still quite a bit lower than the other three but we decided to just drive it and see if it improved. I ran a compression test today and I'm happy to report it did just that! All 4 are now exactly the same. The plugs don't have a lot of miles on them but they're running pretty clean with good color..... It's probably good that I won't get to it till next week so the paint can harden off too
Took my Mini to a Brit car show yesterday, along with a few friends... I just realized......over the years I've worked on every one of these Minis
The engine I've been building in my engine rebuild videos is for this car, I got a good start on getting old smoky out of the car. All I have left at this point is the left axle and motor mount, then it's ready to come out. If I don't drop the subframe and take it out the bottom to get it out of the engine compartment I have to tip the water pump end way up so the other end will clear the brake booster. To that end I bought an engine leveler from HF - it should make it a lot easier to get it back in too as I have to level it out as it goes under the booster. More as it happens.
And.......................she's out! The leveler def made the job easier for a one man band to get it out - no cussing, smashed fingers or dented/scratched panels! I learned something from this effort too, about where and how to attach the chains. Now I need remove the water pump, fuel pump and flywheel/clutch assembly as these were all new parts when I put old smoky in the car. I'll transfer them over to the white engine and it will be ready to install in the RG. I still need to rebuild the front "breaks" as even tho I put in new pads and rotors a few years ago, I didn't rebuild the calipers and I think one has been dragging causing issues with the rotors. I have another new pair of rotors to go on once the calipers are fixed. More as it happens.
Just about ready to drop the vanilla ice cream engine in the green Mini, got it all stripped down so I could put it in from the top when I found this...... This is right where the bulkhead meets the floor and the subframe attaches. This is what it looks like from inside the car So today I dropped the subby out so I could more easily get to it and weld in a patch. I also pulled out all the carpeting in the interior so I could remove the sound deadening. I'll take my wire brush in my angle grinder to it and see just how extensive a patch I need to make and how far I have to cut back to get to good metal. Someone has jacked the car up with the floor pans and really bent them upward near the flitch panels, I think that cracked the sealer and allowed the water to get in and rust this section out, cause the rest of the floors and sills are fine. The left side has a little crustiness but nothing like this crack and split. I'll bang the floor back down where it's supposed to be and maybe put some seam sealer and POR15 over it, but I don't think I'll have to weld a patch on the left side. Once the subby was out I saw I had a torn steering rack boot too.....
The stuff previous owners & their minions do. Tin worms munching away. Yikes! You have a good eye Dave. Patch her up & give those panels a good bashing down.
So, I made a hole! Still have to clean off all the paint and sealer around the edges so I can weld in the patch. I also need to make up the patch. I did make a CAD template tho.....
You're doing a job well done on this build. The updates seem very clean. When do you intend to install a new set of wheels and tires?
A while back I bought a pair of Subaru WRX seats, the Mini seats just aren't comfortable for the long drives that I frequently do in this car, and I'm planning to drive it rather than tow it to the upcoming Mini drive events like the CMU event in April in Virginia.....that's a 2K round trip plus the miles we drive while there. I had to compromise on the seat mounts because the companion bins in the rear limit how far the seat can move back - I like to stretch my legs out on a long drive and couldn't get comfortable - so I decided to do what had to be done to make these work. I had been looking for some Miata seats as they fit in without having to modify the interior but couldn't find any in good condition for a decent price, so when these showed up on CL I bought them. They are pretty comfy and have great side bolsters, but they are a little large for this small of a car.... The left seat also has a height adjustment as well as fore-aft and backrest angle, so I figured I could just mount it directly to the floor and use the adjusters. To do that the companion bin had to come out, and that was further complicated by the fact that the seatbelt reel mounts inside the companion bin too. On top of that, the reel mounts perpendicular to the door, to make this work I would need to mount it parallel, so I would need to make a bracket, and it would have to be right against the quarter panel in order to make enough clearance for the seat to slide back where I wanted it. Plus too and also, the seat mounting brackets for a Subaru would not work in a Mini - so I had to cut those off and make my own. One thing I did that made this easier was to buy a SWAG table for my hand held Milwaukee band saw....this makes it a bench mount and a whole lot easier way to cut out small bits to weld up into the mounts. I didn't take a lot of pics of the process, but it did take 3 tries to make a bracket for the belt that actually worked....just like on Binky, they don't show all the ones they made that didn't work! I saved the piece of the companion bin that I cut out, so in theory it could get welded back in if I sell this car someday and the buyer wants to put it back to original. The seat belt reels have to be straight up vertical too, if you angle them more than a few degrees they just lock up. All done now, and solid. The seat slides easily and I can operate the handles on the side for height and backrest angle even with the door closed. With the seat slid all the way back to where it touches the rear seat cushion, I can stretch my legs out straight far enough that I can't even touch the pedals!
So, I've made a patch and started welding it in.....just a few tacks to hold it in place. The metal is pretty thin even tho I cut back to good metal, I'm having to use pretty low power to keep from burning thru. still, even with just these tacks in place the floor feels really strong again. I'll go ahead and finish welding it in then grind down the welds, paint, seal and undercoat the side that faces the road. Once that's done I can put the rest of the interior together again. I've also fixed the rattling door on the heater - I was surprised to find that the core has been replaced already, I fully expected to be buying a new one. All it took to fix the door was some new foam glued in place, now it's nice and quiet again......that rattle was driving me nuts - tho not badly enough to fix it I guess, as it's been doing that for over 5 years now! Putting the interior back is a lot of work too as I took out all of the sound deadening, removed the back seat and have cleaned everything thoroughly. It wasn't bad, just dusty. I also removed the wires that ran to the speakers on the rear parcel shelf - I don't have a radio in this car and the wires were just in the way. I'm half debating on taking the rear seat belts out too - I doubt they're any good at 32 years old - the webbing can't be safe anymore. I'll box them up and save them for the next owner.
I've owned this car for 5 years and all along I thought it was a German export model - left hand drive, the lic plate surround had the name of a German repair shop (wish I had kept that), the arches are not found anywhere that I can find except that I saw the exact same ones on a car owned by a guy in Germany and so on, and I never even noticed this sticker till just now! What it says is basically read the owner's manual (which I didn't get with the car) before adding or using any accessories.....whatever that means!