First New Panel On!

You may remember from previous posts and pics that Betty had a big old dent in her arse. Not sure where it came from, didnt want to ask the owner! She now has a brand snaking new boot. We had a look at the old one and the damage was so that we couldn't actually beat it out.

I got a double skinned panel from http://www.hytheperformance.co.uk

It took a couple weeks to come as they had a backlog but it got here and in an afternoon we took off the old boot and the electrics and put ont he new boot. Its a little fiddly as there are some knooks and crannys that bolts and washers were hard to get at.



We also had to re-use the seal as it was in decent knick.

Number plate holes had to be drilled and number plate mounted being careful to get the measurements right.



Its already primed ready for painting so once shes ready its once less bit of prep work...

Ugly Bettys New Shoes

Time came to replace those tired looking wheels. I hunted around and finally set my heart on some Starmag 6 x 12 wheels.

I went to the Castle Combe track day (without the car) to have a look around and get some ideas. There were a couple of cars with the Starmags on and they looked amazing which made me even more certain.

So i bought some, £345, not too bad!

The boys and me spent the afternoon jacking the car up and replacing the wheels. It was always going to be touch and go whether or not the wheels would foul on the arches and the bodywork but there is only one way to find out. All seemed ok at first but on the drive home ever single bump caused the car to foul.... bollocks!

I am not bodywork expert so the car is going to have to go in to have the wheel arches removed the cutting done and the new wider arches on. I have gone for genuine sportspack arches. They will cover the wheels and look quite cool.

I then spent about a hour jacking the car up again and taking the wheels off at about 9.30pm as it couldn't be driven with the wheels fouling. So Betty is back on her ugly wheels again until i get a chance to take it to the body shop to have her nip tuck done.

The Aim

Basically the aim was to buy a mini project that was mechanically sound but aesthetically ugly! What i ended up with was this little beauty, cough cough!!

She is a 1973 mini clubman with one major difference. She has had a heart transplant and now has 160bhp Honda Vtec engine within her subtle frame!!!

As you can see her paintwork is less than to be desired, she has minor rust spots too but nothing that is going to be too much to handle hopefully but as those people with minis know it can seem that way but until you break it down you cant really tell.






The interior is bare, no back seats, no console, no dashboard! A bike speedo for a speedometer and a ripped steering wheel.


The engine is pretty much rammed into the engine bay, not a lot of room around it.

The theme for the mini is black and orange as these are my company colours and i will be putting my company name etc on it once it is finished.

Here is a small list of things that need doing:

Paintwork

Wheels

Dashboard

Centre Console

Steering Wheel

I.C.E

New Boot

Aggressive Bonnet

New Wheel Arches

Tidy up Grill and Paint

Company Decals

Over the next few months and possibly years these will slowly but surely take place, in fact at the time of writing the new wheels are on but the wings and bodywork need to be adjusted to fit them in properly!!