1998 Mini Cooper. Strip to the shell rebuild

[Petrol]

have you considered acid dipping and a electro coat primer? never see rust ever again after that!

Yep, the problem is, if it were dipped they would ship what's left back in a jiffy bag The shell has serious corrosion and for starters it needs £500 worth of panels. They are quite cheap though, the front end - wings, front panel and A panels are £160.

Looks like it needs
Front end outer panels
Door steps
Inner and outer sills
Rear Valence
Door skins
Battery box
Both rear arches
Scuttle panel
Rear bulkhead
Maybe......
Both inner wings
A and B posts
Yikes and that's just for starters

The whole point of this project is for me to pass on what I know to Mike. You can buy a new shell for £5K but it starts getting mega expensive and not in the true spirit of what we are trying to do. Refurb and learn

Just to add, this car is a real can of worms... It's a 1998 so newer than my S14 and 5 years newer than our S13

I will never complain about 200SX's being rust buckets again

[Petrol]

Cut one of the outer sills off today to have a look at the extent of the rust



Dipping costs £2,500. To go down that route, it would be best to do all the repairs then have it dipped and E coated. A new shell is £5K so if we were going the full monte, it's a no brainer
Looking at how many seams there are on a Mini, it will test Bilt Hambers products to the limit Especially their etchweld and dynax
Should be interesting to see how we get on

[Petrol]

Decided to start at the back and kind of work forwards. Mika removed both wheel arches





Inside every seam is pretty rusty



It's gonna need a bit of fabrication to get the shell back up to scratch. Just to add, he was out in the freezing cold doing this tonight

[Robbie]

Following this on TMF. Should be great once it's done.

[Delboy]

I always knew minis were bad for rot but never thought a newer one would be that bad!!

It's lucky it found its way into the Petrol household, will be better than new in no time

[alanjuggler]

Pete, I use a cheap sealey auto darkening mask with a 'grinding' option and it's pretty good.

I'd try and make getting it on a spit or being able to get it on it's side as a priority - doing a decent amount of welding upside down underneath a car on a drive is one of the most miserable experiences I've ever encountered. even with the full mask and the proper hood, you still get balls of metal that drop down and get sandwiched behind your back.

if you need any advice re: welding or need to borrow my MIG, let me know.

regarding the MOT, m.d., continuous seam welding is *only* for patch repairs.

· the repair must appear to be virtually as strong as the original structure with only continuous seam welding being acceptable for patch repairs (even if the patch extends beyond the prescribed area).

· spot welded joints are acceptable where the original panel has been replaced to an existing spot welded flange (provided the original defective panel flange has been removed). Stitch or plug welding is acceptable as an alternative to spot welding in these cases

hope that helps.

http://www.motuk.co.uk/mot_appendix_c.htm

[Petrol]

Thanks guys,

The plan is to weld in the boot floor along with the new rear arches, then new full inner sills. It should be strong enough then to roll on it's side(s). It doesn't matter if the rear 1/4's gets dinked because they are both being replaced. One underneath is sorted, I can fit new outer panels.

Thanks for the offer Alan No doubt I will be posting some pics up for a bit of advice on welding once I get my mig welder baclk

[Petrol]

My welder is knacked. Is this any good and are gasless OK?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110963497858

Thanks

[M.D.]

The seeley stuff isn't actually that bad. It's better than Clarke stuff but not by a lot.

To be honest it'll do what you need to do on a mini but don't expect it to last forever.

The worst part I found with budget welders is the torch is a little too small and overheats too quickly.

[Petrol]

Thanks. I also took Spiceweazle's advice and bought a gas conversion kit.

My welding is shite



The back



Any pointers or tips would be very welcome

[Chriscooke]

The guy I got to do the welding on mine didn't try and get a bead of welding prefering to pulse weld instead as to not blow holes etc. the work done on mine is all but invisible now

[Petrol]

Thanks, I have read about that, will give it a go

[Chriscooke]

Hope it works, my welding is worse than yours hence why I questioned him about the technique

[-ghost-]

Yeah You can bead weld some places but most of the panels its easier and neater to do the on off technique. The only thing i would say is keep weld tight ie weld into the orange bubble with the mask on.

You will get a feel for it and I weld on a higher setting that is needed for the tickness as i'm finding its leaves a better weld.

If you have a thin bit or a bit you keep blowing through turn the welder to the lowest setting and spot/blob weld it make take a few quick dabs on the trigger then turn the welder back to normal and use those as a starting marker.

Thats what i found works but i'm no professional like spice.

Great project looking forwards to how it turns out read the s14 threads massive help for the metal treatment.

[Petrol]

Thanks -ghost- got it I asked the same question on a Mini forum yesterday but got no reply Took 20 mins to get some advice on here
The shell needs a huge amount of fabrication and despite it being a very simple construction, it's a bit daunting. I could do with Spice up here for a day or two to show me the way Unlike Spice, I don't have much knowledge of sheet metal fabrication but I am sure it will be sorted. Everything else is pretty simple as it's all very basic.

Having learned quite a bit about rust removal on the S14, I'm going to try one or two things to make life easier on the Min. For example I'm going to try glass beads for blasting rather than sand and better use of Deox C. On the S14 I blasted parts after using deox to get rid of the black residue. The plan this time is to scrub parts in hot water followed by a wizz over with a plastic brush. If I find any better techniques I will post em up

Thanks for your help guy's. As always, it's very much appreciated

[Mike41288]

Your aim for a weld is the have half as much weld on the back of the piece than on the front.

Tack both ends of the material then in the middle, then keep tacking in between the current tacks until you have about a 1 to 2 inch gap between then all the tacks.
Once you have this then start pulsing them in, trying to aim the wire at the edge of the molten puddle left by the previous weld keeping the angle at about 20-45 degrees to the panel so you can see the molten puddle
Don't work from left to right, spread out your welds when joining the tacks to spread the heat evenly to avoid distorting the panel as those pattern part ones are really easy to distort.
Don't be tempted to rush either, take your time and don't be afraid to let the panel cool off before continuing.
Might be a bit vague but when you set up your welder, try to get it making a nice clean crackling sound like putting bacon into a hot frying pan. Make sure you keep the shroud about 1cm away from the panel too.
It's best to practise getting neat welds on a single peice of metal before you attempt to join stuff once you get the technique right, it gets a lot easier.

[-ghost-]

One other thing I have found is any patches or butt weld areas get the gap between the metal as close as you can especially if your welding different thickness steels

if you do the on off style do it fairly quick to keep the heat but don't do more than 2 inches. just move to the other side or different area of the panel. Ive not noticed a lot of distortion you will find the tacked patches might move around a little but a nothing a quick tap panel with a panel won't sort.

I doubt you will have a problem but if you have a lot of rust in certain places make sure there is enough metal to hold the shell. Ie I cut the front of the floor out on my s14 drilled the spot welds out while working it free it pulled inner rail off meaning there was just day light between the out side and inside I've welded bracing inside my shell before i started. Your mini looks cleaner than my car

if your welding in a wheel arch try to cover the gap between your head and mask as I keep getting splash back come over the mask.

[alanjuggler]

pete, the other way to do thin sheet metal off the car is to get a block of aluminium or brass behind as a heatsink. clamp it down and weld a section, then move along.

unfortunately the large ally block I had I milled down to make the ARB spacers to fit my ARB below my RB

[Petrol]

Thanks Alan, think I will go with the pulse welding option for starters. Lots of spot welds sounds easier to me

This is how the boot floor fabrication is looking at the moment - it's just a trial fit of the panels so far

[Petrol]

How does this pulse weld look? Please be honest



Penetration



Cheers