FOM The Clubman Estate

He guys I'm new to this forum and figured I'd post up my Clubman estate project. I wont put the build thread so far u as that would take forever but there's my latest progress and a link to the past work. Clicky

The build started on the Jan 5th this year when I bought FOM for £505.


It looked quite good at the time but so far we've replaced:
Both outer sills
O.S inner sill
Both 'A' panels
O.S wing
O.S front floor pan
Bottom of both Flitches
and many other pieces of the body.

This is what it looked like a few weeks with all the metal work done.
http://s523.photobucket.com/albums/w353/Tupers125/FOM/?action=view&current=IMG_3155.jpg

And now I've made a start on the custom work with a full length centre console and a relocated fuel tank.

I love my console but I have been having problems with getting the gear stick to sit in 2nd nicely so today I decided to chop it up a little.

As you can see here the larger section of the gear stick with the rubber piece in it hits the edges of the allocated gator area.


Rather than cutting more from the console I decided to modify the gear so found on from the stores with a knackered swivel.


The next step was to cut both gear sticks up into 5 pieces so i could get the metal out of them I wanted.


Had a play with the scraps, I think this might be a little short. :lol:




To resolve the clearance issue we used the torch to heat up the old gear stick and bend a dog leg into it.


Then I welded the 3 modified pieces together and voala a gear stick that doesn't foul the the console.

I like the Clubman Estate, mine became quite a little road rocket. Rust has caught up and needs attention, but while I'm not so keen to do the work I have long hesitated to throw the car away.
However, I'm now driving a small car that does over 50mpg, which the A series will never achieve while giving the performance, so it does seem daft to keep it on. It will never be an economical small car.

However, your car.
Can you remove the heater unit with your console in place?
If not I suggest you fit a new heater matrix now.

I found that the answer to getting a good heater performance came in two halves. One was to buy a new matrix from Serck, and then reverse it in the housing, so both pipes came out on the LH side, routing the rubber pipes into the engine compartment via the holes cut for the brake and clutch master cylinders when in LHD configuration.
The other half of the solution is to use a Metro A+ thermostat housing, and to reconfigure the heater so it was permanently in circuit (always had coolant flowing through it). The heater became the bypass circuit. Heat output was controlled solely by closing the airflow flap.

I hope this is of interest.

Thanks for the comments Davidss. The centre console wont be welded to the car but bolted down to the tunnel so it can be removed. I have thought about relocating the hoses to your suggested location before but mainly for cosmetic reasons. I'll look into your heater mod as I know how bad some can be.

Gotta love the Clubman Estates! We've got one but it's off the road at the mo' having metro brakes fitted (A complete PITA but should be worth it). I'll need to do some welding in of patches before it goes for an inspection but that will give me a chance to try my new press brake

Photo of ours below. The flares have been painted to match the body since the pic.

what did you use to get it onto its side without damage? doesn't look like it's on a spit

Angusdog your estate look pretty cool, I like the sound of the color coded arches. I was going to fit metro brakes on mine but I want to stick with 10s really so i'll have to fork out twice as much for a set of S discs.

white van man 2 said:

what did you use to get it onto its side without damage? doesn't look like it's on a spit

Click to expand...

We had it on a spilt for some of the work but lent it over on two old Mini salon seat bases when the spit was being used on other projects.

Tupers said:

... I was going to fit metro brakes on mine but I want to stick with 10s really so I'll have to fork out twice as much for a set of S discs.

Click to expand...

Have you considered KAD Mini Brakes?
I'm not suggesting they are cheap, but they might be cheaper than a Cooper S installation, and probably a lot better in terms of performance.

Davidss said:

Have you considered KAD Mini Brakes?
I'm not suggesting they are cheap, but they might be cheaper than a Cooper S installation, and probably a lot better in terms of performance.

Click to expand...

I'd love to but even with how expensive S set-up is they're still cheaper than a pair of KAD calipers. At the moment I'm just going to build the whole car up on drums. I can change a set drums to discs in an evening providing there's complications so it's not a big fuss if I find some cheap discs latter on.

This morning I got dad to weld the the joint on the gear stick, I took them down with a flap wheel and painted it gloss black.




I made up the other side of the front console and got it tacked in. There's only a few little bits left to add to it now and then I can weld it all up properly.


I also decided to change from late Metro seat belts to early ones as they will bolt up to the captive plates in there already and work in the metro stalks I'm using.




Although they wont be stock! :wink:

So how about a few updates, I would have gotten these up sooner but I've been having trouble getting the Iphone to sync pics.

Because of changing the rear false floor design I decided to cut out the bottom door shut.




We got bored the other day and test fitted my brothers dash board, shame it's a bit big although I'm still thinking of moding it for another mini.




So seen as the other dash wouldn't fit I decided to sort out a set of dials and make my own dash. I already had the speedo and rev counter and the 3 in 1 was donated my my mate Si.


I didn't really like the silver ring in the middle so I took it apart, masked it up and sprayed it satin black.






This is roughly where the dials to sit in the dash.


I turned my cardboard template into steel and 3 little tiaras to hold the dials at and angle.


I welded the dash face the a steel plate so it wouldn't move while I welded the tiaras on.


I got as far as welding two on and realized I'd messed up.


I'm my rush I had miged one on upside down so had to cut it off and do it again.


I sorted out my cock up and welded on the centre tiara.


And this is why I went to all that trouble. The face of the dash carry on down the the lower dash rail leaving the gauges sticking out like bug eyes.


And before I left I pulled all the padding off of a knackered top rail to give me something to mount the new dash pieces too.

First off sorry about the fuzzy pics I think I had some smudges on my lens.

I bolted in the stripped off top rial in the see what it looked like and figure out where I needed to cut to fit my dials.


I made the first cut and refitted it.


That didn't work so I made another.


That didn't work so I hammered the bottom flat.


That got it close but I still wanted them in further.


So I cut some more. BTW Dewalt 1MM cutting disc are awesome, mega hard wearing.


With all the back cut off I got the dials to sit in nice snug.


Unfortunately we didn't have enough thin gauge steel to do more on the dash so I welded up the sides of my console.


And today our friendly local tool guy came around so I bought myself a Thor copper/rawhide hammer a Trident panel hammer and a trident spot weld chisel.

A guy who drops by and asks if you want tools? Dangerous. For him, if my wife ever saw him...

Great job on the dash. I'm a little tire of 'custom' dashes which are nothing more than a sheet of MDF with some dials in in, so yours looks very interesting indeed.

Angusdog said:

Great job on the dash. I'm a little tire of 'custom' dashes which are nothing more than a sheet of MDF with some dials in in, so yours looks very interesting indeed.

Click to expand...

I hate mdf there's nothing custom about being able to use a jigsaw.


Now that we've got more steel I decided I'd tidy up the boot floor. The edges still where sill slightly curved so out came the hammer and dolly to straighten them out.

Before


After




I also cut off enough steel to make my tank box and marked it out for folding. Tomorrow I'll finish off trimming it and hopefully be able to roll some strengthening beads into it and fold it up.

I'm not quite 'with' what you are doing to the boot floor.
You seem to have cut away the spare wheel well, but what comes next?
Are you planning on putting a shallow flat fuel tank in it's place? Is this where the 'tank box' comes in?
I confess I think having a spare wheel accessible through the loadbay floor is always a bad idea, but where have you thought of putting the spare wheel instead?

Cheers

Once finished the tank box will look similar to this with a steel lid over the top.


I'm not actually going to have a spare tyre (not for short journeys at least) but will have a second smaller box under the rear seats for my battery and tyre foam.

With Mini wheels& tyres being so small and light I made a frame for mine and supported it in the roof, just inside the rear doors. The frame was pivoted off the cant rails. Rear seat passengers may have found the tyre a bit close, and it took a bit of thought to keep steel work away from them, but in the end I removed the rear seats anyway and boarded all the area, so the 'passenger' question disappeared.
I was using 10" steel wheels, wider than standard, but I don't recall the actual width.

Cheers

Nice work man ;-)

This morning I finished cutting the tank box out. I had original planned to swage it all in one piece decided it would be easier is I cut the ends off and did the separately.


Here's one of the end sections being swaged.


The base and sides being swaged.


All done and ready to fold.


All folded up, you can see the base is slightly bowed but it will straighten out once the end plates and welded in.


And here's one of the aforementioned ends plates held in place with masking tape.

Time to down you all in photos again.

Today I turned my attention to the bulk head with smoothing in mind and started by welding up the holes for the washer bottle and relay things.




Then I did the instrument mounting bracket holes and the heater hose hole.






I don't know what this holes was for but it's filled now.




I also decided to get rid the master cylinder recess on the passenger side.






Seen as I'm going with the clean look I thought I should fill in the whopping great hole in the centre of the bulk head.


I made this section up to stiffen up the centre of the bulkhead.




Then I mounted it up and drilled some holes to plug weld in on.


And painted the two pieces in red oxide ready to be welded in tomorrow.



Dad had some spare time so we set about welding the ends of the tank box on. I sat it up on some steel box and put a battery and a 1275 11 bolt head onto straighten out the bow in the base.




Sat it in the boot to check the fit, I think it looks really good just a shame it'll be covered up by a tank and a false floor.

So this morning I welded the backing ring onto the back of the bulk head.


Then fitted the centre section and welded it in.


With the help of my handy flap wheel I took the welds down, still got the top half to weld but I'm leaving that till latter.



I can't stand having two spare holes in the scuttle panel so I decided to weld 'em up.


Cut a nice fitting little plug.


Welded.


And ground down