Roof chopped BMW mini cooper S

[rkde]

I'd be very interested to see what you do about getting glass made to fit after all this work. I've had naughty thoughts for a while now about something similar but I doubt it will happen, not now anyway.
Looking good!

As in my blog you will see how I have found a company who will make the plexi glass to ECE R43 which is the standard required for road legal plexi glass and they will even cut it to size Glass always seams to worry every one but that is by far the easy part

 

[Reeeedish]

Excellent!

Fantastic project Richard!
It's certainly something fresh on an R53 Mini.

Having done roof and panel work on my E30 race car I know how rewarding and enjoyable this can be.

It's really great to see it clearly detailed with lots of pics too.

Goodluck with the rest of project (I'll be watching with interest )

And I'm sure you're all sorted for choice within the Mini forums for aftermarket and Motorsport parts, but if you do need a source for certain things (bushes, suspension, seats, harnesses etc), during your build - or just want a chat about products/fitting then by all means come and say hi - www.Redish-Motorsport.com/Products.html

(*Mods* I haven't purposely 'linked' the website - the forum did it automatically. If it's in breach of forum Ad rules, please feel free to remove if necessary).

Best regards,
James

 

[rkde]

Cheers James, I know the mini inside and out and even make parts for them! I will have a look at your site too. Cheers

An update from this weekend

Another weekend of playing with the mini.

Got ****** off with the fit of the last boot, took it off and binned it. Put another on which I am pleased with, its a better fit, the last one was a copy part hence the bad fit. The new tailgate is spot on so I am pleased with that, it doesn't look as good as the red one as its now got loads of colours all over the car. Fit and function is very important.

Also chopped up the roof skin and started placing in on the car so I can the alignment of the boot perfect and to work out things for the custom cage.

Loads of work there, and loads more to come, that roof will be fun to back together!

 

[german8rcoupe]

Hi, can I make a suggestion on the roof?
Rather than have welds all along the roof width and length, which will be a very big repair regardless how you do it, why not just tack the filler pieces in for the first 4 or 5 inches in from the edge. Just enough to give it the support you need to get on with the job. Then, as you seem to have lots of spare panels lying around, cut out of a spare roof what would effectively look like a massive sunroof.
Use this panel to trim around and cut the rest of the tacked roof to accept the new filler panel.Doing it this way means your welds are around the outside of the roof ,where there may be more strength and resistance to warping due to the shape, and not all the way across and front to back.
Not sure if the roof has "grown" enough to accomodate that but that is how I did a Beetle with a similair shape.

 

[rkde]

Thats an idea, I did plan to use a spare roof which I was going to fill the sections and then use my tig to do the weld across which I should be able to have more control over the heat where my mig will distort it badly. I will have a look at the suggestion and see what can be done. I do think thats a very good idea

Do you have any photos of your beetle?

 

[german8rcoupe]

It was 20 years ago mate. Pre digi camera days!
I have seen that method used alot on yank cars with "turret" tops. It really does help to maintain the shape without weeks of bodywork.

 

[eltis]

excellant project, keep the pictures coming

 

[Angusdog]

I should be able to have more control over the heat where my mig will distort it badly.

Although it's of no real value to you, I saw an interesting method on cable telly used in building the Rolls Royce saloons. Because they're made from aluminium, the roof is welded on by two welders at once. They start in exactly the same place (top of the c pillar) and move at the same speed, doing a perfect 1 metre long MIG weld in aluminum. Because they do it identically on each side, there's no distrotion. Given they're working on the bodyshell of a Roller, I imagine it's not something you can learn as you go along

Anyway, fascinating project. Looking forward to more updates.

 

[rkde]

Not much to report this week as I spent all the time building the tailgate so it now opens and is all aligned. Really pleased to have this working now.

My aim over the next few weeks is to get all the welding out of the way with exception of the roll cage, rear lights, and the roof skin

 

[rkde]

Well besides starting work on the engine I have spend a good amount of time on the body work too.

Started to take the frame out and its really making a difference to how the car looks. Also makes it quite easy to get in and out.

Also started to clean up the body work and welds

 

[Cris B]

Any progress on this project?

 

[rkde]

Yeah I think there has been... work has stopped a little as I hit a financial run up to Christmas...
The work went back to removing some of the under carriage like the rear sub frame and I have spent some time finishing little jobs and not really reporting on it Just need to get the next couple of months out the way and build the roll cage over the Christmas period, I hope!

Does anyone have a tube notcher they would like to lend or rent to me? don't need the hole saws just the jig also a pipe bender up to 2" would be super


Here is some shots of the design from the initial scan data, looking to do the strength data tonight.

Finally started working on the engine and the gearbox in the evenings when I have some spare time. Had some time to whip the oil cooler off, and also took the sump and strainer off.

Started to take the gearbox apart, this was brought to a stop when the driver snapped...

Offered up the blower I am going to use and decided I am going to remove the electronic clutch at some point and also I need a new pulley as that is a PK8

Some advice is needed too, how do I go about cleaning the gearbox and engine? the gearbox is oxidising and got old oil / grime on it, so has the engine. Any good products for sorting it?

 

[JayRS4]

Whats the blower off of RKDE? Was it you that had the mazda millenia blower on ebay?

 

[rkde]

it was me i have sold a few blowers this week as i decided on the lysholm 1200 off a merc sl55 because its a smaller case

 

[M@tt]

fantastic work!!

I've got blower project on the go as well, I'm fitting a M62 eaton charger from a Merc 320(iirc) CLK onto my Peugeot 306 GTi6 engine.

My original plan was to use a M45 as found on the MINIS (as they were dirt cheap a few years ago, £125 with factory mileage!! as if people opted for the JCW upgrade they were given the original back!!!) but after several trial fittings i decided to go for the Merc compressor as the body was alot smaller(plus the rotors were longer so give more power)

The merc blower had an electric clutch similar to yours however the pulley was waaaay too big so i bought a new (2nd hand) snout from the US as the blowers are a lot more common over there and swapped them over, it did require dismantling the blower completely to do this though, but it wasn't too tricky

My project photobucket album is here is its any use
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v230/meb97me/GTI6 Supercharged/

 

[rkde]

Excellent work there. You will be pleased if you have it still that mini supercharger as they are rare and will be going up in price over the next couple of years fetching close to £400! I sold my old one too when I had the JCW conversion on the last mini.

Could you not remove the clutch off the nose? I really want to keep it short as possible and put the pulley where the clutch is... Maybe I will have to design a part to fit there. I plan to take it apart next week and have a look see. (I seen your photos now and have the answer you did remove it)

I like your project, especially flicking through the photos, I saw on though not enough wrap on the supercharger pulley > next oh, sorted it, could do with another tensioner or roller > sorted

What paint did you use on the block, it looks durable in the photos

I did a mini m45 conversion on a celica G7 many years ago it went well this is going to be a better build though.

 

[M@tt]

My original plan was to just get s smaller pulley but once I took it apart it was apparent it wouldn't be as simple as bolting on the new pulley and would require custom pulleys and machining so in the end it was cheaper to just buy a new snout ~£60

I did have to chop down one of the rotor shafts and install 3 pins into one of the drive gears

 

[rkde]

Was the clutch a push fit? how did you remove the clutch? is it a case of a pulley puller?

 

[M@tt]

the clutch was just held on by a single bolt into the end of the long splined shaft. With that undone it all just dismanteld by hand.

The way it worked was the aux belt drove the big pulley, this would just spin at whatever the engine speed was. The electromagnetic coil sat inbetween in and when switchen on would cause the large plate section to magnetically clamp itself to the pulley and spin with the pulley, the plate bit had a splined hole which fitted onto the long splined shaft from one of the rotors which then drove the charger.

I've just remmebered the other reason why i had to get a new snout and it was because if you look at the pic of the 3 bits of the clutch you'll see the bearing is actually contained inside the pulley itself, so you couldn't just slap on a smaller pulley because there was nothing to take the radial loads, the new snout contains the bearing itself.

HTH

 

[rkde]

Spent today on the body work and finishing off the sheet metal work - I can see this taking a while, still needs a polish but it is really strong and getting closer to what I would like the metal to look like prior to filler and paint