An Electric Mini Pickup!!
Do you fancy trying something a little different? Well this guy had the genius idea of converting a mini pickup to electric power.
Kaptain Kleaver's Electric Mini PickupVery cool idea!!
This should of been so easy!!
So the Ignition Coil has gone, fix that and I'm up and running.
Attempt 1I raided the coil off the other mini. OK, ten minutes later the coil was swapped, time to switch on. Nothing! Five minutes of fiddling about and I'd managed to get the thing started, great lets give it a go. Two hundred meters down the road it died on me. I thought of pushing it back up the hill, decided against it and towed it back again.
There was no way this car was going to start again today. I begin to have doubts about the state of the spare coil. I'd run out of time, I was needed elsewhere, failed!!!
Attempt 2I'd brought a brand new Lucas Sports coil, a sports coil was chosen as it has a much higher output, a friend had also told me that if I want to change to electronic ignition the sports coil would be better.
First problem. I'd brought a coil designed for use in a car without a ballast resister, my car uses a ballast resistor. The
Internet Mini Encyclopedia has an explanation on how a ballasted system works and how to remove the ballast wire. I followed the instructions in the article with a couple of changes. My fuse box had a spare terminal on position 1 of the fuse box so I was able to connect to it directly, no horrible splicing to the loom. The existing ballast resistor connection also has the wire from the solenoid attached. I figured I didn't need either wire so I simply taped them out the way and replaced them with my 12v feed. I also too the opportunity to replace the dodgy looking connectors on the negative connection to the coil.
Ok, lets give it a try. It did, after a bit of fiddling, start, and on that occasion it fired straight away. Having learnt from my previous experience I decided to try initially to move the car around the car park rather than take it out on the road. I couldn't believe it, it died almost straight away. It was getting dark now, time to go. Failed again!!!
Attempt 3I'd gone away and thought about it, the only thing I'd not checked was the low tension side, the wire from the condenser to the negative terminal on the coil and the very flimsy looking cotton covered wire that links the base plate of the dizzy to earth. After checking with my multimeter I could find no continuity problems on either. I put it all back together again, making sure each connection was good and tried again. This time it started first time, I wiggled everything that would wiggle and it didn't fail. Took it on a test run and covered about ten miles with no problems. I'd call that fixed. I can only summise there was a connection that was failing. The new ignition coil is brilliant, I've never had the car starting so well. Third attempt, success!!
Don't be a numpty, turn the ignition off when the cars not running!
I broke down the other night. I was coming home from work in the recently serviced red mini. I was feeling quite smug about how well it was running, there was one thing bugging me though. The radio sounded awful, this needed to be sorted or else I'd have to resort to singing to myself. No a pleasant thought!!
I pulled over to look at the radio,after five minutes of re-tuning/ checking connections etc I decided that this was a job for another day. I turned the ignition and nothing, the engine turned over but refused to start. This was similar to the problem I had trying to start the car after the service, I'd put that down to the rain.
OK, lift the bonnet, check the cables etc, try again, nothing. This went on for about another 30 minutes. During this time I was joined by a passing member of the
Eastbourne and District Mini Club which was much appreciated. There's only so much you can do at the roadside so I decided to ring the AA to get them to have a look. At this point I was really glad to have a radio even if it did sound a bit crap, the AA man took an hour to get to me and then I had to wait two hours to get a pickup truck to take the car home.
The AA patrolman after going through much of what we'd already done felt the ignition coil, it was way too hot. His diagnosis was the ignition coil had probably burnt out. The final straw for the coil was probably when I'd stopped to check the radio and left the ignition on. He patiently explained that if you stop and the points are closed it completes the circuit and there's current flowing constantly through the coil. Bugger, I know this, well I'd of known this if I'd of though about it, problem is I'd never thought about it. My inexperience playing with cars has bitten me on the backside.
Tip No 3: Exhaust to Manifold Fitting
This can be a real pain to do on your own as it's difficult to get the exhaust flush with the manifold. Here's my solution:
- Jack up the front of the car
- Place some bricks under the exhaust(I use 3 brick pavers, approximately 150mm).
- Gently lower the jack until the exhaust butts up to the manifold.(Don't drop the jack all the way, you could crush the exhaust!)
- Tighten up exhaust clamp
- Remove bricks and jack
Tip No 2: Gaskets
The other day I had to remove my heater tap and I didn't have a suitable gasket. A quick trip to Halfords solved the problem. They sell a silicon instant gasket. A great product, it can be used in plenty of situations although it's not recommended for major gaskets like the cylinder head gasket. It's easy to apply and just works.
Tip No 1: Pushrods
Before you put your cylinder head back on your block, try the pushrods in their holes in the block. Make sure they all sit at about the same height. When I put my head back on the other day one of the rods was a couple of inches too high. The cam follower had become dislodged and was lying on its side. To get at it I had to remove the head to get at the access panel on the back of the engine. Very annoying, wasted a good 20 minutes.
Giving the mini some love!
I've now given the mini some loving, and it's running really sweet. The mini was in a sorry state, here's a list of problems it had:
- Overheating
- Rough Idling, sometimes it even cuts out
- Noisy, if I don't get this sorted I may need a bigger stereo
Here's the list of jobs I decided needed doing
- Strip the cooling system
- Replace the water pump and hoses
- Flush out the radiator
- Replace the cylinder head gasket
- Basic service on engine, new points, spark plugs, leads, oil filter, air filter, set tappets, change oil etc
I ordered the parts from my favourite supplier
DSN Classics This company are quick to deliver, reasonably prices and have good technical support when you need to ask a numpty question. They also have a policy of charging a sensible price for postage. If you just want a small item, you don't need to pay for an expensive courier to deliver it next day.
Stripping out the cooling system was fairly easy, simply unbolt everything. I took the radiator away and back flushed it to remove any crud that was stuck in it. The connector to the heater hose was rusted, which probably explains why there was not much heat coming out of the heater.
Next, I took the cylinder head off to replace the gasket. It was really difficult to tell where it had blown so I was hoping I hadn't got anything more serious like a cracked head.
Whilst I had the engine in two bits I decarbonised the pistons and all round the combustion chambers. I used the technique in the haynes manual of ensuring that I didn't get any loose bits of carbon in the wrong place in the block.
- Turn the crank until two of the pistons are at the top of their travel.
- Mask off the other two pistons and all the holes in the block
- Smear grease round the edge of the pistons you are trying to decarbonise.
- Scrape the carbon carefully away from the pistons.
- Clean up the exposed surface and turn the crank until the other two pistons are at the top of their travel.
- Repeat steps 2-4
- Clean everything with petrol
I put the head back and adjusted the tappets, haynes recommends around 15 thou gap. I'm sure 15 thou was the gap I'd set them to on the last service, my feeler guage was rattling around in the gaps,I think they were nearer 25. It was fairly easy to reset the gaps and within 20 minutes I was on to the next job.
The points were a bit fiddly to set up and the new top radiator hose was rubbish, I went back to the old one. The rest or the bits went back on the engine easy enough.
It was beginning to get dark now and the rain started pouring down. The last half hour of assembly had my head and shoulders under the bonnet with the rest of me exposed to the driving rain. Not a nice experience, I must make a point of clearing my garage out.
Time to try starting it. This took for ever, I wasn't getting a spark and I checked and rechecked everything. After another half hour of this all I had to show for my efforts was a flat battery. I was at the point of giving up and decided to try one last time jump starting the car. Success, I was up and running, the exhaust was making a lot of noise, needs bracket putting on again. My best guess was the driving rain had got something wet.
I waited till the next morning to change the oil, oil filter, check the coolant levels and bolt the exhaust on properly.
Daddy's broken the mini!!
The car has had a lot more use recently as I now use it for my daily commute, 50 mile a day. I've spent the summer just using the car and not really thinking too much about it. Not thinking about it also equates to not servicing it and not really loving it.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the water temperature was getting a little hot. I had a look in the radiator and the levels were a bit low. I topped it up and all was fine for a while then it overheated again. My first thought was the cooling system had sprung a leak. I popped down to Halfords one lunchtime and brought their leak stopper. This didn't work, it still was loosing water.
The next time it started to get hot I pulled over and investigated. Water was coming out, but from the expansion time that comes off the next of the tank, there was no leak from anywhere else. Who designed that tube, it comes down the side of the radiator and drips onto the subframe. If they's made it a couple of centimeters longer it could of dripped onto the road.
I tried taking the thermostat out, this had no effect other than it taking slightly longer to overheat. Someone at work suggested that the head gasket might be blown, I hadn't seen any signs of oil in the coolant. I had another look and there did seem to be a bit of froth in the radiator, maybe that was it.
Finally it overheated so much I had to pull over and call my wife out with a bottle of water. She came out with my daughter who's two. We got it going, I got home and took the car off the road until I could sort it. Ever since then my daughter has been telling everyone that Daddy's broken the mini.
I've decided to strip the cooling system down, replace the water pump and change the head gasket. I think I need to give the car a good service at the same time.
The car needs some loving!
Hands off my radiator!
This was another strange one from a couple of months ago. My wife returned from work in the mini and noticed that steam was coming out of the car. On investigation it looked like the nuts that hold the radiator bracket to the thermostat housing had been undone. The only conclusion that I could come to was someone was after the radiator.
I find it difficult to comprehend the cheek of some people.
Window smashed, lock broken, stereo gone, bugger!
This actually happened quite a while ago, and cost me a lost weekend sorting the mess out. Basically someone had decided that the car stereo was a desirable item and my car was inline for some damage. They must of put a screwdriver in the lock and when that didn't work decided to smash the window.
Step 1: Find a replacement windowFortunately, a friend of had an old mini that was waiting to go to the scrapyard so the window on this car was mine. Not too bad a job removing the old window, except for the masses of sticky gloop that is used around the winder mechanism. It's a bit like very sticky bluetack. The rails that the window sits on were very rusty, hopefully mine would be in better condition.
Step 2: Inspect the damageOn to my mini. I managed to get most of the glass out of the bottom of the door with a screwdriver. Whilst I had the door cards off, I had a look at the genral condition of the door. It's beginning to rust, water has been getting in at the front of the window just where the outer sealing strip meets the corner. It's going to need a re-skin at some point and some remedial work to the frame of the door.
Step 3: Fit the new windowHere's a tip, if you've got to replace the rails on the window, make sure you mark the exact position of the old rails before taking them off. That way you wont have the window too far forward or backward when it comes to refitting. fitting the window was just fiddly, there's two rollers which have to fit in a channel which would be easy enough if you didn't have the rest of the door frame to consider.
Step 4: Try and fit a new lock.I managed to get the old lock barrel out easily enough, mini locks are only held in place with a clip at the back. Unfortunately the new barrels would not fit the handles. My guess is that the aftermarket barrels have a poor quality casting. The solution is to file the barrels down a bit. A job for another day, hey the rest of the doors work!
One thing I have learnt from this excercise is to inspect the state of all rubber seals before you start a job. The seals on my window could of benefitted from being changed, I'm sure I'll pay for that at a later date.
