Welcome to the Irish Mini Owners Club forum. Celebrating 30 years of the Irish Mini Owners Club, 60 years of the Mini, 50 years of the Clubman and 20 years of our flagship event MTM
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
Working through the other repairs on the roof. It's slow progress and tedious. Had to do two additional cuts to relieve stress on the joint after I did the first couple of tack welds.
I don't know how your welding in this heat, I had to help make some jigs at work so had to have welding PPE on, literally only 15mins and was sweltering!
Looks like your almost there with the roof repairs! Keep it up!
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
Wasn’t too bad temp wise Colin. The stone walls on the garage keep it cooler.
What do people feel about lead loading vs body filler for smoothing out over the welding? Is it worth the extra effort for the lead loading? Or epoxy prime first and body fill over?
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
My brother is driving over from the UK in a couple of weeks so I jumped at the opportunity to pick up some bits and pieces including both passenger and driver floor quarter panels from M-Machine and some new stainless steel bumpers.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
It's time to cut out the damaged gutter from the roof. My approach is to cut across the door opening as it is the shortest path for the butt weld. The rest is all spot welded.
Initial cut is to just leave the spot weld faces to grind down.
I cleaned up the roof panel edge.
The edge of the roof panel has a good bit of pitting here so I will need to fix this before welding in my patch panel.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
Haven't been in the garage for a good few weeks. Lots of other commitments took priority.
Various stages of tack welding. I didn't weld the ends until the end because I didn't want the expansion and contraction of the patch to warp the roof.
Controlling the penetration of the welds from the other side
Blended the welding into the roof. The tag on the lip is to help to pull the edge of the roof to the edge of the rain gutter
The roof lip cleaned up nicely
Sizing up the door frame and gutter to the underside of the roof
That's a tidy looking repair, should be fairly invisible once it's welded and dressed down...plenty of zinc primer too, should hold back the rust for a few weeks...
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
colinf1 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 11:01 am
Thats a brave repair! I'd say yor were quite nervous doing that cut!
Oh yes. The challenge will be grinding out the old corroded lip. At least in the corners you can get behind the roof panel and do a little bit of pushing. Also, the corners tend to hold their shape when welding compared with flap pieces. Fingers crossed.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.
Repairing this corner of the passenger side rear quarter has proven tricky. It took hours just to get this patch to fit and align properly.
It welded in nicely but where it joins the spot welded seams I don't have a tool to grind down the corner. I will need to buy a small barrel-shaped carbide head to get in there.
What Minis have you?: I owned a 1978 Mini 850 when I was in my late teens. I owned a 1986 Mini Chelsea that I imported from the UK. Also owned a 1982 MG Metro that was bored out to 1293. Restoring a 1981 Dublin Mini City.