Doing small projects on my Mini the last month or so, the one thing thats been bugging me is the grill so I started with this:




Which consisted of two layers of white paint and clear coat, and one coat of single coat red paint........which I dont know how long has been there ,and it was CAKED on there!! I went through three cans of paint stripper on it to get the outside surrounds cleaned. I had the center grille sandblasted and painted it satin black.

And the final product:





I hate photographing red cars

 

Nice job! When I saw the grill in the original pictures, I thought you'd certainly have to get a new one. It looks great black. I've always loved the contrast a black grill makes on cars.

What's next, the rear-view mirror?

Cheers,
Jeff

 

You did a nice job. The whole car cleaned up pretty good. That deseamed fender still drives me nuts though.

Maybe make yourself a light bar to mask that front sheet metal that has hit the curb one too many times. Maybe even a fake euro plate.

 

Just hammer/dolly out the dents and give it a quick respray with some rattlecan paint that's close to your body color. Or have a body supply shop match your color and make up some paint you can spray with one of those tossable Prevail sprayers.

Great job on the grill!

 

Looks good!

 

frankly ... i'd be looking real hard at those sills .... they look ruff and are structural as well as a very common rust point. they look pretty bad in these pictures ... I tend to look for the safety issues b4 the cosmetics ... I saw some rust around the jack point on my sills last year, stuck my finger in to feel around and LO, the jack point on my "rust free when sold to me" Mini fell out in my hand. Two new sills, thanks to the welding classes I took, and about 6 hours work that problem was solved but I suggest you check out safety and structural issues b4 cosmetics....

but I concur, nice job on the grill

 

Black grille looks so much better! I have to agree with Capt_bj - you may want to check out the sills. They are not expensive and you may find someone to do some bodywork and then you could just paint them black. I have some black edge trim for the wheel well and under the doors that I took off my Mini. If it can be warmed up and coiled you may be able to use it if you are interested. Its of no use to me, as I have a Chrome replacement.

 

Thanks guys for all the comments! I'm really happy how it turned out!! Next up is working on the wheels, getting them cleaned up and polished and repainting the black inside!

For the mean time the mirror can stay the way it is. I think I will eventually go with a modern mirror from a newer car.

Yeah, I'll probably clean that up in the next couple of weeks. I'm not sure what I want to do with it though. Painting it black would look kind of weird, so I'll probably get the dents out and paint it red. It'll hold me over till I get the whole car repainted!

Thanks for the offer, but I honestly dont really like the chrome strips. It looks good on certain applications, but I'm not going to go for that look

 

my suggestion about the sills is not cosmetic .....

the constuction of the Mini depends on the sills for strength.

from the pictures, yours appear to be very deteriorated .....

before I spiffed up my wheels I'd investigate the structural integrity of the car

 

Are you talking below the door?

This area?

 

oh yes ... absolutely



if the outers are bad

what's the inner look like?

what happens if both r gone?

SPLIT!

 

Capt bj has a point about the sills. Hard to tell about structural integrity though. I've seen Mini with 50% of both sides rusted away still running about w/o problem.

But, as he says you should inspect them. Best to start in the car. Look under the carpets at the inner sills, ends of the crossbrace and floor boards for rust. Inspect the outside. From the picture, your car looks like it has the original sills on it but with a full length 3" or so patch welded over it?

Good news is this is a job a novice can do. It also can be done carefully and not ruin any paint above the lower seam. All the pieces are available in the US and cheaply priced.