This will be my first foray into a full restore. But I have some questions first. Anyone here stripped their Mini to the shell, de-rustified it and had it repainted? How much did you pay for the repaint? It seems so easy to strip the car, i've done interior restores, and some engine work, but nothing like this. Any ideas?

 

I've done three Minis. Give yourself a budget of both time and money. Now multiply that number by three then double it and that should give you about half of what you will need! As far as the paint goes, it depends on how much prep you do yourself and how good the sprayer is. I spent $600 to have one shell painted and $3,500 for the other. The $600 job was a lot nicer because I spent the time to do the prep myself and I did it correctly. But some body shops won't touch anything that you prep yourself. I would go to http://www.minimania.com/msgthreads.cfm and www.moalachat.com to get more advice.

 

I just received all my parts for doing the full body restore I'll post some pictures later today when I organize it all. So far I have spent about 1.5k on panels and a new rear subframe.

 

how far was the extent of "doing the prep yourself". Did you get it down to the bare metal? and had the shop prime and paint? If so, what solvents/methods did you use to strip the paint clean off?

motoring_mini: hopefully I won't need any new panels, i guess we'll find out, it's not a rust bucket though so that's good...

 

If you're just cleaning off minor rust just use a rust eater. Any kind of spray or gel that turns the rust into primer and just sand it off and prime it with regular primer. There is no need to take the whole car down to bare metal if you only have minor patches.

 

I am in the process of restoring an old 66 Cooper S. I found a guy local that does soda blasting. I am going to take it down to bare metal and then do most of the prep myself. I have been quoted 1500-2500 for minor prep and paint.