Hands down, my fave build thread. Long been a fan over at minitorque & m/u!

 

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the kind words. I am in the middle of moving house at the moment so I have not been able to work on the car

However in 2 weeks I go in for an operation on my spine, which I am not looking forward too

The mini is being collected by a friend of mine who is going to finish off the work while I am recovering so for the start of 2014 I will be blasting about in it

 

Best of luck, Rich. Hope the surgery & recovery will be a breeze.....of course, the MINI, too!

 

Good luck with the move and especially the surgery.
Glad you have a friend to carry on with this amazing project.
Hate to see it stop after all the work you've done.

 

Best of luck with the move, and especially the surgery.

And thank you again for sharing this awesome project.

 

Any updates? how was your surgery?

 

Thank you for asking. I have a small update.

Good news the operation went well and I am a little ahead of the recovery schedule, I am now able to walk normal, drive again and wow being drug free and out of pain makes me feel so much more alert and I have a lot more energy

I still need to take the time to fully recover so I will only be performing small jobs however the guy who has my car is cracking on with it, even if this does mean I am having jobs redone

As soon as the car was dropped off we started to talk about the roof and a small amount of damage which had happened while in my garage when a section of concrete landed on it, so he is fixing the damage and re-painting the roof. Then he will be painting all the missing bits on the car and looking at a few other things for me. I will visit him every week now with a new list of jobs which need to be done. He is one of the only guys I have seen take so much care of the car and I am pleased he is on it now.



All the windows should be arriving over the next couple of weeks and we can then get the windscreen in too. I am supposed to be fit and able - fully recovered by January 2014 and I want to drive this like I stole it and have some fun with mini events and catching up at the shows.

 

Moved into the new house and we are planning the new garage so will have to put up with the small unit here until this happens (2015)

I am glad to say my friend who is doing the work is a pro with this sort of thing and has got the roof to the best it has ever been.

~ First primer


~ Second primer ready for paint


I have also handed everything over that I wanted painting so that it is all done as I have had enough of body work on the car and now there are many things I would do differently knowing how much trouble body shops can

 

Looks good. Glad you are getting to feeling better.

 

Today brings another photo from the body shop of some of the other goodies being done

 

Oh my... More updates and I do not think I will be able to show my face in the body shop - that is a lot of stupid small components

 

Next week will be the final week on this bumper and then its all good, already looking stunning and soon to be awesome. Really glad I made this bumper

Peekaboo

 

Awesome job.. I totally dig the bumper.. Time well spent..

 

I am really happy with this update as it looks like I can say the bumper has happened, after a lot of work and then some the bumper is now in paint, texture arch paint going on Friday and then it will be on the car in all its glory. In the end we needed to do more work to the arches because after the bumper came out the mould the moulders left it on its front and the bumper sagged as it was taken out too soon. Now though it looks better. We had to blend a set of rear arches into the front bumper to give the perfect shape...

Had some more work done to the rear bumper because I want a little mad with the air saw :( all fixed now

 

Looking good Rich...

 

With another week down the car is a lot closer now to being how I always thought it would be. For the first time the bumper I made is in paint and I am pleased with the outcome and I am really looking forward to the bumper with all the fittings in it. Should be less than a few weeks now till all the bodywork it done and put back together

 

Still loving every update. Keep them coming.

 

Looking good!!

 

Good news, the car is coming home next weekend, I have set up a space to work on the car and have now planned the collection of the little feller.

This is the last bunch of photos from the paint shop, still need to just match the bumper arches with the arches but I will do that in my own time as I have the correct trim paint. Over the next week it will be mopped for the last time and cleaned up ready for its trip home. Then I will set to it sorting all the bits I need to get done and all the aluminium bits made as I have time.

I am really looking forward to winding down the coilovers so its back down to earth but that will happen soon enough.

Photos of it for the last time at the body shop for hopefully a long time now









Big thanks to Bodytech in Solihull and Adam at Eastcote customs in Solihull for all the hard work, help, and time they have given to help me with this project

 

Cowl scoops are sweet looking! I'm waiting for more.

 

It is so close! I want to see it finished so bad!

 

I am truly amazed by this project!! Can't wait to see the end results.

 

Just finished reading this thread from start to your last update. WOW!
Very impressive build. And thanks for sticking with it through surgery!

I can't wait to see this finished.

 

You MINI will be amazing !

 

I have been working quite hard on the car recently and now its really moved on a lot so much so it looks like it will be finished quite soon. I have decided to hold back on the posts for a while but here is a major update.

My windows have all turned up, they are all marked up with the correct ece 43r marking required to make them road legal, shockingly they cost the same as the car did 4 years ago. However windows can now be fitted and this will make a massive leap forward