I got a few incidents...chucked a replacement gearbox and LSD diff into my P76 took it for a test drive and it started to whine a bit, then a bit more and so on until I got home. Sill me I forgot to check if their was oil in either unit although once they were topped up they were ok, luckily.
another mini engine I had blew 8 head gaskets with in 12 months, POS . Ended up giving up on that engine, it's sitting in the back of the shed now.
After I upgraded to adj lower control arms I was going down a windy hill and as I turned one of the corners the car decided to suddenly turn even further shooting me into the other lane of traffic, a good 2 meters to the right. moral of the story, make sure everything is tight.
Also had a throttle return spring snap at 80kph as I was coming up to a round-a-bout, the carby naturally wanted to go fully open, lucky it was only a 998cc so the slow acceleration gave me enough time to find neutral and shut the engine down before the sharp cornering was required. I tell ya suddenly accelerating at full throttle when you were planing on slowing down quickly is quite scary.

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

When I decided to venture out into racing in the early nineties I had to build my own engines not having much cash. Car wasn't a mini and I didn't have a garage, so everything was done on the roadside in the lovely UK weather.

The first engine that was in the car melted a piston as it had flat top pistons and they should have been slightly dished. So I rebuilt it 'correctly'. Rebored, new pistons, new rings, high lift cam and fully balanced. I decided I was going to run it in before hammering it on the circuits. As it was a race series for road cars I was going to go for a long drive. 10 miles down the road, clank, clank, clank. Got a tow home and stripped the engine outside the house. Head off, no issues. Timing cover off and the timing chain sprocket had worked itself loose. New cam in as the locating dowel hole had elongated on the old one and this time I torqued down the bolt and folded up the lock tab!! I also added an oil cooler I had sitting on the shelf. Off I toddled to Snetterton. 3 laps into qualifying and clank, clank, clank again. Took the timing cover off but no problems this time. Tried to drive it but big ends had gone. 8 hour tow home and engine out on the roadside again. Rebuilt it after having the crank checked with new big end shells. Sweet. Nice nippy road car. Drove to Pembrey. 3 laps of qualifying and clank, clank, clank again. WTF! 4 hour tow home, engine out. Big ends again. OK, this was getting silly. Maybe it's metal swarf from previous failures but I had cleaned everything meticulously. I'll double check the oil cooler. Hot soapy water in one opening...didn't come out the other!!! So the last build with brand new crank, new rods, new shells, fully balanced, worked head and bigger valves. Lovely. Drove to Brands Hatch GP circuit and qualified 12 out of 24 in the wet. Spun on the first lap but still finished about 16. On the M25 something happened and threw the propshaft out of balance but as I was getting onto the M4 it must have come unstuck and I cruised for most of the journey home at 110mph passing all those cars in the loser lanes. Until clank, clank, clank BANG. Tow guy showed me a trail of oil up the hard shoulder. Big end through the block. 4 hour tow home.

Funny enough I haven't touched an engine since and probably never will.

Ahh, I have a few stories to tell with my current mini. I bought it when I was 19 (I'm 23 now), and although the bodywork wasn't great, it had a good and pretty comprehensive service history, with all the documents to prove it. Apart from a bit of a grind into 2nd gear, it seemed pretty good.

1st thing to go was the reconditioned alternator (sold by the garage it was serviced at) - the brushes had worn all the way down. On a reco alternator in the last 3 years?

2nd was the brakes, which I think was just an old car thing. It had to happen sometime.

3rd time is where everything opened up. The gearbox started making a huge amount of noise, which turned out to be the double row bearing in the gearbox. Decided to do the whole lot myself. While taking ball joints apart, I bent back the locktabs and found that I could turn them by hand. The mechanic hadn't had enough shims and had wound them in to about the right level, then used the locktab to hold them in place. Then I took out the clutch, and found that they had not machined the three legs on the backing plate, so the spring wasn't flat. Machined that by myself too, with an angle grinder and some wet n dry paper. Worked a treat. And while looking at the electrics with the engine out, I found that two of the inline fuses had blown, so someone had just twisted the two sides together to fix it.

So that's all I've found so far. Seems I can do ball joints, the clutch and the electrics better than the local mechanic. He's gone out of business now (surprise surprise) but I'm expecting his ghost will remerge in my mini at some later stage.

I had to replace the first engine in my car because it had almost no compression whatsoever, and had equal amounts of smoke coming out the engine breathers as the exhaust pipe.

Second engine was a nice rebuilt 1098. Engine builder hadn't set the drop gear clearance right, eventually it took out the clutch cover and gearbox reasonably catastrophically. Changed the gearbox and got another year out of it before it blew a head gasket, split the sleeves in the block and rubbished the cylinder head.

Third engine was a 1098 that was rescued from somebody's back shed. Only ran on three cylinders. Eventually I changed the cylinder head but then it started using more oil than I could pour in to it. Eventually cylinders 2 & 3 started to fill up with water, so that you had to take out the spark plugs and evacuate all the water before you could start it and it would overheat at any opportunity.

Fourth engine was a 998 from my back shed, started it up on the garage floor and it ran so I put it in the car. Used 500ml of oil every day which was a bit annoying, and blew a head gasket.

'Fifth' engine was actually the third engine with a quick and dirty rebuild. Went like stink for a few thousand kms before it started to fill up with water again. I got a bit impatient once when it was hydraulically locked. Not sure where all the water went but it started with an almighty bang and never quite worked properly after that.

Engine number six is a properly built 1360 and is totally awesome.

Anto I'ld hate to laugh at someone else's misfortune but that was funny.

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But he's thriving and striving and hugging the turns.

Did I ever tell you about that time I accidently wired my fuel pump up to the stereo? Or the time I couldn't figure out why the rocker gear was loose, only to realise I'd left the pushrods out? Hell, I once managed to get an engine jammed in the engine bay such that I couldn't get it in, and I couldn't get it out either....

Stop it, I just snorted.

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But he's thriving and striving and hugging the turns.

Haha, I think this should turn into an ongoing thread like 'what did you do on your mini today'. Would be good.

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Well if that's the case: Something on my back left suspension is now making a clunking noise, after fixing some height issues. Nothing's ever that easy, is it?

One cold winter's nite in Canberra I was replacing the Cooper's SU fuel pump.

Forgetting the fuel tank was full, pulling the inlet hose off the pump resulted in ice cold petrol pouring onto a red hot lead-light bulb, shattering it instantly.

How I survived that I'll never know. Nearly made me start going to church on Sundays.

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.

Ooooooooh,,, you are a lucky boy

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

Speaking of lucky...

One evening driving home from Uni, I pulled into a service lane to make a left turn and the engine and lights died.

Then came back, then died again.

Slipped it out of gear and coasted to a halt, thinking maybe the negative lead had come off the battery again as it was only a push fit because I was forever pulling the battery out to charge it.

So hopped out of the car, around the back and opened the boot to find my 5L steel jerry can, lying punctured across the battery terminals, fuel everywhere going bzzzt, zapp, BZZT!!

I immediately took two steps back thinking "oh fsck, what am I going to do here!?" and thankfully didn't take very long before reaching in and swatting it off the battery. I figure if I'd left it very much longer the air-fuel ratio in the boot would have increased far enough to support combustion, and then BOOM!

So yeah, lucky. That's the first time my Mini tried to kill me...

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Simon

The adventures of an owner builder in the Tallarook Ranges

Now that is funny...



I worked with a woman who only lived up the road from work but it took her ages to drive there as every time she turned left, the engine cut out. She didn't have the money to have it looked at so just put up with it.

No doubt you went off & bought a pile of scratchies!

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1967 Cooper S - new front bearings to do.
1965 Cooper S shell - Slow progress. No time or money!
1966 Deluxe- next rustoration!
Mk 2 & XJ6 Jags. Less said the better.

yeah lucky alright...

i don`t know how many times i`ve seen the tin-jerry-can just tumbling about inside the boot of a mini... i couldn`t count them,,, & every time i open a customers mini boot lid i`m just waiting for the flames

what are people thinking with that??? did they not go to school & learn anything?,,, did they just think that maybe if they insured their mini then it`ll be fine or something???

brain-dead!!!!!!!!!

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twice i`ve had my wheel nuts come loose

once when Me & Marly were to go to Lismore (from brisbane) to pick up a whole pile of old main-frame computers for my dad,,, we had the boys at the mini shop go over my mini van , service it etc & then took off .

we got to Lismore, loaded all the computers in & ontop of the mini van in the full length roof racks (yep, lots of VERY HEAVY old mainframe computers) ,,, heaps of them,,, REAL heavy too,,, then about 10mins up the road, (we just got out of Lismore) & the left front wheel started coming off, had that god-awful sick-in-the-gut feeling of the left wheel coming off at hi-speed on the hi-way.... it`s not the best feeling in the world i can tell you.

slowly , very slowly & gently let it career to the side of the road, gently, ever so gently applying the softest of brake pressure to help slow it all down,,, trying to make sure no panic or hard braking as that would surely just shear/brake any wheel stud left hanging on for grim-death... stopped just before the massive drop-off (cliff) into a big ravine about 100 feet down.

walked back & found one of the 3x nuts missing, the last nut was hanging on by 3 threads,, pinched a nut from each of the other wheel to get me home.

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another time was at Grafton hillclimb,,, we raced all day sunday in the green "S" & i was swapping over the hoosier-daddy tyres for the roadys when Stephen Hoad came over & started chatting, so while i had a gabba with hoady & his dad, Stew took over the job of swapping the wheels over... well i think he also got a bit side tracked & didn`t quite tighten the wheel nuts properly .... as i was leaving the place , Archie was in the passengers seat, stew & his girl were in his van behind us, we pulled onto the summerland way & started punching it hard up the hi-way,,, then suddenly i felt the same old wheel wobble & knocking,,, feeling sick in the tummy once again so i just gently pulled over,,, & we stopped just as the wheel fell off.

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so,,, just a little lesson for you all here... number(1) please remember not to get distracted whilst in the process of changing wheels... make sure you`ve tightened them all properly to 42lbs/ft

Number (2) if/when you feel the wheel nuts may be coming off,,, please be very gentle on the brakes,,, if you think the wheel nuts are coming off then never hit the brakes hard thinking you should stop suddenly,,, you could break the wheel off & cause even more damage or pain or both.

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there`s some great stories in this thread guys & gals,,, keep them coming--> there`s lessons to be learnt & lives could be saved from the stories in this thread

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.