Hey all,

I need a little advice/encouragement/whatever

I currently have 3 minis. 66 Morris Mini Minor Deluxe (resto project) 68 Morris Mini Minor (complete donor) & my 68 Morris Mini Minor with 1275.

In all, there are 3 cars. 1 in full need of resto, but the body is perfect and was rubbed back & put in primer. I have tonnes of chrome & parts for this. I am the 3rd owner. With time, this would be a brilliant mini.
My donor car, is a 2 into 1 chop, with a ding front fender. it was running, and could be restored again, or could be used for parts. (All new chrome/lights etc on this one.
My 3rd is my everyday. It has a 1275, i just had the head rebuilt, new extractors, sports exhaust, rebuilt radiator & am about to send it in to Minicraft to get the rest sorted out (things like front bearings, bushes etc). To add to the collection, I have 2 sets of mags, twin su's & heaps more...

My conundrum is, whilst I love them all, my skillset is in designing webpages & graphic design, not mechanics
My goal was to repaint the 66 & rebuild the original motor, and get it back to new again (long long term project). In the meantime, I would get my 68 running perfectly.

I am nearly fed up of the problems I am having, and the wait to book it in to get fixed. I wish i had the skills, but I have to be realistic. So what to do??? Do I take my time, be patient & learn, or do I say stuff it, and offer someone the chance to swap 1 good mini, for 3 mini's? with the amount of stuff I have, I am sure there is someone out there who could use this to better advantage.

I am fed up and want a nice mini =)
Any advice is helpful (apart from telling me to shut my piehole )

_________________
74 Mini Leyland - 1275

don't lose hope!

i think your best bet will be to keep them all, get some books together and consider minis as a hobby, instead of an attempt to have some cars you can drive. think of that as an excellent by product

if you can get your mitts on a few good books (read: technical manuals) and just fiddle, and if you only do it when you ahve some spare time im sure you will enjoy it far more than what you seem to be now!

_________________
78 Leyland Mini - Prince

Cheers mate,

yeah, i am losing hope a bit, and you're right, i have to treat it as a hobby until I have the skills. My current problem is, no workshop, or even shed

I have 3 manuals:
Scientific Publications Workshop manual for Mini,
The Morris mini-Minor Workshop manual (BMC)
and
Haynes Restoration manual
Well, I used it just then to track down why it wasn't starting (Dirty carb, so cleaned, now runs beautiful).

I guess I just need to take my time. Thanks again, you sometimes need a spirit boost, and to be reminded to see the bigger picture

_________________
74 Mini Leyland - 1275

haha no such thing as a donor mini anymore, they all need restoring

i am struggling with my lot, but i have a new shed coming, and it will make things infinitely easier

Stick with them mate use the manuals as bedtime reading and start with the easy stuff first it will all eventually make sense after a while. I did a resto in the same kind of way worked on bikes for years and had never been into the guts of a car before as id never owned one. bought a very tired old 66 van restored that, a mate ended up getting me to do his 63 850 for him? now iv got a 69k sedan and a 69k van which is a tea bag both to rebuild. There a great hobby and theres no better feeling than putting blood, sweat, tears and a shed load of cash into something that people stop and look at. Stick with it mate

I feel like i am reading a post from myself. I am exactly in the same bath as you. I am in television not mechanics. I also have the same book as you have and dont understand a lot of what they say. I spend the last year and a half fixing the body on my mini and i am still going. Like you i feel sometome vey down about the hole mini thing, and think that i should just go and buy a good running one. As my wife say even if it's running now it will brake down, it a very old car. And you will face the same problem. Take your time, learn and most importantly, build your mini yourself. You will get a lot of satisfaction. I am very often asking stupid question here and always find someone to help me, or point me in the right direction. Do whatever you can nad what you cant do, have it done.

I dont have a shed to work in but i brought myself a carport from supercheap, it's not warm but it's dry and it let me work anytime i feel for it. As i am learning restorimg a mini is a long and hard road, keep a vision of the finich product to keep you motivated.

Dont get rid of any of your mini, mayby one so you can have money to do one or two proprely

Good luck, and lets catch up in the next couple or year with our mini finich...

Louis

_________________

Here is my 2c worth.

If you are lacking time, space, money and or skill level then I would say:-

Sell two, and just concentrate all your efforts on one mini.
Otherwise you will always have three cars that need work.

You have said all you want is a nice mini.
You didn't say you want three minis.

I guess you would have to decide if that is your daily driver you do up, or the full resto job on the 66 Deluxe.

The deluxe would be a long term project, and you would need something else as a daily driver ( I would recommend a cheap Diahatsu charade ). Running a mini as a daily driver and doing a full restoration on the deluxe at the same time would be very demanding on your resources (time, money, effort), as I'm sure you have already worked out.

Doing up the daily driver would be the easiest option for you at this point in time. You could make it a very nice mini if you wanted to, just by putting all your effort into the one car. You will have a nice mini, and it will be drivable now, not after the long wait of a full resto.

The deluxe would probably end up the nicer car, but a full resto is a huge thing to take on. How much patience have you got?

Decide which one you want to keep, then do it up to be one very nice mini.

Later on down the track you may find that you have greater resources, and perhaps the inclination to have more than one mini, or even other types of cars, but it you spread yourself too thinly now you will just end up with a heap of undrivable cars taking up your front yard.

I am speaking from experience.
I had five minis at a time when I first started playing with minis, and it was just too much to take care of. So I sold all but one, and poured all my efforts into that car.
I took it on rallies, including the Classic Challenge, took great pride in showing it off at car shows, and always joined in cruises. Great fun, and it was good to be able to have the time and money to fix anything that went wrong.

Now, later in life, I have more resources and am able to indulge myself with more than one car - but stretching myself to thinly is still a problem I have to watch.

Cheers,
Ray.

_________________
68 Morris Minimatic - Blue/White


29 Chev tourer
31 A Coupe
63 Anglia
63 VW Beetle
69 VW Beetle convertible
89 Daihatsu Charade
03 Mitsubishi Mirage
07 Nissan Micra

wow. what good advice! mate, always listen to the guy with experience.

i had to say wow. i have nothing further to add to this. amazing

_________________
78 Leyland Mini - Prince

I am in almost exactly the same position, I have one good project car and recently bought another for spares that is probably good enough for restoration but I have decided to be ruthless, strip the new car for spares and give the rest away. I don't have the space, time and energy for two simultaneous projects.

_________________
Noli Illegitimi Carborundum

i would probably sell all the projects and buy a nice restored mini or late model rover import mini.

I'm guilty... getting my clubbie on the road as a daily driver and restoring the van... I can see myself spending a lot of time on the clubbie and never touching the van but I know what I have coming and I don't mind... I'm a sucker for punishment.

I would keep the daily driver because how much more could go wrong with it? its almost rebuilt and should be a nice car. to drive anyway (we are going to need some pics!) Then I would build one out of the other two.

I used to be an internet programmer. also did C++, Delphi and unix admin for a while... but I decided I wanted a little more fresh air and some permanent grease stains on my knuckles. So now I'm a second year apprentice motor mechanic and I have been fitting gas to cars for 3.5 years.

you have to pass year twelve to do what you are doing now and most of the people who are motor mechanics haven't got a yr 11 pass... I believe you are a fart smella and can work it out. just don't push yourself and keep it fun

_________________

Wow,

Such awesome responses.

Thanks so much guys. Well, from looking at all your experience, I guess keeping them would be the smartest option. We also have a 96 swift, so daily driver is not problem. Basil (my 68) is my daily, but as I said, the reliability was an issue.

realistically, i would love to get just one sweet mini, but whilst I have 1 half decent, and the deluxe that is ding/rust free, would be hard to get again.

Will get some pics posted soon the in users pics section.

Thanks again guys, you really have given me inspiration to no be scared of my spanner set =)

_________________
74 Mini Leyland - 1275