I have been stuck at home for the last few months with bugger all to do. I spend alot of time in my garage tinkering away with what ever, but I also spend time on my mini as most of us do, and I've been sitting and staring at my mini and I just want to get it on the road and drive it rather than it be a large ornament in my garage! But as most of us have, I hit a hurdle. My engine needs work and due to me not working I don't have the funds so it is really frustrating me! I have as of friday just gotten my truck drivers license and will hopefully be able to get it on the road very soon. Has any one else had something so close to being finished but just cant get it there???

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Regards Kermit (TadPole)

I spent 5 years building my mini, which included getting the car painted twice, fitting the whole jap spec injection engine, and all new interior, fasteners, wheels, body repairs the lot.......got it registered in april, did 400kms and the gearbox went kaput.

Hasn't moved since.
I feel your pain.

Yeah that would suck, how come you haven't put it back on the road yet? lack of funds?

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Regards Kermit (TadPole)

Only got the engine back from being rebuilt a month ago, its nearly there, just have a few little problems to sort first.

Lack of funds was always a big player for progress on my cars build, and I'm sure we aren't the only ones.
Try not to get too stressed about your cars progress. For some, building it is just as much fun as the end result, so take your time and do stuff properly to keep it out of the workshop again once its done.

Hehe…. Story of my mini…

Bought it from WA 2008 (I’m in SA) it had a weber 32/36 (weird – so I had to change it) and not tuned properly…

Swapped the carby and had it tuned, ran great but as it had metro brakes and wide wheels that scrubbed the flares all the time… not comfy to drive (3 point turn around a roundabout)
So didn’t drive it much…

Around 2009, it started fouling plugs again and tuning went astray…

Moved house 2009 and it was off road trailered it there.

Bought heaps of parts to change (electronic dizzy, suspension, interior) to get it to being a comfortable car to drive and try and get tuning sorted again.

Having a new house, renovations and priorities change, had a baby, lack of funds etc etc, - haven’t driven it in 3 years, and everytime I open the shed to get a beer I see it sitting there looking forlornly at me… I could scrape the funds together for the tune and suspension alignment, but with a 4 month old baby, finding the time to install the suspension etc etc…

Life gets in the way sometimes of our motoring babies.. but I wanted a mini for over 10 years… so now I just wait until I have the time to really enjoy it.

It is starting to frustrate me a bit, I drive a crappy festiva bomb every day, and I’ve got a lovely mini that would make me smile to drive…

I think any owner of a classic car has a story a bit like these…

yeah i know what you mean, I'm only new to the mini world but wanted a mini since i was 14 (I'm 25 now) and im just not a patient person at all! I'm in a similar boat with what i drive as a daily, I have an old nissan pulsar that i hate driving and im the same i see the mini and just want to drive that cos i know it would make me happy. I know it will get there eventually I just want it done yesterday lol.

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Regards Kermit (TadPole)

Ahhh... the old "I just want to drive it" story.

IMHO its why you need to have two or three Minis... then you will always have at least one on the road, one broken and one to tinker with....

When I had three that's what happened.
Only got the broken one now.

lol yeah 3 would be good but the handbrake (the missus) won't let me do that at the moment. I've either gotta find a running motor, rebuild one or try getting mine to a point where it's running properly again. hopefully that will be soon!

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Regards Kermit (TadPole)

Whats wrong with the engine you have?

not sure to be honest, it could be rings, head gasket or just need a good tune. I'm just waiting on a mate to come have a look at it when he has some free time and work out what needs to be done.

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Regards Kermit (TadPole)

Having multiple cars does not help.

Something breaks on car one and so you say "I'll fix it next weekend." and you use car two.

Three weeks later you haven't fixed anything on car one due to lack of time/motivation/funds and then car two breaks. So you now have two cars to fix and you are using car three.

I currently have a Moke off the road needing a steering rack, a VW needing firewall insulation secured properly to stop it overheating (probably engine out) and as of last night, an MR2 with wierd electrical issues.

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Brett Nicholson
Greendale (near Ballan) VIC.
1971 Morris Mini Moke
1966 Austin Mini
1965 Morris Mini Traveller
1973 LR Series 3 88
2007 LR Freelander 2

yeah well there is that too. im gonna stick to one for now but will probably get another one later on. my dad and brother have mr2's and my brothers one has electrical issues aswell, id say it's a common thing?

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Regards Kermit (TadPole)

I don't know if it's common, but mine hasn't had any issues in my ownership before last night.

I went for high beam as I came off the freeway and the hazzards came on solid (not flashing), I lost all gauges and the headlights. The only way I could see was to hold the stick in the "flash" position and wierdly that made the gauges work too.

Turned everything off and fiddled with the switches and it all came back to life. Must be a problem with the indicator/dip switch.

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Brett Nicholson
Greendale (near Ballan) VIC.
1971 Morris Mini Moke
1966 Austin Mini
1965 Morris Mini Traveller
1973 LR Series 3 88
2007 LR Freelander 2

Hang on, did the gauges stop working or just not light up?
Older cars sometimes have the gauge wiring on the low beam circuit, so if the stalk is earthing then the whole lot will go.