Hey all,
Never found a buyer for the '66 S, but had a fellow here in Seattle who has the time and money for the project, and he offered his '91 spec '76 (wink wink) in trade for the '66. Here's a photo of the new one in it's former and current lives:
Oops, sorry, that was a photo of me with Rush in 2008 at Red Rocks (next to Geddy).
Here we go (any clues what racing circuit this would have been from?):
And how it is now:
As much as it pained me to let go of the S, for the time being it was a good compromise on both sides--I got a nice running car with seatbelts for the kids, and he got the classic project. I'm glad to be close to him so that I can see the car come to life. I do plan to find another S down the road, and will be looking specifically for one from Australia. You have all been awesome and the worst part of the deal is that I don't know if my UK mini is welcome here, ha ha! I have sent the new owner to this site, and you may see him. His name is Mark, and he's from Newcastle, Washington.
I have a couple of bonehead questions regarding the mk3, if UK minis are allowed to be discussed on this forum. First off, the steering column has a lowering bracket on it, and so the steering wheel covers the top half of the gauges. I removed the bracket, but the steering shaft/column is rigid and doesn't easily move up to the original mounting point. Is there an easy trick to loosening this to allow it to go back upwards? Second, the front seam covers (a-post down to a-panel, etc.) are loose, and I'm wondering what is a good way to secure them in place so they don't get lost on the road. Finally, the gauges were replaced during the rebuild, and they are not matched to the final drive (the speedo reads about 10% over). Is there an article on how to determine your final drive ratio, and then to change gears in the speedo/odo to match? The car is zippy, but doesn't have the punch in the low end that the S had, and I wonder if I might kill two birds with one stone by doing a higher final drive, etc.
Have any of you put the BMW mini supercharger on the classic mini?
All the best and talk soon.
Ben McCafferty