Project Cliff - The Cherry Red Thirty by stretch tech

2 minute(s) of a 220 minute read

yeah about that, ermm well i missed my deadline of September  

not a great deal has been done unfortunately other than i few more bits hoarded.

this is mainly because I've had to have the car touched up at the paint shop and it's got to go back again soon... petrol tank leaked and stripped the paint down the rear quarter and now my arch/body joins have peeled a bit  

fear not, the project is still alive and well. i went to Mini fair 2 today and bought a centre arm rest (FINALLY) and seeing all the other cars has given me a kick up the rear to get going again.

I've booked a week off work soon to get the block/head machining done and I've got a few bits and bobs up by sleeve  

Bear with me guys and gals..

9-13-2015

Wow 11 months have passed on no more progress on the 1100 turbo project... it's still sat in the garage in the exact same place  

there is a reason though, i may have cheated in getting my hands on a boosted mini....

Post LCI facelift 184 bhp Cooper S clubman with a long list of options and low millage (the 1st and only other owner lived and worked local to the garage it was first sold at). iIve actually owned this since January but have been to afraid to anounce it on here  

Fear not ! Cliff still takes pride of place and i use him for work on dry days.

I have plans for the Clubby (air ride, JCW upgrade, wheels, de chrome etc) but i don't think this is the place to log it all...

In my defence, I never planned to buy anything like this, i actually wanted a cheap banger for the winter but internet browsing got out of hand okay...

Any who, back to the proper mini.

the paint round the standard rover plastic arches has been peeling and lifting for a while now but it was never bad enough to justify a respray. 

however, now the daily commute duties have been somewhat eased, i can now take the time to sort it properly.

this is the worst arch, it is annoying because if we had had the arches sprayed off the car originally then i wouldn't be in this mess.

So, i bit the bullet, run a stanley blade around all the seems (to stop peeling up the panels) and pulled them off.

I got to the bottom of the peeling though, it seems the paint we used to brush paint under the arches before fitting them never really bonded properly.

A quick pressure wash later shows the full extent of the problem - it was only supposed to be a quick flick over with a spray gun  

You can see how the black paint simply fell off but the red body paint stayed strong (mostly)

So that's pretty much where i got to today other than pulling of the sill trims and cleaning that up.

On the bright side, it's re-assuring to see that there is no signs of rust anywhere on the car, after 2 winters daily use that's not bad going !

Now comes the potentially controversial part - i'm not putting standard arches back on - i'm going with wood & pickett 2.25" arches and 93 on rubber sill trim.

i'd debated this myself for a good two weeks but i hate the standard rover special arches: brittle plastic that had starting cracking around the mounting screws; sharp edges and poor arch-body fitting, there was 10mm gaps on the front wings in places !! 

I offered up the W&P's as i was going today (no pics yet - sorry) and the smooth look as a result of fixing from underneath the arch rather than the side of the body is very nice when combined with the lush arch-body rubber seal trim things.

I'll post up some pics as i go.

One last thing, before tearing him apart, Me & dad went up to Stanford Hall in Cliff - got to be my favourite show of the year next to MITP at Santa Pod.

It's nice to look at the ever changing displays but i always carry some cash in case i spy a bargain, which i did...

Set of 5 Exacton 5x10 alloys as fitted to the 1979 20th anniversary 1100 special.

They look to have been previously refurbished in white but they are in pretty good nic and came up fairly good after a pressure wash and a bit of elbow grease.

Dryed them off and stacked 'em right next the 1098 lump, gathering dust until they are called upon for a future project (just like the 5x12 KN Jupiters i bought, they won't ever actually go on Cliff)

That's all for now folks, nice to be back.