I Only Wanted The Wheels.... by 72clubman

4 minute(s) of a 153 minute read

Good news everyone! 

My insurance company agreed with my counter offer and have offered me a nice cash in lieu settlement which I should be receiving shortly. Now to begin collecting parts. I've already bought a complete original sidelight so thats a hard one off the list, thank you ebay! Next is to place a whopping great order for some lovely heritage panels. I skipped a few corners on this car (bodywork wise) so everything will be rectified at this point. If I'm going to have to fork out for paint the metal underneath is going to be perfect! The mechanicals are still perfect as I only redid them last year! Might swap the cones over though, the rears a bit too low for my liking.

I did contemplate just paying someone to do it, and although there's some amazing people out there, there's also some shocking ones. If you want something doing properly, do it yourself. (if you're capable this is) Case in hand, I fully accept that I can't paint, so this will be done by a trusted friend. 

Sadly I'm really stuck for time at the moment so it may take a while for me to get around to it, the results should be worth it though. 

I'm glad you enjoyed reading, as I've said before and as the title suggests I never intended on keeping it!! But I've really grown rather attached to the little bugger. 

Well what do you know, I keep forgetting that because of these threads my cars all over the internet! The Goodyears actually came on a set of wheels. I bought them as part of a job lot of wheels last year so purely by chance. It looked like they'd been on those wheels for some time. There was rumor of them being reproduced a few years back but nothing came of it I believe. 

I pulled them off once they decided to eat my front wing, that and they rubbed the rears as the slightest sign of any weight over the rear!

I still have them in my garage though.....

Ahh my GT knowledge. Everything I've learned has been over the past few years, a lot of internet research, through books, going through original brochures, (this is a massive help).  Also looking at the cars in the flesh is really helpful, just take what people say is original with a pinch of salt. A lot of what I know came from my dad, he's really into his mini's, especially GT's and Coopers,  he's also been around them for a long long time. I'm actually still quite young, my GT being 14 years older than I am, so I can't claim from experience yet. I think I've built up quite a wide array of GT knowledge, got a little obsessed really! 

If you don't fancy trying to source the brochures this website is brilliant, especially if you want to get into the real details of it. 

http://www.delius.pw...5gt/default.htm

Another goldmine of information is the mini cooper register forum, the 1275 GT section has some really good information if you go back through it. It used to have some serious traffic and was very active, but due to virus scares and being down for a number of months it's really quieted down.

(I have a thread on there too)

http://forum.minicoo...-gt/-1275-gt-aa

for example here's a really good list of the original colour charts for each year.

http://forum.minicoo...70-s-bl-colours

A book I got a lot of information on the racing history of GT's was this one. 

http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/0947981403

I hope this helps you get a grasp on it, and please ask any more questions if you think of any.

A full and comprehensive rebuild will be posted about on here as soon as I get around to it!