Our purple mini that is used as a daily drive needs some serious attention now. Postponed it already for a few years but now foglight fell of it was a sign that something really needs to be done.
I bought this mini for my girlfriend as a surprise (she is driving mini’s since she met me). She was driving an 1000cc while she was used to drive a 1275cc tuned cooper, and she start to complain about the lack of power of her mini. When i stumbled at this 1275 injection mini in her favourite color purple and the price was very good, i bought it.
Now already 4 years later it is time to do some panel work. Starting with the rear and finishing at the front which will be replaced completely.
It looks better on the pictures then in real 🙂
Removed the bumper
And also removed the boot lid and the right taillight and scraped some loose paint / rust to reveal serious problems.
Replacing only the lower valance will not be enough.
 
    
Removed a piece of the lower panel and it revealed some extra attention.
A nice hole that was blocked from the human eye by the fuel tank.
Surgeon lines…
And also removed some bottom plate.
And a little bit more removed and cleaned, ready for creating a panel.
But i am out of sheet metal, let’s see what else i can use…
This will do 🙂
After carefully removing the upper part of metal it is clear to me that everything needs to be replaced.
So a new piece of custom made bottom is here.
Same story for the other side.
A new piece in place.
And the curve looks nice.
Mounting the lower clearance to be sure it will fit okay later on.
First i replace the boot hinge section so all dimensions stay correct.
Both corners are welded.
Lower clearance ready to be welded
All the seams and exposed metal i treated with Owatrol for protection and rust treatment.
A little bit of bondo to smooth things out
Applying sealer to all the gaps and risk full places.
Spraying Epoxy primer and then followed by color.
end result not bad at all.
Because winter with salty roads is coming the old classic needed to get off the road and this on is put on the road. After the winter it will be continued…