Drilling out and welding in

With no set goal for the day I started by removing the last removable panel, the nearside A panel and water bottle behind it, a simple job while I waited to see if any goodies would turn up in the post.

While I waited for the post to come I set about turning the compressor on and getting the air chisel ready to remove the spot welds I no longer need, I have always removed the welds on past cars with a chisel and hammer though this does pull the body work. I have also drilled them out with a typical metal drill with a 118° tip though this goes through each panel and leaves a hole to fill.
Eventually my post turned up and there was 2 6mm spot weld drill bits, I have never used them or even seen them so I was quite excited, I placed the drill in the chuck and began to drill a hole, all I can say is wow! the time to remove the spot weld was hugely reduced to other methods and it left very little marking.

Before


After


In no time I had drilled out the rear seat supports, they are not needed as the car will only be a 2 seater. This helped reduce a little more weight from the car too, I then set about removing the seat clips and body parts that are not required. I love the spot weld remove tool!

With the spot welds removed and almost everything else in the car I decided that it was time to start to structurally support the car ready for the next part of the project. I set about with the angle grinder and the 25*25*3 box section supplied by the metal supermarket (excellent supplier).

I set about measuring the box section and placing it into the car using magnets, once I was happy with the position I put a quick weld there to hold it, real problem with welding the box to the car is the wall thickness of the box being 3mm and the car being 0.90mm making the heat concentrate want to blow holes in the car, I am happy to say there was only a couple of holes in the whole car which I will refill later.









I would like to say there was more but this took quite a while as I wasn't really in the mood to do any welding... There is still quite a bit of frame to be installed ~ this is not any sort of roll cage! this is only a temporary solution to help me progress with the project.

A little empty

The plan was to remove the wire and strip the car down to have just a front and rear rolling shell and I am happy to show the progress. Have to say the weather has been excellent over the past few months! Probably going to rain from here on...

First part I wanted to remove was the S side skirts, to me they made the car look not as stripped down as I really require for the body and paint work. I carefully undid the several securing plastic screws from under the skirts and I was then able to quite easily pull the skirts off, only issue was a little screw joining the skirt to the rear arch so I removed them together.


With the side skirts off I move my attention to removing the whole wiring loom, most of the wires where already sitting in the passengers foot well so that part was easy, however some wires ran through the bulk head and to remove them meant the brake master cylinder had to come out as did the ABS pump. They where all easy parts to remove and caused no real effort.

The whole wiring loom


Empty blue with no wires


Brake master cylinder and ABS pump out

With the wires out I started looking for some more things to remove, problem being that there really isn't much left on the car so I am removing the last few parts before the sheet metal work can commence.
I decided it was time to remove the bonnet hinges, which I think has to be one of the most simple jobs and it only took a small amount of time. I also removed the drivers A panel and the scuttle panel. From some angles the mini looks like a metro...

Lots of pictures of the progress, I didn't get huge amounts done or it wouldn't seam it.I did actually remove the whole running gear and sub frame. Next time I will be removing the exhaust and maybe the fuel tank and brake lines etc.











Hope you enjoyed this post.

Rolling shell

Another weekend and another step forward, the plan for today is to remove the rest of the interior and turn the car into a rolling shell.

I set about removing the boot as this was the last attached part on the car. This is one of those difficult to do jobs on your own, the hatch has to be open which when you remove the last bolt means that you have to drop what tools your holding and quickly grab the hatch as it falls. I was lucky to have Wayne around to give me a hand, still a bit of a juggling act.


With the boot hatch removed I set about removing anything that was bolted to the inside of the car, this meant basically every earth point, seat belts, all plastics above the belt line. This was a nice easy job, with my impact gun in one hand and a 10mm socket / 13mm attachment everything is quickly removed.
With most of the plastics removed I was able to remove the roof lining, since Rich and Dave chopped through it removing the glass removing the panel meant simply folding it in half and dragging it through the boot.


With the lining out I could set about removing the side air bags, this is simply 10 bolts and a electrical connection. I still do not like moving air bags and the side impact air bag is like a huge snake so I tried to be as careful as possible removing it and all was good.

Next the mag alloy dash section need to be removed. I have been talking with the designers of this part about the possibility of removing this to be replaced with a steel frame but have been advised that the weight of steel is a lot more than the mag alloy and the alloy takes a lot of body twist from the car, though I am OK to remove it to continue with the project. The dash section was quickly removed using the impact gun. The section also supports the steering which now means the steering is quite limited.
With the dash support out I was able to remove the auto AC, this could have gone a little better as it sounded like it snapped in half when I tried to remove it, more investigation to this is required as it could now be scrap.




Next on my to do list was the wiring from the rear quarter of the car. A nice simple and easy job, just unplug bits and remove them, I actually had the best time of the day removing the wires, a very satisfying job and it really made a huge difference to the car. Now I am left with a huge pile of wires! Who would have thought a car would need so many wires...


With the electrics out of the rear I set about removing the sun roof or maybe trying to get into hospital. I removed all the bolts which seamed to hold the full length sun roof in, once they where all in, nothing the roof didn't move, I tried pulling it and it only moved a little so sitting in the middle of the car I turned over to crawl out the boot of the car when the roof decided it was going to release its self. It landed on my back which managed to break its fall ensuring all the glass was safe, as I sit here typing this I can still feel where it landed. Best part is its out.


Last part of the day which left the biggest result was the removal of the carpet, this simply lifted out to reveal a 6v battery and a silver box, looks like the car was once fitted with a tracker, interest got the better of me so I un-soldered the wires and took it out for further investigation on what the internals are like, I think its just a phone and GPS system?

Finally some finishing shots for the week. Hope you enjoyed it.