Cornell Finch

Bored With The Mini

Over at the Portsmouth and Southampton Mini Owners’ Club Forum there is a thread running on “What are you doing with your Mini?”

Just recently I have got bored with the look and the perfomance of my Mini Cooper. I posted what I want to do to him. The list went:

1. Centre console out.
2. Purple interior might go.
3. Buckets and harnesses.
4. 10″ wheel conversion.
5. Engine maintenance to locate an oil leak. Might end up with an engine rebuild.
6. Engine mods for better performance.
7. Sort the passenger door which need adjusted to fit properly as it hasn’t since the respray.
8. Stickers off the side windows and replace the rubbers.
9. New rear subframe
10. Weld the boot floor – it has rust hole (long) just inside the boot lip.
11. Change the spots and headlights (maybe crystal)
12. Upgrade all the ICE (except the head unit).
12a. Might change the dashboard.
14. Change the wheel arches for either Gp2 or WP arches.

Having just looked back through the list, there’s a hell of a lot of work there that’s gonna cost some real money. The 10″ wheel conversion for example (I already have 10″ wheels) will cost around £300 alone!

Seats are around £200 unless I can get some second hand items that are a) the right colour and b) I fit.

Most important items are to find the oil leak in the engine, weld the boot hole and change the rear subframe. Really scary jobs all of them. The oil leak might just end up with an engine rebuild. It’s got 80,000+ miles on and is blowing a bit of blue smoke when first started.

Hmmm…