Back of the garage

The original one has lasted eight years and cost about £16 then. I got a similar set for Ted, the first one was faulty and the second set lasted about six months. Following recommendations on the Minor forums I got the Accuspark Stealth dizzy and ran it for about two years in the traveller and it was a big improvement on the points dizzy - will see how it goes.
 
Had a bit of a nasty experience in the Mini the other night, the brakes all but failed on our way back from a pub meal with Bernie and Heidi:eek:
When I checked the next day the brake reservoir was empty and no sign of a leak anywhere, pulled the servo vac line off and brake fluid dribbled out. The master cylinder is bolted direct to the servo on a Mini so there was only one place it could be coming from - the rear seal on the master.

Looking a bit grotty

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This was about half what came out of the servo

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Shiny new bits:cool:

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Not a bad job but some of the servo fixing bolts are a bit of a pain to get to.
 
I had a similar thing with my truck a few years ago. I couldn't understand where the fluid was disappearing to, and kept topping it up. It was filling the vacuum reservoir. When it was parked up the vacuum reservoir had all the time in the world to suck fluid past the seal. Same would be happening with your mini due to vacuum stored in the servo.
 
Yup and being sucked into the engine to be burned off, hopefully that whiff off burning from the exhaust will disappear now
 
Mine's got nothing of the sort. Single circuit drum brakes all round, no servo. No nothing, in fact. Just a crude little cutie of a Mini Morris panel van. :)
 
I needed to repair the bottom frame on Bonnies back end (oo err missus) after a rather embarrasing moment when a rotten lump of wood fell out at Martin's place:oops: So while I was at it I took the step off to have a look at the rather rusty hinges. I had to strip the step down to get them off which meant peeling the edges of the ally skin up so it could slide off

Indded they were rusty

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I managed to salvage the triangle section and welded them to some 25mm angle iron

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After a clean up and zinc primer

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Drilled, painted and assembled

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The wooden part of the step was absolutel solid so that was re-used.
While I was at it I panted all the associated bits

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And fitted with a new sheet of rubber matting

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There was always only one bracked supporting the bottom of the door frame (where the step hinges attach) to the underside of the floor, it's awkward to fit one on the other side as the gas bottle storage gets in the way - so a bit of angle bending was required to get round it.

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Replacing the bottom edge timber was straight forward as it only supports the lower panel edges, the corner uprights are fine.

Who wants to bounce on me step:)
 
My cheapo Sealey mig has become extremely temperamental :( So I dug out my ancient SIP Migmate 130 that I thought was passed it but to my surprise it sparked into life straight away but the welds were a bit porous with loads of spatter. Thinking back I remembered that it would go through gas at an alarming rate so I surmised there was a leak , nothing found around the internal pipework and solenoid so it must have been in the torch lead (and the mice had been munching on the out case). So rather than buy the same type of lead I've upgraded it to a euro plug in version with an extra metre length to it and I've got to say it's excellent (in the test pieces I've done), I've also replaced the rather weak earth clamp for one that is sure to give my hands and forearms a work out. Hopefully I'll be back welding some metal back on Ted tomorrow so we'll see how it performs in the real world.
 
When my MIG (welder not fighter!) went temperamental it was the wire feed conduit worn, and the wire was grabbing on the sides of the wear groove. Simple and cheap to put right. And yes, those pathetic earth clamps just have to be upgraded. One thing I always do now when I'm welding bodywork is to tack a metal strip right next to where I'm working so I always have a point to clamp to right there. That way there is never a danger of damage from circulating currents in the vehicle.
 
Good tip on the earth connection, I'll do that. Pretty sure it was a combination of worn wire feed tube and leaking gas tube (the regulator was freezing up and hardly anything getting to the tip) The new torch and lead has a replaceable flexible steel wire feed tube that costs about £3 to replace which is about the same as the plastic one that was in the original. The overall feel of it is now much better and higher quality, time will tell if my welding improves any:rolleyes:
 
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