As some of you know and some of you don't, Ive had a fetish for Mini Mokes for around 20 years and in August one came up in Perth relatively cheaply that I was able to snavvle up.The reason it was cheap is because the previous owner decided against putting oil in it and the engine subsequently seized. With this in mind I decided against trying to start it when I looked at the car, just incase he was completely clueless and it wasn't seized at all. When we got it home, after some squirting and hammering, we got it started!
While it now ran, it sounded very sick and it was obvious that the lack of oil had caused terminal damage to the components. We ran a compression test and none of the cylinders were great but there was no bottom end noise which was a good sign. In the spirit of 'I cant make it any worse' I removed the head and saw that all the valves weren't seated properly and if I can tell, that's an indication of how bad they were! There was also remnants of 2 head gaskets, one of the valves was missing a piece and it generally looked like crap! haha.
This was actually a good sign because if I could get away with just doing a head rebuild, it would work out much cheaper to get back on the road. So I took the head in for surgery with the radiator cos it happened to have a little leak. After a week, got it all back, put it all together...............and.................white smoke. DOH
Drove it around for about a week and up to Minicraft for them to take a look. Still not making bottom end noise but after some tests, we confirmed the smoke was due to the rings, Oh-O. Drove it home, around the traps a little and sure enough, after about 20kms, the bottom end knock started tap tap tapping at the door.
So for the last 2 months Ive been working on the appearance and on Wednesday next week it officially goes under the knife for a full engine, gearbox rebuild. Id be lying if I said I wasn't chomping at the bit to get back behind the wheel but deep breaths and a new windows wallpaper everyday has gotten me this far. Ill post an update next week but till then, time to set another wallpaper and look on the net for more spare parts!
Thankfully, the picture above is a before shot and its undergone a ton of changes since then. Ive started a Picasa album so click here for more pics. Stay tuned for updates....hopefully all good ones!
2 comments:
Aah Mini mokes - my mate used to own one of them. We drove from where I live to Henley-On-Thames in it one summer - it was a blast. Personally, my own favorite is the classic mini... I had one as my first car, then about 3 years ago I had a red mini cooper for a while (same issue as you, needed an engine and gear box rebuild) and that was brilliant, but necessity and family means I needed a bigger car. If money was no option, I'd have another one tomorrow. *sigh*
Now its only 1 day away! aaaaaaaaaaaarrgghhhhhhhhh Anticipation Attack!!!
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