So I thought id post an update of whats been going on with the mini the past few months.
Heres a picture before:
I decided it was time for 10 inch wheels which also meant new arches, new arches meant welding up the old arch holes, welding up the old arch holes meant repainting most the car… you get the idea.
There were also a few paintwork issues on the frontend that needed sorting out as well as a small amount of rust on the bumper lip so that was replaced, oh and a door skin required..
Started stripping things off, couldn’t go too mad as I had to drive it to my dads unit.
Paint blister on the rear quarter
The front panel mess. More on that later.
The mess under the giant blister on the front panel. It looks like when fitting the grille I managed to crack the paint, a few years later water has got in a few places and 2 layers of primer had separated. Luckily the rust was just surface rust.
Old bumper lip removed, sand blasted underneath and new lip fitted.
Old dead door skin
Rest of the front panel cleaned up
Arch holes welded up (new arch holes in pic), side repeaters removed, all primered up.
Same story at the back.
About to get painted.
Painted and home
Reassembly
Done
Unfortunately I don’t have any pics of just how much work the arches took. They started out life like this:
And had the outer lips removed, but they fit like crap so had lots of modification on the inside edge, which left the screw recesses paper thin so they had to be reinforced with more fibreglass. Probably 1-2 weeks work all in all.