my mini equinox
Turbo Mini Forums

I has a Mini equinox in silver, one of only 250 made in this colour (there were 750 made in 3 different colours, purple, grey and silver)

I've had the car for just under 3 years now and have slowly made it my own, when I first got it it was pretty much standard apart from the wheels (which i have now changed anyways)

This is how my car was pre january 2012 big changes have happened to it since then due to a medium sized argument with something solid... would prefer not to go into too much detail on that one though lol!



Next thing i know, the front end has been cut off ready for a brand new front end!!


New BMH panels arrive from minispares along with new wheels :)



As my grill is a mk1 grille I have to remove the lip from the new bonnet (Mk1 bonnets have the mounting brackets in a different place annoyingly.

lip on bonnet


started to remove the lip :)


more of the lip removed (fairly easy to do just drill the spot welds out :)


bonnet lip removed


unfortionately i didnt take that many pictures as i was putting the new panels on... as i was more interested in actually putting them on haha! but i shall post up the ones that i do have :)

SO heres some pics of the front end going on, mainly just pictures after id clamped it up!







few pics showing the bonnet gaps




front panel to wings allignment


after I was told that the scuttle was probably going to be the hardest part to replace... that went on nicely with a fair bit of help from my cousin! who has been helping me throughout the rebuild
i found out that the biggest pain for me was going to be the A panel gaps to the doors, spent a good few hours getting these to line up properly!









thats sadly most of the pics i managed to take while we were putting the car back toghether but here is the front end back on with the grille!


The next job was to prep the car for paint, which meant removing any rust.. which there wasnt much of anyway but one bit we did repair was around the petrol tank filler, put a small plate in here and now it looks good as new :)

now are some pictures of prepping the car for paint!
boot before


boot after i hit it with the DA 80 and 320 grits!


same procedure with the doors :)
before


after


now the doors, were another part of the car that were rotten (at the bottom) so i replaced them with the repair panel :)
before


after i have now grinded it down flat cant even tell its been done :)



rest of the car :) hit most of it with the 320 but the stripe needed an 80 to get it off :)











the pictures dont really do justtice as to quite how much work me and my cousin have put into this car, woody r5 was occationanly assisted in things such as lining up the new arches etc.

the car was now ready for primer to go on, which i used kapci coatings!

right, primer goes on :) ill let the pictures do the talking

Etch primer the bare metal bits first :)







primers on :)






next job was to flat the primer down ready for the basecaot which was going to be silver :) so i dusted the car with black paint from a rattle can so it would highlight any pinholes in the car. this was done using a 320, followed by a 500 and then were it was going to be silver wet flat using a 1000 grit the roof which is purple only got a 500!

then the roof is painted
Based up!


laquer goes on! looks a lot darker then it really is in this pic!


right folks, altough ive now done more to the car and its basically finished now i need to take the pics of my phone so ill update this when i get a chance.

Right, bit of an update here, cars now been painted and got all the bits back on the car. moved it outa the booth so we can get the doors, boot, and bonnet sprayed up too!

Have also taken the wheels back of to paint those (felt strange scotching up some brand new rims ahha)

Few pics of car after silver base coat!















so after a few coats of basecoat, it was time for the laquer to go on, we used Mipa



spraying it on :)













cars ready for things to start going back on :)





right, got the car back toghether apart from the doors, boot and bonnet and arches ofc, altough holes for arches have been drilled :) pulled car outa the booth ready for the other bits :)

Back view



Front view



and finnaly for this update... the other bits into the booth



all basically ready for primer now :)

Any thoughts welcome :)

thanks guys

Jonny

RIGHT

finally plugged my phone into the computer! ahha

so the cars been on the road since L2B now and have changed a number of things now! plus got myself a new toy

so here's the finished article (for now)












wahey made the deadline of L2B



and even made it to brighton without any hickups


head comes off


new rockers while im at it please note, i changed the rockers to the right assembly after noticing that the middle 4 were the wrong way on!


new tig welder :)


first ever bit of tig welding :)


so theres the long awaited update ppls

Edited by jonnyBMX on 24th Mar, 2013.

Nice project

Nice looking car. Looks like you have done a good job there. Wheres the turbo though?

Looks like a good solid car.

Is that a 40's chevy pickup I spy?

Like the paint and body work, looks good.. Alan

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looks good mate

Car looks great, that's your first ever go at Tig welding?

Avon 2010 class c 3rd
Avon 2011 class c 2nd 13.8 @ 98mph

I actually like that shade of silver on a mini, despite silver cars not normally being my thing

Thanks for the replys, ATM no turbo
( I'm only just getting to grips to the mechanical workings of the engines , but hopefully one day! This was the first times I've ever put my hand to anything like this apart my first car :) had it 4 years now. Yes that was the first piece of TIG welding I've ever done litrally turned the welder on dc mode and away I went. Although I am qaulified in mma and mig welding !!

Top car mate. Very nice

BHP sells engines, but Torque wins races!

thanks, currently having some issues with the idle after load is applied (i.e driving and coming to a stop) and it cutting out trying to get hold of someone with some diagnostics for a standard ECU as i dont really know how to read my typhoon ecu :(

good build, just one thing, but it maybe the pics, some of the rockers appear well of centre

^^ if you read the caption above the picture i noticed this when i put them on and changed them around to the correct layout :),

thanks for letting me know though :)

Wonderful looking car mate, are you planning in putting the purple stripes back on? They looked really neat.

Life is always a matter of opinion and quite frankly, no ones opinion really matters.

dunno tbh... i got plenty of purple left i need to get my engine woes sorted before i go and spray it again! as much as i miss the stripes i think the car looks more tidy without them.

although ive lost the obvious 10BHP from taking them off :(

Very nice :)

Stripes or not, your car still looks great.

Life is always a matter of opinion and quite frankly, no ones opinion really matters.

Stripes or not, your car still looks great.

Life is always a matter of opinion and quite frankly, no ones opinion really matters.

beeen busy this weekend, helped fix one of my m8s minis,

helped with the wiring of another,

and on my mini ive replaced the vacuum hoses and the fuel fitler

as always with new cheaply made parts (even though i brough the genuine one) the fuel filter thread was .5mm shorter then the old one and the fuel line only just about managed to get a good seal.

not to mention not a pleasant job to do!

well today was MOT day.... and guess what it passed with only a very very minor advisory that rear brake was binding (just need the adjuster screw winding out a tad)

WOOO another year of motoring