Mini Special Deluxe 1975 - 1275 Turbo conversion
Turbo Mini Forums

Oh and then in spring of 2011 a mirror, not original but fits nicely.
Mini was back on road after few years of hibernating.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

February 2012 I found engine with all the powertrain from ebay, nearby where my friend lives in UK.
Asked him if he could buy it for me. So that's what happened...
He bought it for me and on my visit to his house we packed it onto the pallet.


I organized the transportation home to me.


Once it arrived, first thing was to wash this oily lump.


Now it looks like an engine.
Off came the cylinder head, to see a bit inside, bores and valves etc.


I think this is just a nice photo...


Cleaned the block and pistons for carbon deposit to see bores.
They were in good condition, no scrathes, no major wear.


Couldn't keep myself from doing slight porting and cleaning the combustion chambers.
Cleaned and grinded the valves to get good seal.


Put the head back on with new BK450 head gasket.


It still might be that this engine is completely crap, I can't know but at this point it seems ok.
If it doesn't run well, I will overhaul it...

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Next I desided to testfit of exhaust to new engine to see how it fits with subframe.



Also it was good opportunity welding on a mounting thread for lambda sensor.


Then it was time to lift the engine off from subframe.


There was signs of oil inside the flywheel housing.


Clutch was completely worn out, replaced new 190mm clutch plate but installed original pressure plate. I thought that flywheel might go out of balance with new pressure plate. Hopefully it can cope with increased power. Any experience how much power it can take? Should I upgrade before installing the engine or is there problem with balance?


Replaced new crank seal and cleaned the housing.


That's what happened during summer 2012.

Edited by JPA on 29th Oct, 2015.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Two photos from 2012, testing my new camera.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Basically nothing happened for a year, except driving it.

Wheels and tires...
I wanted to have 10" wheels and tires.
Wanted to have good grip, so A032R it was.
Trying to fit them to the rims with bad fitment


Had to find wheels that fit a bit better, really loving the looks of old Coopers.
So thought about fitting Cooper S steelies, but did not want to make Cooper replica.
So came up with Ultralite Cooper S aluminium look-alike.


Weight of this wheel is 2,5kg/piece, so it's pretty light.

Put the tires on the wheels by using tire irons, here they are going to balancing.
Was able to put them all at the same time into my daily driver.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

September 2013 I got fed up with poor performance of the engine and powertrain.
It was shaking when going at steady speed of 60km/h on 4th gear.
It was shutting down when turning left unless going with open throttle.
It was leaking oil, feature on all minis.
Tested the engine, cylinder no.1 was missing half of the compression.
CV joints were worn, as well as bottom arm bushes.
Decided to take the engine out and got engine compartment blasted and painted.
At the time I had also planned to put the new engine with turbo in during the winter months.


Started to remove the engine.


Engine out!



Almost everything removed, put to a trailer for the front subframe removal.


After shot blasting and epoxy primer.
Putting the subframe back in to keep it as a rolling shell.




Had also a small damage when I dropped it off from the jack.
Here it is already straightened and ready for paintshop.


Patched up some holes from the right hand side panel, someone had drilled before.
Otherwise looks clean.



After this things didn't go as planned, so project was burried for a year.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

September 2014 got my minis to paintshop, it was agreed that it will be painted "in between" and it might take few months. I got it back just before christmas looking like this.





Idea was to put it back together during the winter months... well it did not go as planned.
During winter and spring refurbished only pedal box, throttle pedal and shocks.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

During the summer of 2015 made new fuel lines, painted them and put some heat shrink on them.








Painted the engine BMC green, what else.



Painted the new steering rack, replaced white zip ties with proper metal clips.


Test fitted front subframe to the car September 2015.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

That's very tidy! Especially the fuel lines, wish mine were that neat.

Heat shrink must of been a fiddly job? N good idea with mudflap

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Here is the last update from the project history, next update will be from current situation.
Before bolting on the new subframe, body needed some surface rust removal.
When body was welded years ago front subframe was not off of the body, so removing the subframe revealed some surface rust on the body.
Here is the starting point after removing the rust proofing around it.


And here after some grinding.



Noticed that there is some pitting and need to remove rest of the rust with wire brush and blasting.
So that is what i'm going to do within next few days.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Those fuel lines are very neat, I hate microbore! It's a nightmare 90% of the time haha.

They don't die, they just get faster!

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

So, today I dragged myself from work to the shed to take out the rest of the rust.
First tried with rotating wire brush, still left some rust on.



Then used angle grinder, however did not want to remove too much metal, so was taking it easy.


Then did some blasting... from which I didn't take any photo.
Then some etch primer on it.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Some progress... but only some.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Too long time since last update.

Got something done in last few days...
Crappy stuff starts to be behind now.

Broke the surface of old underbody wax with manual steel brush.


Sprayed in the oily stuff Dinitrol ML to soften up the old underbody, let it soak in for one day.
Then wiped excess out with rag.



After that new underbody wax Dinitrol 4941

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Have been working on it few times but have not been updating here.

So here it comes.

Cleaned the beam from inside with compressed air and vacuum cleaner.


After that ML inside the beam to prevent corrosion.



Removed the masking tapes from pipes and started to look that something doesn't fit the picture.




Original brake line was in good condition but it is strongly related to safety, so thought to replace all the brake lines.


Bought some new pipe and end unions.
Bent a new pipe from front to rear.


Borrowed a tool from my friend to press the end on the pipe.



Finally, pipe fitted.





Thanks for reading

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Love this thread. So neat and tidy :)

Thanks AlexB, glad you like it

Today retapped front subframe towers and put some Dinitrol ML into the towers to keep them rust free.
Then installed the steering rack.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Yippee!
Subframe is in.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Yay! Coming along well now!

They don't die, they just get faster!

I am going to update to Minispares Verto 20% upgraded performance pressure plate and 190mm organic clutch plate C-AHT594.

Edited by JPA on 28th Feb, 2016.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Progress on the mini has stopped due to other projects, one of them is 2nd floor on the lock-up.
Hopefully get this ready as soon as possible to continue with the mini.

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...

Hi you all,

long time since the last update.
A lot has happened during the year, not all related to mini.

Designed the stairs to second floor, keeping in mind that mini fits under the stairs.
Drawing


How it came up


Then busted my ankle at work


I had taken my clutch to well known machining shop.
The idea was to have it balanced and ready to fit.
What I got was


Basically they had drilled it through and after that machined to make it look good


They also messed up the center boss




It took about 2 months for them to source me new parts which they did.
At this point it was already mid summer.
It was agreed that assy will be balanced and tightened from which I am not sure and have thought to take it to somewhere else to have it tested.
Pisses me off to have something done in this way, can't anymore trust if they have done what they are saying.

Well, continued with lock-up, paint and so on

75' Mini special deluxe.
1275 A+ engine with turbo on the way...