1979 Clubman Estate (not turbo, sorry!)
Turbo Mini Forums

Well, here it is guys, our new project, a 1979 Clubman Estate (its as old as me!). Looking a little sorry for itself, but bought as a rolling shell for very little - big thanks to Tom Fenton for the loan of the trailer.

We have an idea of how it will turn out - its going to be retro-modern! That is, it'll be retro looking (10" wheels, smallish arches, nice shiny brightwork), with more modern reliability and touches (K Series engine, 5 speed box, central locking, electric windows etc...). Still not entirely sure on exterior colour, its yet to be decided, but interior will probably be black carpets, door cards, dash etc, with contrasting cream seats. This will essentially be a long distance cruiser for static shows and things like that (for both me and the missus), allowing me to go mental with my current '83 saloon.

Well, enough about what will be, here's some pics of how it is now.

Loading up the trailer:





On the way back, nice sunny day for a change!



Crazy frontless Mini chasing us down the motorway a bit close!



Back home on the drive:







In its new home for now in the garage (I HAD to remove that awful grille and put the standard one on):




Lots of work ahead of us, we hope to complete it by the end of the year. Rock and roll!

Edited by Coupe on 7th Mar, 2011.

looks like you've got a good base to start with. Whats the body work like underneath?

It looks pretty good to be honest - the sills are in good condition, floorpans solid, loadbay is good. Only real issue I have at the moment is that the back doors have rotten through just at the bottom on the outer skin, but the inners look like new!

will be great with a 200hp turbo engine in to scare all the chav boy racers in your area ......lol

would be good to make it a sleeper van though Mark, turbo the k series when its in but don't tell lizzie.

133.5 bhp 123 lb torque 116mph @6640rpm 9.5psi
Shakespear RWYB 14.995 91.83mph

looks like a good base for a project! i got a '79 clubby estate too, but ive turned mine into a clubby van

Looks a good solid base. The back doors should repair fairly easily.

But for god sakes, get rid of that matt black paint!

Dont worry Andy, it'll be nice and shiny once its done. I've managed to find some rear half door skins that go up to the bottom of the glass for £40 each so shouldn't be too bad. Otherwise its full outer skins at £100 a piece. Saying that, I only gave £320 for the car so I don't mind spending on it!

Sounds like a cool project, looking forward to seeing it progress

Cheers Tom. Hopefully we'll commence the strip down this weekend. Ideally I'd like to get it down to just the shell, but realistically I reckon by the end of the weekend it'll just be shell sat on the subframes.

Ha ha! Not this one Colin, this one needs to look nice!

Spent some time over the weekend on the Estate, stripping bits out. Luckily, still no major horrors found, only a couple of suspect repairs but nothing too bad.
















Now I'm sure there's something missing (if this indeed started out as an Estate shell, shouldn't there be some panels here for the rear bench to sit against?




Couple of iffy repairs need sorting:








Rear window apertures look a bit scabby, hopefully these are still available to buy as they seem to just be spot welded in:










You wouldn't believe how many self tappers I've taken out of this thing so far:






Some of the things we've pulled out of this car have amused us somewhat - the rear quarters had been packed out with expanding foam behind the home made trim panels (which was a ball ache to remove), god knows how many self tapping screws holding it all together, seat frames welded (I use this in the loosest sense of the word) to the floor which I removed with 2 swings of a rubber mallet, and also sill and inner wing repairs riveted in place (yes, riveted), then welded, then seam sealed, then fibreglassed over!!!

As the rear windows channels themselves are long gone (the rear windows were fitted with some plastic draught excluder type things, we're going to go with a one piece rear side window each side in a rubber seal and I've figured out how I can achieve this, however the thing really perplexing me at the moment is the rear seat thing. The car had no interior, and was missing the rear bench - which in its self isn't an issue as we're not going for originality here so I can make a rear bench seat - however it does seem to be missing panels which the rear bench would normally fit to. I may have to make something from scratch for this unless they are available as an individual panel.

Needless to say, the crap repairs will be sorted with fresh steel, but luckily, apart from the crap home modifications and the odd missing bit, its mega solid overall.

I demand that you paint it brown again.

yeah paint it brown and we can have a matching pair of poo brown clubby estates!

““A turbo: exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, witchcraft happens and you go faster.”” - Jeremy Clarkson

Bit more work done this weekend - most of remaining parts and fittings removed from the shell, all that's left now is subframes and fuel tank

I've loosened all the subframe mountings, and thought everything was going far too well on the rears as all seemed to loosen quite nicely until the last one! It's stripped the captive nut off the back of the subframe mounting panel - luckily though, it's in the corner which needs repairing on the inside anyway so i'm gonna cut an access hole and reweld the captive nut back on.

Found a little bit more rot behind one of the headlamps, but other than that, no more nasty surprises!

A few more pics:










And the award for worst brace bars ever goes to:








Will get the captive nut rewelded this week and loosen off the bolt, and will be ready for rolling the shell in no time.

Suppose I should update this. Its slow going at the moment as we're so busy with other things but I got a bit more done.

Pretty much down to bare shell now:

















And, at Himley on Sunday, we bought some goodies:





We're gonna start patching up the shell now, then hopefully get the subframe made (I've now got the box section required) and then we can get on to prep and paint for the shell.