New motoring museum in Wollongong

We went out to the opening of the new Motoring Museum in Wollongong last weekend. It was opened by Sir Jack Brabham - pretty impressive! Lots of people there and lots of great cars on display - here's a selection of the shots we took...

A nice little Morris Minor 850 - 1962

A really well presented old Falcon

Riley & a Riley!

Pretty cool Charger (even though it's pink!)

A nice sky blue classic saloon

Red clubby van

Green clubby van

A really nice looking (1275) Moke... this will have to be another project (one day!)

Found a classic mini in (something like) the right colour!

The boys, Dad & I went along to the opening of the new motoring museum in Wollongong last weekend (more on that in my next post). The best bit was that we found a classic mini on display painted in a colour that looks really close to Space Blue. This one has a silver roof (we're going for white).

Colour codes

Found a great reference for all of the new mini colour codes. Dad was able to find someone in Wollongong (Gladstone Ave) who gave us some great advice on how to prep for painting. We got a sample of Space Blue (A49) which is pretty close to Horizon Blue - the sample looks a bit dark but it should be great.

Did a few searches and found some real-world pics - it was used as part of a special edition in 05/06 which came with a silver roof...

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A whole lot of sanding

Dad's been doing a lot of work taking the paint off the mini. We've got most of it off now and we're hoping we don't have to go all the way to bare metal.

Damon is pretty proud of the finish

Sanding boys...

A "rippled" panel that was full of filler - now we know why

The rear "barn" doors

The driver's door before we pulled the glass out

Sanding boys

We've now rolled her over to take the dents out of the floor - notice the rope holding it up?

Taking off the paint...

We had some extra assistance getting the paint off from Uncle Andy, Aunty Crystal and Boo. Will get a wide shot of the whole van looking pretty raw next time we're at the shed.

Rebuilding the front end...

Wow - things are really starting to move along...

We took the front left fender off before the big move and we've spent the last week getting the front & rear subframes back out (the car is now on Dad's well signed skateboard!), removing all the trim and "bright work", and removing the front "nose" panel. It was in pretty bad shape due to several font impacts and dodgy repair jobs over the years.

Here's a couple shots of Vanman with the nose removed (on the skateboard)...

Here's the new nose panel which we sourced out of SA - it's the "heritage" part, not the modern re-make. Right behind it is the front subframe.

Our next job is to put the new nose panel onto the car, and attach our new fender that we got on eBay about a year back (below) - once we have this in place we can start the body prep in earnest!

The big move

During last week we moved Vanman from his carport location into a great new enclosed shed so we can really get started on the bodywork. Thanks for the help David! Here are some shots..

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Wheeler Dealers Austin Mini Restoration Part 4

Wheeler Dealers Austin Mini Restoration Part 3

Wheeler Dealers Austin Mini Restoration Part 2

Wheeler Dealers Austin Mini Restoration Part 1

I think I have found the colour...

Saw a new (BMW) Mini yesterday in a new colour (Horizon Blue) - would be great for Vanman, so I used the configurator on www.mini.com.au to see how it would look... couldn't do the white wheels but could get something close to white on the roof - looking pretty kewl...

Choosing a colour

OK so now it's time to select a colour and it's really hard to do. I'm tempted to keep it classic, but I'd also like to make it something special that looks amazing (and unique).

I've narrowed it down to two options either:
- black with a white roof (and maybe white bonnet stripes) see the second picture below for one with the same white wheels & hubcaps as vanman (except vanman would have a back window).
- bowling ball red (like my guitar)- the photo below looks a bit orange but in real life it's a deep red colour.

There is a good colour site here (although it's 97 onwards).

Pulling the engine out

With the rear subframe in place again we took the engine out last weekend in order to start working on it...

A friends hoist came in very handy...

Lucky we had some good helpers

Uncle Neil helped up transport it before the strip down & rebuild.

Rear subframe going in

We got the whole rear subframe back onto the body recently - here's the before & after shots...

Another shot of the new subframe... note the awesome wheels - we had them bead-blasted and powder coated by a guy in Jardine St Fairy Meadow, then had Beaurepairs W'Gong fit some nice new 10" tyres.

The boys with the subframe before it went in...