k series mini

[chrisg3103]

well after some surprise visits from some friends and between climbing mountains i got a bit more done

sorted out the clutch pedal, straigtened it and shortened a tad

engine got a clean and (very) quick coat of paint

got my ball joints done

and discs skimmed

should have the hubs built tomorrow, just going to reuse the slightly bent long shaft, no time for a replacement. managed to fix the slightly knackered circlip groove with a parting off tool.
electrics are going to be the big problem i can see, might just be the old bodged loom rather than the fancy rover one

 

[pre67]

them plastic rover throttle body are notorious for playing up

get one like this one they are 57mm i think

you will need to drill 2 holes in it tho for the breath and another sensor and swap the the cable holder off the old one to the new one

this what i did on a mates car i just drilled 2 holes and put 2 bits of coper pipe in and put some metel glue round it

or u could to it proper and get some alloy pipe and tig it

http://www.headtune.co.uk/images/Rover K-Series TB - White.jpg

http://www.aronline.co.uk/images/sk2buying_02.jpg

hope that helps

 

[chrisg3103]

never had an issue with the throttle bodys and i have a rover 214 as a daily driver

been busy busy the past few days, cars nearly done! (ish)

engine mounted, engine electrics sorted, cooling system nearly done, brakes just need another connection and a few reservoir brackets
new shock absorbers fitted all round as well as 1/2 inch rear cylinders. also got the pasenger side door back on

did get a hand for some bits though
not a huge list but the problems encountered were huge! a simple job of changeing shock absorbers resulted in the radius arms having to come off to remove the old steel sleeves from the old shocks.
the nuts from the track rod ends had gone missing and not a single nut fitted the thread, so had to rob a spare mini for 2 nuts
fitting the brake pipes under the dash is also causing head aches

still! will be worth it in the end even if it dosnt look much different its the subtle touches that make it a lot tidyer!

the brake pipes now exit in the inner wings though cable Glands

also ditched the little radiator for the old heater matrix, it actually fits. only wory is that the air filter is now surrounded by radiators!

some of the hidden brake pipes, getting like a nest of snakes in there with the pipes and wiring fighting each other

and one part in quite pleased with is the adjustable bias valve, just need to make/buy/adapt a knob for the top

going to try for the MOT on thursday, give me a few days to sort anything wrong. but all depends on the braking system, havnt a clue if it will work or be full of un bleedable airlocks

 

[pre67]

looks good man hope mot goes well

as for the throttle bodys its well worth geting a 57mm one it would make it loads farter loads of piple do it

 

[Wozzaaah]

looks good man hope mot goes well

as for the throttle bodys its well worth geting a 57mm one it would make it loads farter loads of piple do it

I thought it was baked bean can exhausts that do that!

Looking good Chris, can't wait to see the finished car. I'm very tempted to go Rover 16V in mine

 

[chrisg3103]

you know it makes sense get a whole donor car for £100 and if you blow the engine up just chuck it away and get another for £100. then theres the lightness, the one size fits all design and thanks to lotus and caterham theres quite a few tuning bits going about if your that way inclined.

anyway, im just in and totaly shattered. come to the decision that if the car dosnt make the show im not going to kill myself trying! can be done but i dont want to make a mess of it. will plod away but only going to book the MOT once its up and running rather than giving myself a stupid deadline, never know, might make it

 

[pre67]

I thought it was baked bean can exhausts that do that!

Looking good Chris, can't wait to see the finished car. I'm very tempted to go Rover 16V in mine

na baked bean can exhausts just make you in to a dick 1.1l engine 6" wide pipe


why do so meny people do it

 

[Wozzaaah]

"All show, no go" as they say
I know it's been put up before but check out these beauties

Chris, my local scrappy had four 1.4 16v rovers in there last time I looked, I know the owner quite well and might see what sort of a deal he'll do me considering he'll get back what I don't use.

 

[chrisg3103]

well i missed most of the deadlines due to severe lack of enthusiasm, getting too old for this

this was the main reason for not going to the show at santa pod

this is a seriously dodgy set up to trust your life to! and i was considering it, enough was enough. cant mess about with brake fluid, it melts everything. that dodgy set up was the reservoir with a bit of 10mm silicone hose atached to a bit of 8mm copper pipe attached to the proper brake fluid resistant hose (over brade stuff)
so ordered the proper bits and they got here too late for the show

so i have been taking it at a more leasurly pace

so far i have changed the old mini heater matrix for an old rover 200 one, looks like it has better air flow, all the plumbings done, new reservoirs fitted and mounted

exhaust hooked up,front end mounted and i have brakes!! the crazy pedal box actually works!
was a bit concerned seeing as the master cylinder has a slight downward tilt that i wouldnt be able to bleed it properly. it wasnt easy but with the help of a handy spare person to push the pedal it bled ok

only big job left is the wiring.......
had the loom home to sort it out and think its done, just got visions of it going pfzzzt and catching fire
cant put it off forever

 

[chrisg3103]

well after working my **** off i got the mini finished in time for its MOT, was still working on it at 1:30am this morning
but then in true mini fasion it broke down on the way to the MOT staiton

in all my jiggery pokery i had forgot i had pluged in the 1.4 ecu to see if it would fix a problem. so it was running rough to say the least, just put it down to not being run for about 6 months

after it had been sat for said 6 months or so the battery didnt have a full charge

for some reaon this engine gets very stiff when hot and takes a lot o oomph for it to turn over

these things combined to the mini stalling at a roundabout (wrong ecu) then i couldnt get it cranked again (hot engine and low power)

took 10 mins to fix once my dad brought a battery booster out and i got it back to my workshop but missed the time and they were fully booked for the rest of the day. cest la vive!
just need to see if i can get an afternoon off work or something now!

here it is, dosnt look any different

 

[Rusty]

That sounds worrying ! I wouldn't have thought it would have started at all with the wrong ecu , it also sounds like it seized up to me good luck though

 

[chrisg3103]

nah, its a rover thing. for some reason the engines get tight when there hot, same thing happens in my 214 sometimes and other people have said too. fine so long as you have a fully charged battery hooked the booster up it fired instantly, probably completed 1/4 of a rotation. by the time i got it back to my workshop the alternator had put in enough charge to start it again easy, if i had charged the battery the night before i probably wouldnt of missed the MOT

ecu was from a 1.4, my engines a 1.6. exact same engine, manifolds ect except the capacity, probably just running lean while using the fuel map for the 1.4 hence the stalling on overun

just need to wangle some time off work now, also the brakes are now amazing and the clutch is a lot lighter

 

[chrisg3103]

been a while so though i would add an update!
just reading my last post i left it after my 1st MOT, got a bit hecktic after that hence the gap

basicly i finaly got an MOT at 12 on the day i was to drive 330 miles to barkston for a friendly sprint event, then had to tax it and load up. made it there at 9 that night

car was faultless except the fecking battery! first stop for fuel at gretna services the little blighter wouldnt crank, had to go buy jump leads from the garage and ask a rather posh sales rep type chap for a jump. in all had to get jump started 4 times there and back
but went round the track great was the first time it had been driven since the rebuild so seemed to take a while for everything to bed in, after a few laps the handling magically improved nothing broke or went bang it just steered into and out of corners so much better, maybe the shocks bedded in?

anyway, a mini on a track:-

very mucky mini no time to wash it before hand

and mini now:

still got the race number on as there exceedingly sticky, should really of put them on the rear windows

vowed never to touch it again after the grief i had, but just bought a 3.5 final drive gearbox and have my eye on a vvc engine

 

[Gerry]

Congratulations on a successful build and what a good way to 'wet the weans' heid'. You're a braver man than me driving that distance with a new build, well done.
I've always felt that the K series was the best choice for the mini - same manufacturer - and the lack of weight compared with some of the other choices must help the handling. A very under rated engine.
Where are you competing close to home? I used to try to get to Kaimes for the East Ayrshire events but haven't been for a while due to lack of time. A shameful state of affairs since I live 40 minutes away. I could always get a mini, a spare subframe, a K ser...................
I can see a project looming.

 

[chrisg3103]

sounds like your not too far from me at all, im about 30 mins from kames

have started looking into whats needed to run at kames, basicly join the east ayrshire car club and turn up to one of there run what you brung type events
barkston was my very first time on a track of any sort! scary at first but it was so much fun once the apprehension was gone, got a reason to build these minis now do a few track day type things before deciding if i want to go the expensive route of proper motorsport events

 

[chrisg3103]

well had it on the rollers today with the scottish mini forum, reulst below...

very happy with that rover quote 110hp, got that at the wheels but flywheel was a healthy 125hp

only thing i wasnt happy with was the amount the engine was moving under acceleration and overun, bucking quite a bit! more engine steadys on the cards. and put the gear link rod back on that fell off half way home in the middle of a traffic jam! had 3rd and 4th to get me home, pulls quite well in 3rd from a standing start

oh yes and the little auxiluary heater thing spring a leak at the event managed to bypass it before the engine lost all its water and destroyed itself

 

[Deemo]

Weyyy, It's finished. Nice one
Impressive power too.
Love it

 

[plantlife]

Nice job, lovely car. I got rid of my mini before finishing my conversion (rust issues!!)

 

[townsend]

Where is there heater motor on a min rover 1989?

Where is there heater motor on a min rover 1989?
Please help.

 

[chrisg3103]

well been a bit busy the past week or so, had to take the engine out to fix a problem with the gearbox and the thermostat housing, engine out easy enough then i got wondering.....

so got the gearbox and uneccesary sticky out bits off of the vvc

one of the simple (pfft) jobs was to swap the alloy sump for a steel one, alloy one was too bulky.
off comes tha alloy one and offered up the steel one, problem number 1 need to change the oil pickup. got a spare so put that on, but only one of the bolt holes lines up? must be a different oil ladder, but it is secure enough so it will do me.
go to bolt the sump on and problem number 2, the steel sump uses smaller bolts so the bolts used for the alloy sump wont fit though the steel sumps bolt holes, so drilled them out to 8mm. them problem number 3, the rubber gasket has little anti crush spacer things in it, and these too were too small. tryed to bore them out but they were just too small, so found some 8mm i/d pipe and parted off a load for the gasket

so sump was finaly on and just offered it roughly up, still to put the proper mount on and was pretty certain i had to modify my frame for the manifold to clear the bulkhead

but no! theres even more room than with the plastic manifold!? seems the vvc one curves more sharply to the right in that photo, plastic one sticks stright out and pretty much to the limit of that cut out in the bulkhead

one thing that wasnt expected was the vvc has an oil temperature sensor that sticks right out the bottom of the filter housing

just isnt going to fit that way, so going to try find a tap for the sensor thread tomorrow and modify a rover 400 filter take off. may just work...