Mini 1275GT reassembly and electrolysis of rusty parts!

Here's a few pictures of what's been absorbing most of my time lately....

It doesn't look like much, but there's all new brake lines fitted, lots of parts cleaned and painted and reunited with the car!

To clean up a lot of the metal parts, I've taken to electrolysis...

This involves making a mixture of about 10% ordinary washing soda (you can get this from Sainsbury's in the UK, £1.20 in my local store for a 1kg bag) and tap water.

You'll need a nice clean piece of ordinary mild steel (Don't use stainless). I used a plate, you can see it in the centre of the tank. And you'll need a power supply (I used my adjustable bench supply)

Connect the clean steel to the positive terminal, this becomes our sacrificial anode. You'll probably realise from the name, that this isn't a piece of steel you'll want to use again....



Attach the rusty part to the negative pole, and drop it in the tank.... Keep a small distance between the part and the steel plate.

Switch the supply on, and adjust the voltage until a bit of current flows. Small bubbles will rise to the surface. I found good results with about an amp of current flowing.

You'll want to do this in a very well ventilated area, as the bubbles are hydrogen and oxygen, and PLEASE switch off the supply before adding or removing things from the tank, a spark could ignite the gas.....

After a new hours remove your once rusty part.

You'll need to clean off the solution, dry it and paint it to prevent it rusting rapidly.

What's happened to the rust? It's on the anode ....

This is after just a couple of days of use... you can clean it up with a wire brush or grinder and it'll go again :)

The Mini 1275GT gets paint!

After a year of languishing in the garage again, I finally managed to find somewhere to paint it!

The story so far is here, here, and here.

Now, my friend Matt is building a drag racing car, and a while back I volunteered to do the electrical bits for him. I was happy to help. The car is insane. It's a Vauxhall Chevette, fitted with a 7.5 litre Chevrolet Big block motor !!!!

Rather you than me Matt!




Anyway, Matt very kindly offered the use of his painting skills and garage to paint the Mini.

So, I set to preparing the car in my garage...

First thing was to sort the awful bulkhead ...














... wet flatting the panels...

Julian lends a hand sorting out the repaired rear quarter...














Outside to blow all the dust off...

... and on the trailer to Matt's!








In double-quick time, Matt has painted the car in etch-primer...




































and then 2 coats of a white primer base coat, which is rubbed down with scotchbrite...





















Matt prepares the Jade green paint. It's the car's original colour....



















Matt expertly applies the first coat....

It was about this point that I started to feel a bit emotional... I blame it on the paint fumes ;)

After two coats, Matt is feeling rather proud of his great work, and justifiably so.

After allowing the paint to harden overnight, it's back on the trailer....

.... and home again... 

Now the paint must be wet flatted with very fine wet and dry paper, and polished up. I'm going to let the paint harden off for a few weeks....

Huge thanks go to my great friends, Matt and Julian, without whom I'd never be able to realise this dream....