Bought it in 2001 as my first car when I was learning to drive, started out life as a standard 1991 Mayfair, over the years, I ploughed quite a bit of money into it, but kept it as a 998cc for insurance reasons.
Picture of it in early 2002 after I had passed my test.
Then later on about 2004 when I took it off the road for a couple of years, looking a little sorry for itself.
Fast forward to 2007 when I decided something should be done with it, so sent it away for a couple of panels to be replaced...
Car stripped and ready to be taken away, most of the car had been swept up as was mainly a rusty pile on the floor
Being taken away
Pretty much all of the metalwork was replaced, only original bits really is the roof pillars up, and the boot lid, almost everything else has been replaced.
Car back from the bodyshop, semi prepped for paint. At this stage, the main bulk of the wiring was tackled and most of the interior planned out ready to go for paint, that took a few months to get sorted.
Eventually, the car went for paint at a mates unit.
Back from paint, I was able to make really big leaps forward in terms of progress with the car
Decided that a 998cc engine wasn't really gonna give many thrills, so an impromptu trip to Birmingham to collect a low mileage, (and never once cleaned by the looks of it) 1275 with and HIF44 from a 1991 Metro.
After a very quick spruce up.
Car coming along nicely
Nice little audio upgrade
Cheeky set of refurbished Metro Turbo 4 pots
Car being taken away for a 2nd time to get the engine swapped, new brakes and suspension fitted, along with a few other little jobs
Interior half way to being sorted
First MOT since roughly 2004, passed without even so much as an advisory!
Ran the car for a bit last year, had a few things that I wanted to get sorted over the Winter, back out again this year, with a rebuild of the rear brakes, another MOT passed.
On it's way for it's MOT...
New interior
Used the car a few times, noticed the oil pressure light was taking longer than usual to go out when started, booked the car in to get the cam swapped to a 266, few engine tweaks, gearbox once over as 2nd gear was quite vague and sometimes jumped out of gear when slowing down and a slightly longer final drive to make the odd motorway runs a bit more bearable.
When Green & White Mini's (Highly recommend them to anyone in the North East of England) took the engine out to do the work, they noticed a couple of things with the engine
Oil pump was badly worn
Bottom end bearings were slightly scored, but the crank was still perfect
Selector fork in the gearbox was worn too.
So along with a long list of parts, had the whole bottom end of the engine and gearbox rebuilt along with a new clutch.
Back in the car and better than ever
The longer final drive was compensated for with the cam, and a few other carb tweaks, but I was dubious about the ignition system. I was running the original ballast resistor system with the electronic dizzy from the Metro engine, the rev counter was erratic and the car seemed to have a few flat spots, almost as if the spark wasn't strong enough. I found out that the electronic dizzy doesn't like the 6v or 9v that the ballast system runs out so wasn't working to it's best efficiency. I could have simple changed to a non ballast system, but thought, sod it, why not go the Megajolt route.
So, with all the parts sourced, started on the conversion.
Basically, bought the MJ unit with the hard rev limit and used the Specialist Components trigger wheel kit.
Rad out
Old crank pulley bolt off (34mm impact socket works a treat)
Dizzy blank in
Trigger wheel in place
CPS and bracket in
Coilpack brackets on
New HT leads on and engine back together
Neat little HT lead holder fixed to the rocker cover
Start of the wiring loom
Extra fusebox feeding the lighting and horn relays and now the EDIS and MJ units
Completed basic loom to get the car up and running
Megajolt in and working
Few videos.
Checking that the crank position sensor was working
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dszHtzPHwi0
First startup with the Megajolt setup, (No rev counter as of yet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpPJ5_Xk47w
First test drive, (apologies for the dodgey camera work, both windows were open too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ0Zl1CkBTg
So there we go, I'l do another quick video when I can find the head off my tripod and update with any progress!
