Hello To All

[Grigsi]

Hi Guys, 

I have always been a fan of both BMW and Mini, so when Mini was bought by BMW, it was a match in heaven for me 😁.

However my heart has a real soft spot for Mini though, as my first was a powder blue 1959 mini 850, registration number 1661 UN. to get

When I needed a bit more get up and go, I bought a scrap Wolsey Hornet and transplanted the 998cc power plant into my Mini together with the luxurious Wolsey interior, 

including the thick leather seats, deep pile carpeting and chrome edging. 

Then  to get even more, I put a cooper head on it with double valve springs and 70 thou skimmed off it ( 1.75mm in todays money ), which really boosted the compression. 

It was a real pocket rocket 🚀, but I just could not get the damn thing to stop 😂. 

In 1959 the Minis were shod with single leading brake shoes front and rear. Any braking above 45 mph provided very little deceleration. 

 

I went into isolation during Covid and took my 2010 Mini One D off the road. 

Currently I am trying to resurrect it. 

My other car is a 2013 Countryman Cooper D All4.

I am looking forward to reading lots of interesting stuff on this site about both BMW and Mini. 

George 🤗

 

[Greydog]

Hi George

Welcome to the Forum

I also had an original Mini started life as a 1098 Cooper but the old A series engines used to wear quickly so got my hands on a 1275 block a Gordon Allan offset ground crank balanced and Nitrided. The Block was offset bored and pistons from a triumph 1500 with the skirts turned down fitted with 1275 conrods balanced and lightened. The head was polished and ported and fitted with first 1 1/2" SU's then a 30 DCOE Webber

Brakes were Disc's Front Rear drums and it still didn't stop 🤣 The rear disc's on my X5 are bigger than the wheel rims on the Mini 🤣

When you think a current mini is more than twice the size of the original, Progress

Dave

[Grigsi]

Thanks Dave,

The original Minis are sooooo tiny. 😂

On the internet I once saw a Gen 1 BMW Mini shell fitted over the top of an original Mini, to emphasise the vast difference. 😲

My 1959 mini had terrible brakes and had less top end than my mates genuine Cooper 1000. 🤢

It was quicker 0-60 mph than his, but he could however overtake me at will above 60. 😞

Because of their simplistic design, we could do things that could not be done with modern cars.😁

At 590kg they are inside the weight 600kg of a commercial quadricycle. 🤔

One thing we did was remove the spring and ball inside the compensator valve, which was in inline with the brake fluid feed to the rear wheels. 

This enabled us to simply dab the footbake to lock momentarily lock the back wheels to make them break free and slingshot the car around corners. 

It reduced understeer as the light rear allowed the wheels to step out a couple of feet before regaining grip of the road. 🤣 

It was no wonder these babies were so adaptable to rallying.

Below is a picture of an identical car to mine, except my registration number was 1661 UN.