Update by Tim Suddard to the
Austin Mini Cooper S project car
Aug 13, 2013
We love our new Woodward Fab 3-in-1 cutter, roller and sheet metal brake. Making small patch panels is a snap with this $600 tool.
Our inner fender well repair is now in place. Next we need to make a patch to fix the underside of the cowl. From there we can fix the topside of the cowl, and only then can we begin to fit our new fender.
Our cowl is patched and our fender fits great. We love it when stuff starts to head in the right direction.
Thanks to our new Woodward Fab three-in-one roller, cutter and brake, making patches is much easier than it used to be. This $600 tool works great on light-gauge sheet metal and has really made restoration go more quickly.
We used this tool to make a small patch for the inner fender well and one for the underside of the cowl on our 1967 Austin Mini Cooper S. We then cut a piece out of the Mini Mania cowl patch panel we procured, and, after spraying the underside of the cowl with Eastwood Weld-Thru Primer, we seam-welded the whole cowl area. This welding needs to be done a little at a time, so as to not build up too much heat.
From there we successfully test-fitted our new Heritage left-front fender (from Mini Mania). Voila! Everything fit together very nicely. Once we have the whole front end tacked in place and measured for proper fit, we will spot-weld everything back in place to duplicate the original process.
It was an itsy bitsy, teeny-weeny rally-winning project Mini. Subscribe to Classic Motorsports and get them in your mailbox.
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