Project Mini Cooper S | Magazine Series Part 2: Developing a Game Plan and Getting Started

Update by Tim Suddard to the Austin Mini Cooper S project car
Aug 19, 2020

[Editor's Note: This article originally ran in the July 2013 issue of Classic Motorsports; for more updates, visit here.]

Story and Photography by Tim Suddard

They made a lot of Minis during the model’s 40-plus-year run, and we believe we found one of the more desirable variants: a 1275cc-powered 1967 Cooper S. This is the one that established the Mini as a genuine giant-fighter.

Although every project is totally different, you could argue that restoration projects fall into three basic categories. First, you have the barn find—a car that has been sitting for many years. It’s complete, but everything needs to be redone.

Next, you have the running, driving rat, held together with baling wire, the owner merely limping it along until he loses interest for one reason or another. These cars also generally need a complete redo.

Finally, you have the disassembled car or partially finished project. This last type is the toughest: There’s no chance to kick off the project with a test drive, and the parts are generally scattered six ways to Sunday. Sure, the parts may be in boxes—generally ones crumbling apart—but who knows what’s present and what has run off over the years?

Each type of project takes on a different game plan, and in our case, we were definitely dealing with the third type. Our Mini’s trim and interior had been removed, while the engine, transmission and differential were completely disassembled.

This type of project is not for the meek. Reassembling what someone else has disassembled—in our case, 25 to 30 years ago—takes skill and patience.

Fortunately, we have been restoring cars for a long time, and a Mini Cooper is not the most complicated car ever made. Another plus: The previous owner, while perhaps eccentric, was very methodical when he stored the parts for this car.

Diggin' In

Before we could develop our plan, we needed to sift through the boxes and compare our haul to the shop manual. Did we have everything? It turns out that our Mini was nearly complete, but since our drivetrain was already broken down, we decided to start the work there. Before we removed a single piece from the body, we’d redo the engine and transmission. There was just no reason to get things further in pieces until we knew what we had.

The engine and transmission components were quite complete and in quite good condition. We were missing very little, and what we needed, the good folks at Mini Mania and Advanced Performance Technology—a great A-series tuning firm that helped us with the head—readily had available.

So our game plan was to rebuild the engine, differential and transmission first. This would get most of our thousands of pieces back into one lump. Then we could proceed with a chassis restoration.

Our car was simply too disassembled to quickly throw it together for a test drive evaluation. The body was also rusty. We knew what we faced: This one would have to come apart completely, get dipped or media blasted, and then the task of completely restoring it could begin.

Disassembly Begins

Disassembling a Mini is rather straightforward. First we removed the doors, hood, deck lid, headlights and headlight buckets. Its driveline and body trim were already removed, as was much of its interior.

We took out the rear window, windshield and side glass next. Then we removed the rest of the interior, carefully photographing and marking our gauges. These were sent to Nisonger Instruments, who’ve restored many British car gauges for us over the years. The headliner had to come out, as did the dome light and the door switch for the dome light.

Under the hood, we still had to take out the master cylinders and all the wiring. Again, everything was carefully labeled and photographed.

The twin Cooper S fuel tanks were kind of a pain to get out, but they had to be removed so we could access the taillight hardware.

The final steps for disassembly were to remove the subframes from the unibody and the fuel, brake and suspension lines from underneath the car. We recommend you leave your subframes assembled until you’re ready to restore them. Taking them apart early makes both reassembly and storage that much more daunting.

The entire disassembly process took two experienced techs—in a well-equipped shop with air tools and a lift—less than one full day.

Pressure-Washing the Remains

With everything disassembled, it was time to clean away nearly 50 years of accumulated grease and dirt from the unibody and subframes. Everyone has a different system, but we try to be environmentally conscious.

We first place old cardboard underneath the project. Then we use a pressure washer to blast away the dirt and filth. The cardboard catches the mess, which can then be discarded in an environmentally sound way. This is far better than letting the grease and oil run into your neighbor’s yard.

A good pressure washer runs around $700. Even better is a steam cleaner, which adds heat to the process. A pressure washer will cut through the dirt and grease, especially if you pretreat with some spray-on grease cutter. A steam cleaner will heat up and remove the undercoating as well.

We were lucky, as there was very little undercoating on our Mini. Even without heat, most of it came off in the cleaning process. A media blaster cannot blast through more than incidental amounts of undercoating.

Removing Old Repairs

Our car’s floors were covered in fiberglass patches. These would have to be cut, chiseled, pried or ground out before we stripped the unibody. This is best described as grunt work, but it must be done. We chiseled out and pried away the patches. Fortunately, the floors were rusted enough that the patches came up easily.

Let the Work Begin

Now we’re ready to start restoring our Mini in earnest. We have a completely disassembled body, a driveline ready for a rebuild, and a real grasp of what the future holds. The next step is to strip and prime the unibody. Options for stripping include dipping, media blasting or using a chemical stripper like Dri-Strip.

In an upcoming issue, we’ll go into some of the pros and cons of each and get our car into primer. We’ll also detail the process we used, but here’s a teaser: Blast Masters of West Palm Beach, Florida, did an awesome job on our Mini.