Classic Mini Clubman with Toyota 4E-FTE, by Mearcat

I have had an old but reoccurring lower back issue that has come back to bite me with a severe relapse, and has not allowed me to work on the Mini for over 6 months so far. I have degeneration of two lumbar discs which now requires surgery to hopefully resolve my long standing issue however this will not occur for another 5-6 months. I have restricted mobility and flexibility which unfortunately prevents me from working on pretty much anything in the workshop for more than 10-15mins at a time, let alone the painting and sanding on the body and panels, so project updates will be very limited for some time.  In the meantime to keep myself in a better mental state, I have upgraded my 3D printer from an old Creality Ender 3 V2 to a Bambu Lab P1S. When time and mobility has permitted, I have been testing prints with the Bambu Lab printer and it has displayed impressive speed and high quality prints so far. With a sealed enclosure it has allowed me to reprint all my custom clamps, bracke...

When last painting the epoxy primer on the shell, I rushed the job so there were quite a lot of runs and bad orange peel. I had to re-sand the entire shell inside and out to remove the runs and orange peel which did expose a lot of bare metal areas. This re-sand work included detailing the engine bay and front apron. I masked off the underbody to prevent any overspray getting on the underbody coating then I got two good even coats of epoxy primer with the paint gun adjusted properly. The next stage of painting requires the correct PPE as the high build primer contains isocyanates (classified as a carcinogen). I purchased a full-face respirator with chemical vapour filters to prevent any absorption via skin or eyes, and was used with the full coveralls and gloves I've used previously. My paint shop advised that a white primer would be required to yield a bright finish with the final paint colour. The white primer has the benefit of showing if I sand through the high build primer and...

Prior to applying the underbody coating I 3D printed a heap of plugs in various sizes and inserted them into any nuts/rivnuts to stop the underbody coating from getting into the nut threads.  All other openings in the underbody and engine bay were simply taped over with masking tape.  The rest of the shell was also masked off with paper & plastic sheet. Note the two mating surfaces for the steering rack was masked off too. Underbody coating is a messy job so the floor was covered in old bed sheets and I wore a full body coverall, nitrile gloves and safety glasses. It was applied to floorpan & inner wheel guards & boot floor with a schutz spray gun. After the underbody coating was completed, everything was painted with 2 coats of satin black. At the same time I painted fuel line/battery line underbody covers with the coating. The middle area of the lower firewall had been masked off as it will be painted in the body colour. The black underbody coating seen here on t...

The next task was to apply seam sealer and paint the underbody. I scuffed all areas with a maroon Scotch-brite pad (3M 7447) to prep for the underbody coating and after wiping over everything with wax & grease remover, the seam sealer (Sikaflex 227) was applied to all areas of the underbody and lower engine bay where any panels overlap or had welded rust repairs. Although it looks a bit messy it will all be painted over. I also applied seam sealer in any gaps in the body-sill seam (at the base of the doors/side panels) of which any excess was wiped off with a rag soaked in thinners. Once all the seam sealer was cured, epoxy primer was painted over it. Every other panel join inside and outside of the car as well as boot-lid, doors and bonnet then had seam sealer applied (after scuffing with Scotch-brite pad) Boot : The panel joins in the engine bay and front bumper area had seam sealer applied and any excess carefully wiped off, leaving only the seam sealer at the panel joins : For ...