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

After a delay of almost 1 1/2 years on the 4E-FTE Mini project due to a significant back injury, recovery, long wait for surgery, and more recovery/rehab I've been able to restart work on the Mini project starting with some low-level physical movement.  The standard Mini bonnet hinges only allow the bonnet to open to a limited angle and a single-piece hinge with an altered hinge shape barely improves this opening angle (as I've tried in the past), and while I love the idea of the articulated hinges that used to be sold by Minivation UK, they have not been available for many years so I decided to try it myself. Without a 3D scanner I had to manually confirm the panel shapes and mount locations around the scuttle panel with manual mark-ups, sketches and 3D printed test pieces templates. Using motiongen.io (free online software tool used for designing and simulating linkage mechanisms) the linkage locations were eventually determined. A few iterations of 3D printed prototypes fin...

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...