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

The Mini shell and panels had been sitting under some old bedsheets with its first coat of high build primer for two winters and upon close inspection showed only a few areas of surface rust showing through the paint. Luckily they were only on some panel edges which were easily sanded and re-primed.  Once that was sorted, the bonnet, doors and bootlid exteriors were guide coated and block sanded with 180grit. I found one of the doors needed a really thin skim of filler over two larger areas from when I did some panel beating to correct the door-to-body alignment.  After the 180grit sanding, the panels were again guide-coated and block sanded with 240, 320 and 400grit. 400 grit was either on a DA sander (with interface pad) on large flat areas, or hand pads / sanding sponge for detailed areas. With everything sanded to 400grit, "super-fine" (500-600 grit) foam hand sanding pads were used for the final sand over everything. Rubbing through the epoxy primer (to expose bare metal...

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...