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A history of our first Mini...
Bought in November of 1998 for too much money. I felt I had to save the car from the current owner. The car is a 1964 and right hand drive.
Lost the throwout bearing on the way home from work. Made it to the driveway, but had to push it up the driveway into the garage. Going to do the work with the engine in the car. Had a lot of fun removing the end cover. Found one of the bolts for the rhs engine mount was missing. Had to rework a combination wrench to get to the lower end cover bolts. Wasn't much left of the throwout bearing. It was a ball bearing style, not the original carbon. The outer race was blue and many of the ball bearings were destroyed. As I found the locknut loose, I would guess that the throwout bearing was constantly in contact with the diaphram spring. While I've got things apart, might as well replace the clutch. To remove the flywheel I reworked a Leslie Harmonic balancer remover/puller. I had to shorten the center "bolt" about 2" to clear the inner fender.
Radiator isn't leaking, but I don't know how long the hoses have been on the car. So, while I'm changing the hoses, Probably ought to have the radiator checked out. It was in pretty bad shape, the dirt in it was acting like stop leak. As soon as it was cleaned, it leaked like a sieve. A new core took care of that.
Found that the fan was installed backwards. The Mini fan pushes the air through the radiator, instead of pulling it through.
While I've got the radiator and fan out, why not change the water pump? This project is growing and growing. Also changed out the small hose that goes between the water pump and the cylinder head.
Installing the radiator is a royal pain the the rear. The raditor mounts to the lower radiator shroud with four bolts, two on each side. The two next to the rubber cone tower were bad enough just getting the bolts out when removing the radiator. The lower shroud mounts to the chassis on an incline. So one is trying to hold the shroud vertical, align the raditor to the shroud, and reach one's arm between the raditor and the tower to install a bolt or two. I couldn't do it, and haven't figured out how it was done. Doesn't seem to be enough room for an other set of hands.
So what I did was to make a couple of studs to install in the two lower, rear raditor/shroud mounting holes. On assembly the studs were used as locating pins when installing the radiator in the shroud. Put some loctite on the nuts and tightened them up. Note that the end of the stud that screws into the radiator can't be too long. If so, it will mess up the core.
As purchased, the electricals were pretty rough. The car had an alternator, no voltage regulator, a Napa (Facet) fuel pump, the remains of a security system, and at least one stero system. One head light didn't work.
Some parts I'm looking for: