Although the experience was short-lived, the car was great fun and memorable. Driving a right-hand drive classic is truly a different animal. Relatively speaking, the Mini is easy to work on and parts are surprisingly readily available. A great choice as a first foray into the world of classics.

If I had kept the car, it would have been stored away indefinitely (boo, I know). I do admit that selling the Mini came at good timing, since I need to focus on an in-progress shift. This is my final consolidation as I have now sold everything… the only thing I can really call to my name right now is the Fiat, and even that is technically not mine, being that it was leased. When put into this perspective, I’ve undergone a rather sad twist of fate.

Fear not, for I am not discouraged. Far from it, once I can get my feet back on the ground in the coming month, new plans will hatch.

I hope the new owner Todd is enjoying the company of this Mini, and I hope to one day venture back into a classic car. As closure, here is one more picture that I found on my phone:

Not the case anymore… these were taken with my point & shoot a block away from my house and during midday with harsh lighting, WE’LL DO IT LIVE.

This Mini Cooper is actually an Innocenti version and was made in Italy. Innocentis had more features and the best giveaway is the dash and front quarter flip-out windows. The factory sunroof and dual fuel tanks on my Mini are also bonuses.

Since the wheels are quite aggressively fit, the middle mounting tab on the fender flares were broken on both sides. This most likely happened when the car was tracked at Thunderhill in the past. I bought a new set of the exact same fender flares and replaced the front pair.

Not pictured, but I had the entire shifter housing and linkage assembly replaced with a refurbished set to tighten things up. Although the shifter wasn’t too radically sloppy for a 40 year old car, it could’ve been better.

With the distributor, coil, spark plugs, and spark plug wires changed, the only thing that was left was the alternator. Not to make it feel left out, I swapped in a higher amp counterpart. With the stock alternator, the idle would drop severely when the electrical system was loaded, so hopefully the higher amps will help alleviate this to a degree.

This aluminum radiator was actually one of the first parts I bought for the Mini. It was on sale and I figured preventative maintenance never hurts, especially because the stock plastic radiators are prone to leaking anyway. On top of being all aluminum, it’s also much fatter.

The valve cover that came with the car was an awkward yellow color and had seen better days. To keep in theme with the radiator and coil, I decided to update it with a flat-top polished version. Since I had to remove the valve cover…

…it was the perfect time to adjust the valves. I set the inlet valves to .012″ and the exhaust valves to .015″. The reason why I set the exhaust valves to a slightly larger gap is to help compensate for the additional heat expansion, and it offers more buffer if there is seat recession.

Adjusting valves is a simple affair, just tedious. I threw the transmission into top gear (4th) and manually pushed the car back and forth in the garage. With the mechanical leverage of 4th gear, rolling the car around cycles the engine and allows for the valves to open and close so that they may be adjusted accordingly. It takes patience to get all the valves set just right, and the Mini’s SOHC 4-cylinder engine is about as easy as it gets. This makes me wonder how long it’d take to adjust all 64 valves in a Bugatti Veyron engine.

Last but not least… here is the new valve cover installed and sealed to top everything off.

I’ll be honest, I’ve drastically overshot my original expectations of only doing basic maintenance on this car. The car is done and drivable now, so I’m going to ease off from all the work and $$$.

It is a lot of fun just driving this car. I think my Mini is a very clean example, but also not immaculately “show quality” clean. Meaning blemishes and such can be found. This is a good thing, because I am free to drive the car instead of letting it sit in a climate controlled garage.

And to match the wheel, I threw on this shift knob with an Austin emblem.

To top it all off, here are the new seat covers to keep in theme with the whole classic feel.

The picture below was also on day one, I was adding diluted water to the coolant expansion tank. I don’t have any full shots of the car yet, but they will come soon enough.

Next on the list was to bleed the brake and clutch systems. However, due to the latter having a leaking slave cylinder, it wouldn’t be such a simple job. Since I had to replace the slave, I decided to replace and update both the brake and clutch master cylinders. The Mini came with the original tin-can style master cylinders, which blocks view of the fluid levels.

I changed them to these, with modern-day clear reservoirs.

Here is the old, leaking slave cylinder next to the new one.

Installed… along with a new, banjo-style steel braided clutch line and stainless steel, adjustable pushrod. Brakes were bled with ATE Superblue and the clutch with generic DOT4 brake fluid. Thanks to Ruel for helping pump the pedals for a few hours.

Initially, I was going to take the easy route and send the car to a local mechanic to do the above work and fix the brake lights, which were not lighting up (I bought a new hydraulic brake light sensor, because that was a major suspect). I figured why not, I get to save time and energy. Well, it turns out such a path was not destined for me – I had to do it the old-fashioned way and put in work. The to-do list grew dramatically the same morning I was about to drop the car off – because the car wouldn’t start. Strange… it started reasonably easily the day I bought it and this was only 1 week later. The starter had previously been weak and hesitant before, but it was particularly weak that day and was unable to turn over the engine. Thinking it could possibly be the battery, I rushed to an auto parts store and bought a new one. This yielded the same results. Sometimes the engine would sound like it was about to catch, but then the starter would spin out and make a ratcheting sound. Every other crank was blank as well.

Nothing I could do that day would fire up the car – so it was time to get stuck in. I’ve already accepted the nature and style of owning a classic car, thus I was at least prepared mindset wise. I decided to take “advantage” of the situation and employ a catch-all tactic. I ended up buying not just a new starter, but everything around it. You’d think that finding parts for such a car would be near impossible, but as luck would have it, the 2 major Mini parts retailers are right here in Northern California. Big shout out to MiniMania and Seven Enterprises, because they had everything I needed and Ground shipping was Next Day for me since I lived so close. This saved a lot of time because I found out I needed certain parts as I went.

Here is the new starter installed.

New Pertronix coil:

New NGK spark plugs:

New Braille battery. I originally bought an Optima Red Top but decided it would be too heavy for the battery tray, so I returned it and bought this 17lbs Braille. I thought about getting another Deka battery again, but the cranking amps and stats of the Braille are far superior. Before installing, I replaced the positive terminal with a gold plated one and also bought a new ground wire. On the ground side, I threw on this cool cut off terminal which closes off the battery by just unscrewing that green knob. Since the Braille is so small and I am not going to drive the car everyday, it’s important to guard off residual drain. The battery is sort of ghetto-rigged right now with zip ties, because I can’t find any j-bolts short enough to hold it down.

New electronic distributor and 8mm spark plug wires.

The distributor was the last hurdle before I could try turning the car on again. Since the old one was out, the timing had to be readjusted and I needed help on this part. After calling around multiple mobile mechanics in the area to no avail, I decided to give an old classmate a ring. His day job is a mechanic and he happened to start his own mobile service recently. He came through big time, and the next day (this morning) the new distributor was installed and the timing was set (13 degrees @ 1000 RPM). After a full week of work and parts ordering, it was great to see the car start up again and end on a successful note. There is a huge difference in power when cranking the car, no longer is the starter on its last breath.

In the end, I’m glad things worked out this way. I was able to update many key components and the wrenching felt honorable. The hardest task was definitely installing the brake and clutch master cylinders. They connect to the brake and clutch pedals inside the cabin… but that connection is made via clevis pins located way inside the dash. There was virtually no space to work with and I had to be contorted on the floor near the pedals to even see anything. But as with most things, a lot of cussing and sweat will get you results.

Now with this maintenance job sorted, it’s time to drive!

Well, the timing was right because I was just selling my BMW and needed something new, something different… I was able to convince my Dad (not an easy feat) to go with me 2 and a half hours North to look at the car. When we made it up there to the seller’s house, another party interested in the car happened to show up at exactly the same time. This was partly poor planning by the seller and also bad luck. The competition showed up in a fancy Mercedes CLS, so I judged a book by its cover and basically gave up. After awkwardly looking over the car with the other people, I left and let them have the test drive and first offer. This was debilitating driving all the way up to Sacramento for a seemingly lost cause.

Thinking it was already over, the seller called me the following day to inform me that the other party did indeed make an offer – but wanted to put down a deposit first and bring it to a mechanic to inspect. That was too much hassle and risk for the seller, so I was given a chance to match the offer and buy the car. Although my card was back on the table, I couldn’t reasonably go back up to Sacramento again after what happened last time. Plus, the car had been sitting for months prior, so driving it back home was out of the question. I had to somehow convince the seller to tow it to me. Luckily he was working a job down in Mountain View that week and also had a trailer. It was set for the next day… until I find out that the seller tried to clean off the engine with degreaser and water, and the car wouldn’t start anymore. Later on in the week, the distributor was left to dry out and the car could start again. It took quite a bit of convincing since the seller was busier later in the week, but eventually he came through and delivered the car on that Friday, and I now own a 1962 Mini Cooper.

Buying a car like this certainly requires the will to own it. The reason why I wanted it in the first place, aside from having something different, is because a classic car actually stands to increase in value. Cars are one of the worst depreciating assets you could have. My intentions were not simply to pursue financial rewards, but also because a Mini Cooper is a great choice for my first foray into oldschools. It’s rare in the States and is overall a very simple car. Plus, how can you choose wrong with a Mini Cooper.