Baby's First Mini

My first mini. Neighbor offered it up since he was tired of hearing my reverse grind. $300. Head gasket is blown. Plan on fixing the head gasket and putting on a Weber 32/36. Nothing fancy. Leave the suspension as is. Kind of a back up truck.

It appears to have 4 inch blocks in the back, and my guess is torsion bars adjusted in the front.

not too bad, I like how wide those wheels are, both of my trucks grinded when going into reverse, maybe youl have better luck

Put into reverse with engine off, clutch in then start.
That'll fix your grinding, but it obviously isn't a good idea if you like to warm up the motor properly before driving.

Next, steering joints and power steering swap.

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Not too shabby for $300 will make a great DD, you should do the RX7 5th gear swap while you have the motor out... not difficult just need to find a donor tranny at the JY and take off the tail shaft, swap the gears out, one of the best mods I did to mine. I get close to 30mpg on the fwy, I am also EFI though.

Looks like you are making good progress. Keep the pics rolling.

nice grab not my type of wheels though but to each his own. but can't complain for 300$. and my reverse grinds as well, but to avoid this with the motor running just hold your clutch in and go up to 5th and back into reverse, i never grind when doing this and i often do the reverse before you start as well, but our winters aren't to cold down here.

Also, what rear end swap or gear swap are you talking about with an rx7

This is where the motor is coming from. The trans is close to death. Thinking of leaving as is, and making a sleeper with just a small V8 inside.



All the stuff that came out:



It'll definitely be a slow build. Not really even a build so much as a revival.

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Here's the second mechanic. He took off the center cap holders/braces.



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Yeah mine had some wheels that stuck out when I got it too. Changed that out quickly.

The 5th gear in the transmission is what I swapped out with an RX7 tranny. same internal design just different gear ratios. I dont remember the exact gear ratio but on the freeway at 70mph my engine used to be around 4000rpm! now it sits around 2500rpm at 70mph.


the exposed gear on the right is the 5th gear. center and tail shaft housing were removed to get to it and swap it out. Did it about 5 years ago and this is the only pic I have left.



here is a link to the info page I used back when I did it