coop500's garage

[coop500]

Finally starting a thread

This will be a big first update to get started!

I'm 25, originally from Scotland but now living in Norway.

Quick car history:

I was lucky enough to end up with a Mini Cooper as my first car. Luckily both of my parents had one as their first car so they were easy to win over

My father is also a massive petrol head so I had him on my side

It was a 1998 reg Rover Mini Sportspack, great fun little car Bought in 2006

Pics:

Sadly in my youth I killed it Sorry

Take note new drivers! beware wet country roads! Anyways I learnt from my mistakes and put the insurance money to good use and picked up this:

Bought in 2007: its a 2001 Rover Mini Cooper Sport 500. One of the last 500 made before closing the factory

I'd been bitten by the Mini bug


I've still got this car and its still pretty much standard.

Its been all over Europe and it was the car which drove me to Norway where I'm now living

All ready to leave:

Also before leaving I got the rust fixed as it was going to be a lot cheaper than trying to get it done in Norway!

The full front end was replaced, plus both sills, boot floor, rear vallence, front windscreen surround and rear arches....


All minis rust.... but I think Rover managed to make them rust more....



A year before leaving The UK I managed to pick up a "project" car.

Yup another mini:

Plan was to learn to weld on this one and create something I could use for "autoslaloms" and maybe some trackdays.


It needed new sills, inner and outer but was suprisingly solid for what I paid for it :00

I stripped the full car in my parents driveway:

Stripped and painted all the parts I could replacing with new nuts bushings and bearings:

Ready to swallow an engine

And I basically go the car to a driveable stage before graduating and deciding to leave the country...

And by the end of it I was getting alright with a mig welder

So I then packed all of my stuff, basically every tool I owned plus my mig welder into the mini and set off for a new life in Norway.

 

[coop500]

Having arrived in Norway and found out I'd have to pretty much buy my car again through import tax I stored the Mini in my Norwegian girlfriend's parents house until I could afford to register it!

Hopefully this coming summer!

With no job yet and limited savings I set out to find the cheapest car in the area with 2 years MOT/EU.


I ended up with this.....

A 1 owner 1988 Nissan Bluebird 2.0 LX with 180,000kms on the clock.

I never saw myself owning one of these... but I've grown to like.. yeah ok love it

It cost me 11,000 nok, around £1000 or to put it another way £800 more than it would have cost me in the UK.....


Its lasted me so far having put 30,000kms on it so far with no problems and worked great as a winter beater car

It also got me to the job interview which I got so i've now started to mess around with it

First was some revolution alloy wheels. I had the 4 spokes on my mini so when I saw these 5 spokes for £80 for the set I had to have them

 

[coop500]

This year we managed to get a house with a garage so I've finally got a dry place to work on the cars and a place to store the other mini which I need to pick up from Scotland.

The other halfs mighty reliable Corolla is our only sensible car

 

[coop500]

The latest updates are from some Ice Driving

I figured if I was over here I had to make the most of being able to drive on a frozen lake so a friend and I fitted some old studded tires to my old steel wheels, added white tire paint and drove 2 hours to a frozen lake for some driving

We even managed to drive back!

A short video from the day with a bonus crash at the end

 

[coop500]

Also picked these up from the UK which have helped with the drive to work and back in the long dark Norwegian winters!

I'll try and keep the updates coming On the lookout for a good tow car just now so I can go and get the other mini.

Then I can turn the bluebird into one of these:

Thanks for reading

 

[eiriksmil]

Awesome.. I never see any old regular Nissans around, they just rust into the ground. Shame it's fwd
Where you located bud?

 

[Davis]

Oh my god that first Mini. That's exactly the way I would have mine... if I could have a classic. Too bad it's all smashed up, we had matching GB bootlid emblems.

That Bluebird is pretty awesome too though.

 

[coop500]

Awesome.. I never see any old regular Nissans around, they just rust into the ground. Shame it's fwd
Where you located bud?

Yeah the rear arches and sills on mine are slowly disappearing...

It's a shame it's fwd but I think a skyline/silvia driveline swap would be great fun in it

I'm living down in Vestfold, about 15 mins south of Drammen.

 

[CDailey]

Love the Mini! I wish these were easy/cheap to acquire here in the 'States. Too bad about the import tax, but the Bluebird doesn't look too bad.

 

[eiriksmil]

Yeah the rear arches and sills on mine are slowly disappearing...

It's a shame it's fwd but I think a skyline/silvia driveline swap would be great fun in it

I'm living down in Vestfold, about 15 mins south of Drammen.

I guess your engine is transverse.. With the right motor mounts everything is possible, but you had those small NX somethings, as well as the Nissan Pulsars.. Must be some nice options there..

That's cool man.. Hit me up if you wanna have some kebab or a burger in Drammen (Snappy's is pretty awesome).. Too long since I've been there..

 

[Clark]

 

[Katiegan]

I've always loved the classic Mini, and I love yours! Shame about the first one, looks to be a pretty bad smash, too .

Also, love the Bluebird! Recently developed a soft spot for 80s Japanese cars.

 

[Cano]

Dude you came out alive of that first Mini :0

Also I love your cars, even the Bloobird.

 

[coop500]

Fitted these today

My rear brakes were locking up before my front which was a bit unnerving....

The rears turned out to be in pretty good condition but the fronts seemed to have some glazing on the pads.

I'll test it out tomorrow

I guess your engine is transverse.. With the right motor mounts everything is possible, but you had those small NX somethings, as well as the Nissan Pulsars.. Must be some nice options there..

That's cool man.. Hit me up if you wanna have some kebab or a burger in Drammen (Snappy's is pretty awesome).. Too long since I've been there..

Cheers I was going to ask you if you've tried any "autoslaloms" with your cars? And if you were up for coming to some? Your garage looks like it has some good cars for it

Me and a friend were going to try and enter some events this year.

Dude you came out alive of that first Mini :0

Also I love your cars, even the Bloobird.

I was lucky enough to to get out of the car with only a cut on my left hand.... I've used up my luck now so you see my "track" mini has a good rollcage in it

 

[coop500]

Just a small update. Finally moved the mini from the "in-laws" garage to mine. Feels great having it close so I can work on it in the evenings. Lots of upgrades planned now.

I'm going to put of registering it for now as I need the money to go towards a better every day and tow car.

Its ran great after 18 months of standing still. Brakes need some attention but that's all.
Great fun being back behind the wheel of this car

Up on jack stands and ready for the upgrades!

 

[DrPuppetwarrior]

I love how you showed the blue mini in all its glory then boom it's dead.

 

[coop500]

A long time since the last update but I've been busy with house upgrades and not had much time for the cars

Firstly sad news, the bluebird went to the big racetrack in the sky I couldn't afford having 5 cars in the household so one had to go and it sure as hell wasn't going to be the mini!

Just before scrapping it with all the good parts stripped off. It needed 2 new sills, 2 new rear shock towers, new fuel tank and welding on two of the seatbelt mountings.

The scrap money has gone towards new alloy 4 pot brakes for the mini as the ones on it were seized up and both bleed nipples sheared off. Tried welding a nut on etc but had no luck!

The good news is I picked up a new daily driver to replace the bluebird

It's great fun with loads of grip and enough towing capacity to tow the other mini over from Scotland

Final new addition to the family is a vw camper. Sadly we can't fit into it...

 

[coop500]

Just a quick update. Finally finished fitting the braided brake lines ready for when the next package from the UK arrives

Also picked this up from Japan. Just need to repaint now

 

[coop500]

The first of the packages has arrived so i should be able to fit the parts some time this week. Unfortunately some of the brake lines had corroded so I've had to order some new ones from the UK.

Now the good bits:



Billet alloy 4 pot calipers and new disks and pads

I'm planning on registering this next spring so I've started stripping the car a little to get it how I want it before that point.

The engine bay is a nightmare to work in as it's one of the later fuel injected cars. I'm going to relocate as much of the wiring ecu etc inside the car to tidy up the engine bay.

More pics to follow

 

[SVX]

Love the Mini. 👍

Also nice on the Legacy as well. Would that have the... 2.5 litre if I recall?

 

[coop500]

Cheers, it's got the 2.0 Dohc 165bhp engine.

The tax over here on cars with any sort of power is insane... Hence a legacy gt was out of the question!

 

[coop500]

Managed to get them fitted today. Went on with no problems which was great. I also stripped the old calipers into halfs so I can use the good parts on my other mini

I've got to wait for the final package to arrive now before I can test them out but in the mean time I can do some tidying of the engine bay.

 

[coop500]

Unfortunately I had to do some work on the legacy today. The bottom of one of the doors was showing a little rust so I thought I should see to it before it got worse.

The climate over here I'd really terrible for cars.



As always it got worse the more I cleaned back but I got it to a stage I was happy with.

For now I've given it a coat of por15 until I get some of the original.



Couldn't believe a car from 2006 was already rusting here. My bluebird from 88 was still solid in this area, the same couldn't be said for the rest of the car though.

 

[coop500]

The hard brake at the rear of the mini are all replaced now and I've replaced the leaking waterpump. The pumps seem to last 5 minutes.... also stripped and rebuilt the heater with a new matrix.

That's as far as I got before I realised I'd left the keys for the car at my inlaws house...

Pics




Also here is the starting point for the massive task of cleaning up the engine bay. I've already removed the Ecu and some other pits in this picture.

 

[Legro]

Great thread. Nice to see other Mini guys here.