Cars

Mini Rebuild

Step 40 - Throttle, Fuel Lines, Power Shifter, Fuel Tank

I admit it - progress on the Mini definitely slowed since the MINIeXvo kit arrived. I'll discuss that more in the next installment but for now, here's what has been accomplished since my last update:

I'm using the stock Mini fuel tank in the boot so fuel lines would be necessary to run gas from the back to the front fuel injection rail, then any unused fuel would need to returned to the tank. As much as I didn't want my fuel lines exposed to the elements, I preferred them under the car than inside the passenger compartment. Safety trumps durability on this one. The lines I purchased would require a pretty mean hit to make them rupture but on the advice of a friend I decided to route them along the edge of the exhaust tunnel.

Here where the fuel lines wound up in the boot.

I've been told that braided stainless steel lines tend to scrape and destroy just about anything they come in contact with. To keep the lines away from anything including one another I purchased these Earl's hose seperators.

And here are th lines being test-routed along the bottom of the car.

Here you can see where I routed the lines up through the hole in the front subframe.

And here is where the lines enter the engine bay by snaking between the firewall and rear of the front subframe.

I had these threaded fittings welded onto the Mini fuel pump by a professional, making it possible to solidly attach the fuel line connectors, one of which is pictured here.

Once the lines were all routed it was time to trim them to length and attach the end fittings.

Here are the lines temporarily fitted to the fuel pump.

With the fuel pump out you can see the baffle I had welded into the tank to prevent fuel starvation. Simple but hopefully effective.

I removed the tank, cleaned the inside and sealed it with POR15's fuel tank rust preventative coating. Now I just have to clean up the exterior and paint it black before I'm finished with the tank.

While I had the car in the air I also routed the main positive battery cable from the stock Mini battery box in the boot up to the engine bay. This cable is another item I wanted to be sure to protect. I purchased a steel cable guide made for these cars, affixed it in a few spots and ran the battery cable inside. Simple.

The battery cable guide.

In my last installment the throttle mechanism was about finished except for a custom linkage housing. Here is the design I came up. It utilizes inexpensive bearing and the linkage arms that came with the Joe's Racing throttle pedal.

I returned to TechShop with a solid block of aluminum and got to work.

After just a few hours I wound up with this.

Test-fitting proved it will work, although some fine-tuning will be required.

Now pushing (down on the throttle pedal) pulls (the throttle cable).

Like almost every piece of the car, a reinforcement plate was missing from my Mini when I purchased it. To provide enough support for the rear engine mount, I needed to add a plate. I decided to fabricate one and also cover the holes where someone did a poor job of sealing the RH-drive brake master cylinder holes.

Here's the posterboard template. More soon...

I purchased an Aston flip-up fuel lid, requiring the installation of this threaded retaining ring. This required a bit of light sanding and a heavy hammer.

I've spoken before of the ProShift system. Its main component is a large solenoid that activates the sequential gear changer at the touch of the paddle shifter. Of course it needed to be installed in a very specific orientation to the shift rod and swing through an exact arc length. Given the tight confines of my engine bay this left me with exactly one place to mount it and the need to fabricate a new actuator arm. This proved tedious and a bit time-consuming but it is now done. The bonus feature of mounting it in this location meant it interferes with the engine's airbox. A project down the road will be slicing up and re-forming one corner of the airbox to 'wrap around' the solenoid.

Fabricating the solenoid mount.

Here it is bolted up. I'll have to clean up the bracket when time allows.

Continue to Rebuild Step 41

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