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Hi Stephen, nearly 50 yrs ago I had a small motor repair business when the mini was in it's heyday, and I did just about every job on them that there was to do. They were, as you may already know, very different to
other cars of the time. If you can get one with a good engine and
transmission, it would be good, because some of the under bonnet work
is cramped, awkward, and in a couple of cases, quite difficult. Replacing
the bypass hose between the cyl.head and the block is a pain in the !!!!!!.
There are one or two traps you can fall into as well. If you have the
flywheel in the wrong position when removing it, it comes so far, and
then will not come off or go back on, and then you have real problems.
There are also some special tools needed. Without them a few jobs
become very difficult or impossible to do. One downside to the mini was
that the distributor was at the front directly behind the rad, and heavy
rain would frequently stop a mini. It can be sprayed with silicon, which
usually fixes that problem. Or a shield can be fitted. Make sure that you
get one without the hydrolastic suspension; unless they've found a way
of modifying it, it is usually nothing but trouble.
Having said all this, I've had a couple; they're a great little fun car,
especially the Cooper S.
raymo
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