73 Mini Innocenti 1300 Export

[Willie_B]

The timing chain cover gasket is very easy to destroy.  The leak in my mini Steve found was a cracked timing chain cover.

[MiniDave]

Well, just in case I pulled the speedo drive cover off the transmission too and redid the gasket on it. I refilled the crankcase with oil so if it's gonna leak out of there I'll know it. The timing cover won't get any oil in it till I run it so I'm just gonna take a chance and stick it in the car and see what happens. We're only talking the occasional drip - but I don't like my engine rebuilds leaking.....it offends my sense of ability. And I'd prefer not to pull it back out once it's in the car.....so I hope that got it.

Permatex is pretty good stuff.....

[MiniDave]

Posted without comment.....  77.gif

[MiniDave]

Today they delivered the new brake servo from the Alfa Parts supplier in the UK, it looks like a perfect match to the old one. I have an email in to the seller to find out if the fittings are metric or English. 6mm and 1/4" are very similar and close in size....

I also mounted the carbs on the manifold and onto the head...before I could do that I had to trim the gaskets slightly to match the openings in the manifold.

Once mounted to the head I could start to plan where and how I was going to run the pipes from the master cylinders over to the other side of the bulkhead where the fittings are for the clutch and brake connections. It's really tight but I'll figure it out.

Someone sent me a drawing of how they're supposed to be run, but that's for a stock Inno with the smaller H2 carbs and stock air filter.

[94touring]

That drawing is handy! 

[MiniDave]

I still have his contact info, I'm going to see if I can get a copy of the whole book somehow.....or at least the drawings like that - I don't know if the book was printed in that color paper or if it's just aged to that color. Really cool.....I have an old Bentley manual for my Jag - it's all done in line drawings like that and so much clearer and easier to see than the pics the Haynes people use.

[MiniDave]

Got the Hardy Spicer joints bolted up - what a PITA - you have to jack the wheel up as far as you can in order to get enough clearance Clarance so you could get the joint over the studs. Then the nuts are special and are tough to get fully tightened.

I also got the shifter assembly installed, and it works! It's always more fun to be putting stuff back on than taking it off!  77.gif

On the brake pipes, I think if I take them straight down, then back next to the narrow part of the master cylinder I should have enough room. I thought about taking them upward, but I think it will look better the other way.

[MiniDave]

I hurt my back again......so all I've gotten done is to clean and paint some brackets and do some misc wiring and such. Just small stuff......

[MiniDave]

Fussing around with the Inno in the shop today, cleaning tools and painting the odd bracket and such.

Whilst fiddling about (thank you Tommy) I tried on the Inno grill - method to my madness, I was looking at how and where to locate the oil cooler and its brackets and hoses.

I also bent up my first brake pipe and installed the new brake servo.

And I fit the headers so I could see how and where to run the speedo cable so it wouldn't get melted and would go thru the grommet in the new bulkhead cover plate.

Finally I fit the starter and solenoid, and made a new cable as I found out why the original starter didn't seem to work so well when I found the cable worn thru and shorting whenever the starter was operated.

I pulled the carbs off so I could install the headers and bend up and install the brake pipes from the masters to their various fittings, but due to my back being out again I didn't get those done.

Tomorrow is the big All British show so I'll be there all day with the green Mini. Way back when, I had planned to be able to take the Inno but I got put back a couple of months with my last back go around.

[Willie_B]

Is there anything under the masters to make up the difference of there not being a metal plate for the upper steady? On the moke there is a different metal plate and a gasket.

I found out on my mini that if the brake master cannot completely return, pressure builds in the lines till the brakes lock up.

[MiniDave]

Yes, there is a metal plate under the masters, I'll see if I can find a pic of it.....there also is a fairly hard fiber gasket under the master and a soft foam gasket under the plate.

You can see the black plate in this pic....

[94touring]

I found out the hard way once too that not enough gasket or plate under the master makes brakes seize at the worst times.  I was very confused.  Look's like we'll be ok though.

[MiniDave]

You know, it's really easy to install the speedo cable on the transmission when there's no radiator or lower hose in the way!   ;D ;D ;D ;D

[94touring]

I bet!

[gr8kornholio]

I have a feeling I'll be referencing this build a lot putting my car back together. Loving all the detailed info.

[MiniDave]

But your car will be right hand drive, right Mark?

[gr8kornholio]

yes it's right hand drive.

[MiniDave]

My back is feeling surprisingly better, so I decided to see about making the brake lines for the master cylinders. I had bought a kit earlier that was supposed to work with the new master (with its metric fittings) and the existing brake distribution fitting on the bulkhead - except - it didn't. The master cylinder end fit fine, a metric 12mm X 1.0 for the bottom hole and supposedly a metric 8mm X 1.0 for the other end. However, the dist fitting had other ideas as it was NOT metric. At least I assumed so as all the other fittings in it were English - 3/8-24.

No problem I figure, I'll just run down to the autoparts store and get the right fitting - 3/8-24 is too small, must be a 7/16-24. Except it isn't - as I found out when I got home again. Must be 10mm metric after all I thought, so back down to the parts store and back home again.

Nope, not 10mm either.

Getting the dist. fitting off the bulkhead so I could take it to the parts store and see if I could find the right fitting was more work than I wanted to do at this point as three of the 5 openings were already filled, so I decided to go the other route and find the original line that was there - knowing that at least the one end would be right. I don't throw way anything when I do one of these, but it still took me all damn evening to find the damn old line. When I did I measured it - 7/16 all right but 20 instead of 24!

Augghghghgh!

I called it a night, tomorrow I can bend up and fit some lines. With that done I can reinstall the carbs and things should start moving along pretty well - assuming my back doesn't let me down again.

BTW, the metric fittings have small notches around the nut. In the last pic, 12mm, 3/8-24 and 7/16-20

[gr8kornholio]

One of the first things I bought when I decided to blow apart the mini was a thread checker.  Just in case I needed a new bolt, lost a bolt and to know what size tap or die to use to clean threads.  Not sure if this is it, but I bought the most complete of both SAE and Metric I could find.

https://www.amazon.com/Bolt-Thread-Checker-Complete-Metric/dp/B06ZYD4SS8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=bolt+size+guide&qid=1567593526&s=gateway&sr=8-1

[MiniDave]

After all these years of working on cars I can usually look at it and tell you what size and thread it is, but I couldn't see inside the fitting on this one so it probably would have helped having those, especially on a car with the mixed metric/English fittings this one has. I have a set of thread gauges but again, it was too awkward to get them in there to check.

Funny, the English master cylinder is metric, but the Italian servo has English fittings.....I'm lucky the 7/16 fitting is in good shape so I can reuse it, it might be hard to find one of those locally. I have new ones of all the others I'll need.

[MiniDave]

So........brake lines. They almost broke me!

The material I bought off Amazon seems to be copper coated steel, rather than the nice easily bent copper alloy you get from England - my bad for not looking at it more closely, but it's good stuff no matter just tough to bend. Then, if you look at the pics, there were a whole lot of bends in these two pipes, and some of them had to be pretty tight bends at that. I have a nice bending tool, but the radius is larger than I had to have for a couple of these bends, so I had to do them by hand. On top of that, when you have the pipe out in your hands it's very easy to get confused as to which way the bend is supposed to go, and yes I bent a few the wrong way and had to start over again. Lastly, I had to flare the line and put the fitting on before I bent the last part, and I just had to guess at the total length. It took WAY longer than I thought it would, but the two brake pipes are in, all I have left is to do is some final fettling and make the clutch pipe. Still looking at exactly where I'm going to run that one.

The other weird thing is, I've been looking for some simple brake line clips - I don't want to use P clips. They go by a number of names - saddle clamps, double line clamps and so on, and I can find them all day in packs of 12 for $25! I need 2, and none of the parts stores carry them, the only place I can find them is England or one of the specialty hot rod parts places like Kuger.

Dan and I talked about it and I'm going to weld a bung into the header collector so we can use a wide band to set up the carb needles. Oh and for those of you with SU carbs, Minty Lamb is back online at mintylamb.co.uk

This is what I'm talking about....

[gr8kornholio]

About like my flooring project.  Couldn't tell you how many times I measured from the wrong end or cut off the wrong end/side of the flooring.  Don't get me started on the trim.... 

Now I get the right hand vs. left hand comments.  All my stuff is on the same side, so no routing from one to the other like the pictures.

[MiniDave]

I got the third line made today, from the clutch master to the flex hose coupling on the bulkhead.

My neighbor gave me a really old line bending tool and it worked way better than mine for making these tight sharp bends. Wish I had it before to make the others but there's no way I'm going to redo the other two now. I had to make this last one twice anyway, as I guess I didn't take into account the extra material taken by the bends and the first one was an inch too short.

Next I have to make some clips to mount them to the bulkhead since I can't find the ones I want anywhere. If you reference the old pic I posted beforeof how they're supposed to be run you can see the clips the factory used, I'm going to make some like those, only for all three lines.

Now, as long as nothing leaks, I should be done with hydraulic lines. I bought some fuel line as this one has been crushed in a couple of places but I'm going to take a good hard look at it before I change it, if its just cosmetic I may leave it alone as the line was put in before the subframes, and I'm not taking them out again!

[Ingman]

What type of Oil Cooler will you go with?  My starter was rubbing against mine and it has a tiny leak, so going to replace soon.  Thought about bypassing it all together, but want to keep it as it should be.  Love to see photos when you get it in.  Great job!!

[94touring]

We have an original innocenti oil cooler to use.