Molly Mayfair

[(minisniper)]

I picked my first mini last year and my son soon called her Molly. I bought her locally and when I bought her she only had about 12,000 miles on the clock. I couldn’t believe it and she was in really good condition and still is thank god!!! Molly had only been used by an old lady to go to the shops once a week and then put her back in the garage and she has all of her original panels apart from a sill on the driver’s side. I suppose you could say it was love at first sight which is rather strange because when I look back my dad has always been into cars and secretly loved one more than the other which I never understood until of course I found Molly who has changed the way I now look at cars although Molly isn’t just a car as you can see.



After driving about for a little while, I started to notice a clunking noise which turned into abit of a saga. I will explain, having done the usual checks to see if anything was loose I was then told by Jodie aka Joloke that it was the gearbox and at that time I have to admit I wasn’t prepared to accept her advice so me being me, I got my partner in his overalls oh and me too, and we slowly looked at all most every part of Molly and jointly decided it was the engine mounts so I ordered what we needed from Minisport and then we both processed to change them. The one on the passenger side was a walk in the park but the driver’s side well!!!!! Some words that come from my partner’s mouth I have to confess I hadn’t heard before and I did feel sorry for him. He’s normally used to working on his Pajero where everything is big and you have plenty of room. After being under Molly for about 15 minutes, he said we needed another pair of hands but they must be a child’s basically he was finding it so difficult to get to some of the bell housing bolts and the engine mount bolts. Anyway several cups of coffee later, the loss of some blood, a lot of sweat and a lot of words I can’t say here we finally got it put back. Then it was time to take it for a test drive and guess what? “CLUNK!!!” was still there.

More to follow........

[Admin/Founder 2]

After driving about for a little while, I started to notice a clunking noise which turned into abit of a saga. I will explain, having done the usual checks to see if anything was loose I was then told by Jodie aka Joloke that it was the gearbox and at that time I have to admit I wasn’t prepared to accept her advice

Tut tut doubting my judgement ;D

Molly is Gorgeous
And Wow what low miles on her clock !!
I never realised she had only done 12000 miles when you got her

Reminds me of my Old Mini "Spud" he had only done 13k
Looking Forward to seeing more updates on Molly shes a cutey

Huggz
Jodie

[(minisniper)]

I then decided I wanted some different wheels for Molly so I started looking round and finally found some on eBay and they turned out to be a bargain. We went and got them and then starting re-furbing them. So after a few coats of Nitromors, scraping and cleaning and more scraping and cleaning I finally got all the old paint and lacquer off and then prepared for the white paint, I used Hammerite Smooth white, I gave them all two coats of Hammerite and allowed them to dry for 2 days and then gave them a final coat and they were done thank god!

Pic of them before


Pic of them after



After doing them, I thought of some other things that I would like to change so I went and bought a chrome grille and chrome boot light and once fitted they made Molly look even better with her new shiny white wheels. Then I thought? Spotlights would go really nice with my new grille so you guessed it, I was looking round for spotlights and eventually bought some from Minisport, luckily I have a friend who knows how to fit them and wire them up properly and he came over with his daughter and fitted them for the cost of a brew.

[(minisniper)]

I still had the clunking as this was an on going problem and someone had suggested it might be the front subframe mounts so you guessed it!! My partner and I jacked up Molly and started to check the subframe mounts. The teardrops mounts will still in good condition but the rear ones needed changed so I asked for some advice on which mounts to buy and ended up ordered the poly mounts, what a mistake that was!! I ordered them from Ebay and at the weekend my partner and I were under Molly, changing her mounts. We managed to get her old ones out with no problems and no choice words. So we started on the driver’s side, we took the old one out and oh my god trying to put the new one in. We must have struggled for about half an hour to get the new mount in and the same happened on the passenger side, it took just as long but by now a few words were banded about which I can’t repeat on here. After about an hour and a half, we had finally done it and I decided to take Molly out for a quick run. It was horrible, it felt terrible and there were strange noises coming from the subframe so when I got back we had a look underneath to check nothing had come loose, they was nothing loose so we left it. My partner and I took Molly out the next day and the same was happening so I then decided I was going to go and order the normal rubber mounts and back on the phone to Minisport. They arrived in a couple of days so we were back under Molly changing the mounts and what a fiddle it was getting the poly mounts out as the bolts has sunk into the mounts themselves. It took us longer to get the poly mounts out than to fit the new rubber ones but after a long hour or so we finally did and I took Molly out and she was back to normal. What a relief that was! So after changing the mounts and speaking to Jodie some more I finally took her word it that all auto boxes have a clunk to them so I now put up with the clunk. While we had Molly jacked up, we undersealed Molly and checked that there wasn’t any rot.

To be continued.......

[(minisniper)]

After changing mounts and adding spotlights etc, I decided to think about changing Molly’s interior. I came up with the idea of cream and light blue and then changed my mind to black and blue inside to contrast the outside. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know, just thought it would be different and I wanted bucket seats after sitting in my friend’s mini and thinking they were really comfortable. I started looking in the usual places and found some on ebay being sold by a local man so I went and had a look and I bought them. I bought them home and cleaned them which took a couple of days so my lounge looked like a mini spares shop!! After I cleaned them, I went to put them in Molly and I soon realised that they had the wrong subframes so I called the guy back up and he came round to see them for himself and he did say to me if I don’t want them then I could have my money back or he could order me some subframes. So I decided to wait for the subframes and he bought them round after a few days and I could finally put the seats in Molly.





Well Molly has her new seats and everything was going fine, well so I thought. I went out to clean the inside of Molly and the carpet was soaking wet so out came the carpet to dry in the sun and I noticed the sound proofing was coming off in parts so I got the bits and hovered the floor and then I thought I would take the seats out and paint the floor as it needed doing as the paint and soundproof was cracking so I spent the next few days painted the floor with Hammerite. Once the paint had dried and the carpet, I put the carpet and the seats back in.




To be continued..........................

[(minisniper)]

A few months have gone by now with everything is going smoothly, but I noticed that Molly was leaking from the rear windows when I washed her and she had started leaking on the passenger door when it was raining so back onto the phone and I ordered door rubbers and rear window rubbers and fitted them when they arrived. She still has a slight leak sometimes on the driver and passenger doors but I think that because the door is bent slightly or they just need adjusting slightly.

So at the moment, Molly is going well but now I have had to get a new interior again as my son can’t get in the back with the bucket seats so we went to Birmingham to put up an interior from 1993 Mayfair and so I have given them a quick clean and have put them in Molly. I got the door cards too. I have given my Dad the front ones as I want him to put some pockets on them instead of the plastic doorbins.


Will post up a pic of Molly's new seats when I can find it on my computer.

To be continued .........

[Admin/Founder 2]

Sometime when you replace Door Rubbers you have to readjust the doors

Its not always necessary to do just sometimes
failing that they leak may not be coming from the doors

Leaks on Minis are probably the hardest thing to trace
Im sure you'll get to the bottom of it though

Hey cant wait to see the new interior

Huggz
Jodie

[(minisniper)]

Well I still can't find the pics of my seats but I have done some more on Molly. Today I have fitted new spark plugs and leads and a new air filter. Also I adjusted my doors so that they close better and hopefully stop my leak that happens when I wash her.

Chris aka Clambod kindly fitted Molly with a electronic ignition a couple of weeks ago just before the snow but I've been having a few problems with the timing so we are still sorting that out but hopefully tomorrow it will be sorted

[(minisniper)]

Clambod came over today and has adjusted Molly's timing so she's running ok now. I also fitted my new halogen headlights today with a little help from Bigsniper. I was going to take a picture of Molly with her new headlights but it's been raining most of the day so hopefully will be able to tomorrow