MARSHSEIS "Classic Mini Challenge" Creating a Time Machine.

Objective-6 Complete the Engine Cage and Furnish with Suspension Hardware.

Feast your eyes on this!! - the new and innovative merged, married and morphed harmoniously together with the old established and conventional and fully populated with suspension hardware. Our primary objective to retain the original mini geometry fully achieved, well in fact better than fully achieved.

The eagle eyed amongst yous will have noticed not only the adjustable tie rods but also the adjustable bottom suspension arms complete with rose jointed connections meaning this mini will have fully adjustable camber, castor, and toe-in/out. So not only will we retain original geometry but we'll be able to optimise for ride height, wheel size and kerb weight. Our second pinnacle of achievement was being able to mount the power plant with a central location in relation to drive shaft positioning so that drive shafts will be short and more importantly of relatively equal lengths, thus eliminating all the undesirable torque steer compared to what would have been achievable with alternative power plant choices. We are more than pleased with this. :-)

The above picture also shows the engine cradle to body bracing bars but there will be more on these in a later blog as these again are a very crucial and necessary part of the installation.... More on these later.

Again the old tied in with the new....This picture giving a close up view of the mounting arrangement of the inner, bottom, suspension arm foundation point which has retained its exact original location and we've even utilised the original mini canted bolt which allows for drive shaft transit and it's up and down movement. The mounting utilises spacers and shims to achieve exact original front to back positioning. Again we are very pleased with this. :-)

A close up view of the trial fit of the near side tie rods (adjustable and rose jointed) and how they interface between the engine cradle and the bottom suspension arm. Note everything is just tack welded for now. The engine cradle will be fully welded once everything is fully and finally positioned.

Another panoramic view of the complete engine cradle installation with the solution for gear change linkage in-shot. The old through body transit point welded up and the new one cut ready...again there will be a whole blog on this later, on how we achieved installation and utilised the gear change linkage from the new mini.

And BOOM! ... there it is the engine cradle on the underside merged harmoniously with the original body shell and all objectives achieved in a very aesthetically pleasing fashion or at least in our opinion and at the end of the day, that's the one that counts, and in the words from one of the stars from one of my favourite TV shows.... "I just love it when a plan comes together" :-)

That's about all for this blog....All the best and take care and be sure to keep an eye out for our next blogs where you'll find out exactly how we got on with "Creating a Time Machine".