With the engine, subframe and most of the other parts having arrived at the end of November 2020, I made a start on getting the engine trial-fitted into the mini. I’ve now booked the mini in for the remaining bodywork and paint, but it’s not going in until May 2021, so I have a bit of time to do some other jobs.
First thing was to mount the engine and see how it fits. I was originally going to put the engine in the new front subframe and fit it to the car, however I decided to use the old beat-up subframe instead for the trial fit, as that way I won’t risk scratching up the nice newly powder coated subframe.
I hit a minor problem straight away, in that my engine hoist wouldn’t fit under the car, so I couldn’t get the engine close enough to the subframe! This is because the legs of the hoist spread outwards and are too wide, hitting the tie-rods and bottom arms, as you can see in the below pic.
Luckily, this was fairly simple to work around. I just jacked up the front of the car enough that the engine hoist could pass underneath and lowered it again once the hoist was sufficiently far under the car that the legs had narrowed enough to clear the tie-rods.
It was then a matter of getting the lower engine mounts lined up with the holes. At this point, I started to struggle a bit. I just didn’t look like it would fit. To make the holes line up, the engine would have to be moved so far back that the diff housing would hit the rear of the subframe. Then I remembered what Andrew from Vetech had told me when he dropped the engine off. There are two sets of lower engine mount locations on the engine, because there are two different types of front subframe in respect to engine mount positions. Andrew had already attached the engine mounts to the engine in the correct position for my new subframe, but I then twigged that the old subframe I was using must be different. I pulled the engine out again and removed the lower engine mounts, re-fitting them in the alternative locations, which is a simple job. You can see the engine mount and the alternative mounting holes in the pic below.
Once I’d done that, I tried the engine in the subframe again and sure enough it fit like a glove.
Here are some pics of the engine mounted in the car, using the old subframe:
Note that in the pics, the engine is only secured via the lower mounts. This is because I don’t have the mounting points on my bulkhead for one of them, until it goes in for bodywork and the other one I can’t mount because I don’t have the plate fitted where the brake master cylinder lives yet.
Next up is to try the front bodywork on for size.