Project Binky - Episode 34 - Austin Mini GT-Four - Turbocharged 4WD Mini

project binky in color starring nick blackhurst also starring richard brunning and rex hamilton as abraham lincoln tonight's episode the golden touch [Music] coming up in episode 34 nick takes delivery of some new bedding for his pet velociraptor i concede it's probably time to try and shift a few pounds and we both draw a curtain over nick's checkered past at the end of the previous episode we'd spent a very long time perfecting the paint job countless hours of prep work masking and spraying went into the mini to leave us with a finish that's subtle and stunning all at the same time needless to say we were very happy indeed with the outcome so with the shell complete and all the time money and effort already spent refurbishing the running gear all we've got to do now is throw it back together i really wish that was the case but there's an awful lot that's got to happen before we even get to those parts there's a very specific order to how this thing goes together i just wish i could remember what that was but before we even worry about that there's one interesting piece of information that i think we're all keen to find out long time viewers will have probably noticed one or two brackets and minor modifications to the shell over the years in order to facilitate the mounting of the monstrous running gear we thought it might be fun to weigh the bare shell with its closures before we start the reassembly you know for science i am fairly sure that what we've got here has indeed at all of the pies in many terms i'm not sure that that's the right yard let alone stick anymore you can buy a brand new shell in various configurations but the one closest to ours is the late sports pack shell with the closures and weighs around 200 kilos so where do you suppose we're out with lardy here nearly 270 kilograms but in fairness there's nearly 10 in the dollies that it's sitting on and it's probably got another 10 in the paint stone chip and seam sealer so the comparison to the unpainted shell should be close to 250 but that's still 25 heavier that's all explained away by stuff like the side impact protection in the doors the big roll cage tubing in the sills and the strengthening needed for the subframe mounts etc so the comparison shouldn't be a mini shell it should be a seleca shell because that's what the running gear was designed to fit and they weigh in at 368 kilos which is 47 more than our shell truthfully the weight is relevant as this isn't a competition car this is a car to have fun with around the lanes of shropshire when the opportunity presents itself the four-wheel drive system will offer extra grip in the poor weather and the turbocharged engine makes for safer overtaking unfortunately all that gear is still awaiting the installation and before we can do any of that work we must do something to protect the lovely shiny expensive fabulous new paint job that's not quite what i had in mind you're joking it's a high vis vestment that's better than bathfink's wings yes as usual it's me that's got to be the adult in the room and come up with a workable solution and this remarkable low-tack self-adhesive cling film type stuff looks like it'll do the trick for minor indiscretions at least it's very blue indeed although i have it on good authority it's slightly less blue than the stone of galveston we'll be in and out of the car and brushing past it constantly so the potential for inadvertent damage is high and while it's not going to help if one of us drops a badger on it the film should mitigate all the lesser knocks and the old door seals will lessen the chance of contusions with the mini now wearing protection we can finally get down to some reassembly whilst it's a fair bet that this body shell is going to require some remedial work long before it starts to rust away this is in part at least still a british leyland product when we started this project this was the condition of our shell british layland bmc austin rover bmw whatever era your mini is from if it doesn't look like this it will or it's just been fixed and it will so before we cover everything up we may as well spend a bit of time and energy trying to prevent the inevitable i've always thought of nick as a bit of a canute attempting to stop a mini from rusting is an exercise in futility although that won't stop him trying you may have wondered what all those seemingly redundant holes were for as we went through the build well now you know they were put there specifically to allow us to spray some goo into the orifices and no that's not a euphemism this is a rust blocking spray which goes on thin and gets into every nook and cranny and then thickens up a little after contact with the air it's very messy indeed but i'm assured that after spaffing it into every crevice the likelihood of future corrosion is somewhat diminished [Music] [Applause] [Music] all the surfaces inside the voids were edge primed before we welded them all together so this might seem like overkill at this point but as you know overkill is my second favorite type of kill there sorted and after a lengthy clean up session it's finally time to stick some stuff to the car actually yes yes it is hmm that's not very exciting but necessary all the same you see without the application of sound deadening the steel panels boom and the road noise is significant this product is a super sticky beautiful rubber bonded to an aluminium skin it's a little under two millimeters thick but it's quite dense so there's some proper weight behind it it's designed to dampen vibrations and stop resonance through the application of science it also cuts down on tyre noise and stone chips being so thin it's ideal for our application because we've got barely any extra space as it is although the thickness of this and the carpet was taken into account when we were designing the interior you can get very good results with this stuff even if you only cover 30 percent of a panel despite considering that sort of coverage nick's decided that more stuff equals more better and is throwing it at the mini with gay abandon this despite not wanting to use it at all because once it's stuck it's a bugger to remove and deal with should there be any accident damage to contend with in the future let's be honest that's quite likely a good rollering makes sure it's stuck fast and lays as flat as possible with no air bubbles that's the boot done but before anything gets fitted inside there's one or two finishing touches that need to be completed first up blanking off those little access holes with a small rubber grommet lovely now we need to stick on some three mil thick self-adhesive neoprene rubber strips where the aluminium fuel tank sits this will help stop the tank vibrating and give somewhere for the straps to pull into nicely right so that's the boot complete i wonder what difference that's made to the sound of the panel when i knock it yes that's much better so all that's left to do with the sound deadening is the rest of the entire car so while nick gets on with that i'm gonna get the funk out [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] woo hoo indeed those strips below the roof line marked the end of the sang deadening efforts and what a time-consuming and comfortable job that was i'm not quite finished yet to be honest he went much further than originally planned and the whole thing took far too long to complete so nick can't be trusted with the sticky stuff anymore so the next job will be down to me and this one is all about heat management there are dozens of different products we could use to separate the cabin from the intense heat of the exhaust but frankly we've barely got enough room for the paint let alone any significant air gap or blanket so we've settled on using this self-adhesive gold heat shield now the idea here is not to go full to varish spec and cover every available surface in the stuff no it's to use it sparingly in strategic places so here i am offering up the exhaust to see where the tight spots are around the silencer this part just needs a strip over the curve in the boot floor so after wiping it down with some brake clean that's exactly what it's going to get the roller makes sure it's firmly stuck that's the first of a multitude of sections to apply i've added the heat shield all the way down the exhaust tunnel and out to the front bulkhead shiny things reflect radiant heat so to protect the paintwork and to stop the warmth permeating into the cabin we've chosen the best shiny thing available gold it's good enough for nasa and all their satellites it's good enough for the engine bay of the legendary mclaren f1 so it's plenty good enough for a 40 year old mini owned by a 45 year old weirdo i love gold if you're thinking there can't possibly be anything left they need to stick to the shell before they start bolting parts on well you'd be wrong it may seem completely counterintuitive to start trimming the interior before any parts have been fitted but trust me there is madness behind our method during the dry build phase of this project we didn't need to think too much about carpets i don't suppose it's high up on anyone's list of things to worry about but we did at least consider the thickness of sound deadening and trim when designing and making the interior i have to be honest this was one of those jobs we were not looking forward to at all successfully creating a neat and tidy carpet with all the contours and brackets and bits poking out was not going to be fun however dean at trimworks put us onto this product and it's genuinely fantastic we practiced with it on various shapes and adhesives and its properties are astonishing it molds round corners and in and around convex and concave forms you can stretch it it also gathers you can peel it back and have another go without ruining it it's ace a grown man like me shouldn't have been that excited but when you discover a carpet this tasty you just want to bury your face in it the shaping and trimming of the first piece is done and it's time to get stuck in the spray glue is good but messy and not all together straight forward to remove if you get it on the good side so every care is taken to minimize any residue no point in rushing this bit it has to go on right so slow and steady wins the race but it's boring so let's speed it up a bit [Music] so the first piece is in and looks fab with a few more sections that need to be sorted before we can move on and we're starting with the tunnel if you figure out why we're doing this when we're doing it then well done give yourselves a pat on the back but if not i promise it'll become clear a little later on this piece of carpet is one of the trickiest we'll have to attempt it needs forming over curves steps and multiple levels and around brackets and standoffs once the center console is in you won't see much of it but we'll know it's there and it's acting as another layer to help with sound deadening the last pieces that need to go on at this point are the a post covers a slightly simpler shape than the tunnel carpet these present no great challenge now we've got our eye in with the materials you can't tell from seeing it on screen but the carpet is so black it seems to draw the light in from around it look at it for any extended period then you can feel your soul being sucked out through your eyeballs it's even darker than nick's heart assuming he actually has one cool that looks great it's come out better than we hoped and was easier than anticipated good stuff so now that nick's finally finished fondling carpet we can actually get round to bolting some stuff back to the car and we're going to start in the boot with the fuel tank now it may seem like pulling the rear brake lines through has nothing at all to do with the fuel tank and taken as individual parts i can understand that but you have to look at this project holistically so you can't just jump willy-nilly into whacking the tank in some groundwork is needed ahead of time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] over the years we've made loads of this type of flexible hose so we're pretty confident that we won't have a problem with them but once the tank goes in we won't be able to get to them so if we do have a leak we won't know until the boot is swimming in petrol happily there's a way of testing these ion fittings with something we like to call an hose testing kit this couldn't be any simpler the kit consists of a male bung for one end of the hose and a similar bung for the other end only this one has a tyre schrader valve in it all you have to do is hook it up to your tire inflator and dunk it in a bucket of water unless you work with a lunatic with a large hose testing kit and a lathe because then he'll whip up an adapter to allow you to use a regulator that comes with that kit it's safer i suppose but i like the feeling of jeopardy that comes with going full send on the airline any bubbles will give away the source of a leak but this hose is spot on as are the others and we can be confident that they'll be fine once installed the little nylon saddles go on first and then it's the dash 6 return line to go on followed by the dash 8 fuel feed hose the clamps get done up tight and as nick is standing over my shoulder eyes boring holes in the back of my skull i thought it an act of self-preservation to make sure they're level make the bloody noise i'm underneath the car here holding on to the back side of the fittings while nick goes all gorilla on the swivels sorted and we've bunged up the front of the fuel lines so we can pressure test the whole installation from tank to engine and back with those hoses in we can think about the tank again now lovely it's tight but we've had this in the boot numerous times in the past during the build the difference then was we weren't really worried about scraping off the paint that should be fun i'm not even sure it's the most immediate trouble looming well quite because it's wiring time and with wiring comes cable ties but not the white stunt cable ties of doom we've used before though these are the proper in for good black cable ties much more reliable i've wrapped the rear looms and before they get poked down the holes some heat shrink protects the delicate pins and keeps the whole thing together inside the car a particularly skookum japanese three-pronged grabby thing facilitates the routing of the loom through the holes in the chassis leg we'll worry about re-pinning this end of the wiring later on because right now it's grommet time a squirt of silicon dry lube will make this a bit easier and with just a little bit of wrestling the grommet goes in you might have noticed the red cable tie not long for this world that was there as a guide to where the grommet needed to be on the loom hope you're all happy now i can't believe you doubted us i'm not angry though just disappointed the loom is in the right place so i can now secure it to the car with the cable ties we installed earlier this job is a bit of a faff but like almost everything from now on i won't have to do it again on this car it's for keeps and because we dearly hope it's permanent the flush cutters come out to finish the job properly nice no more jagged tails primed to inflict a flesh wound on the unwary the earth points are done up next with fresh m6 flan screws and finally the light connector is slid onto its holder so the fuel lines are in and the two halves of the rear loom are in i'd say we're nearly ready to fit the tank the wiper motor isn't staying it's only there so i could set the loom position i'm pretty happy with that that looks reasonably neat and tidy there's one more job before the tank really can go in and that's to pull the washer fluid hose through it was never fitted in the dry build so it could have easily been forgotten thankfully we're on the ball and the one piece tube is pulled safely into the cabin and now it really is time to fit the tank point yeah [Music] i'm guessing it wasn't that way [Music] [Music] i think it might have been this way [Music] [Music] oh oh before the tank gets trapped in there's a couple of things that need fitting and doing up first is the hose from the pump to the filter then we set the orientation of the spade terminal on the level sender you might remember these little captive nut plates that the tank straps to there's not a lot of room above the tank so a steady hand is needed to get the screw started luckily nick played a lot of operation when he was a kid so this is like child's play to him once the screw is done up the pin in the bottom of the strap gets gently tapped home and then the circlip goes on to retain it [Music] with the two screws done up tight that's the fuel tank secured the filter goes in next followed finally by connecting all the wiring the plan is to build the car to the point at which we can fire it up and to that end in the boot we're done so it's back to the front now to fit the pedal box again you might think that installing the pedal box is unrelated to getting the engine running but you're not thinking holistically enough it's all related when it comes to the assembly because of the order of operations [Music] all the hoses have been tested the pedal box itself has been cleaned and put back together and barring any major malfunctions it shouldn't have to come out again that's providing we've got our cylinder size calculations right don't have to pull it out to change one that would be bad we bought a boatload of new fasteners for the reassembly all passivated gold because nick loves gold and all the banjo bolts have spawn new copper washers too and to complete the look the pedals have been adorned with fresh rubbers everybody likes a nice new rubber it seems crazy while we're here not to fully install the brake lines the other side of the bulkhead so you grommet watchers will be pleased to see another one going in to stop any chafing and the mounting saddles are done up with a plumb or an allen key whichever works best finally the brake lines are screwed onto their respective bulkhead fitting and we've made some effort to identify which line is which should any troubleshooting be necessary right that's another job ticked off the list the braking system now only needs its calipers on to the next task which is installing the gear cables that has to be done now because once the next components go in we won't be able to get to the holes to do them up the next component to go in is the heater box this heater box has had a couple of coats of epoxy to help protect it and try and tone it down a bit but other than a significantly smaller radar cross section it's exactly the same as it was the last time you saw it while it's true that the heater box hasn't changed in form or function the same can't be said of the rest of the hvac system you see the two inch diameter ducting hose we used takes up quite a lot of space and we found that of the wiring loom the ducting hoses and the dashboard we could choose any two but not all of them at the same time so while that might be acceptable to meatloaf it certainly wasn't acceptable to us thankfully i know a bloke with a grinder fetish and an almost superhuman capability to turn large things into much smaller things such as meter square sheets of aluminium into swarf so he got to work and produced this and this and this and last but by no means least this and this is how it all goes [Music] [Applause] together [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] the new slimline fabricated aluminium ductwork allows us to fit the hvac system along with the wiring loom and the dashboard and hopefully now you can see why we had to put the carpet in when we did along with the rust proofing sound deadening heat management and some carpet installation the fuel system is in the brake lines are in the pedal box is installed along with the complete hvac system that dear viewer concludes the foreplay join us next time where we bolt on the big ticket items and go for a start [Applause] [Music] tune in next time for another exciting episode from the files of project binky we're not fitting the engine to wait till i've finished off this job properly it's not me that's forgot about what's in the box oh

Channel: Bad Obsession Motorsport

Views: 804,141

Rating: 4.9749651 out of 5

Keywords: binky, project binky, bad obsession motorsport, mini, austin mini, mini 1000, toyota, toyota celica, gt4, 4wd, gt-four, 3sgte, turbo, turbocharged, restoration, shrewsbury, shropshire, dynamat, episode 34

Id: 3EpCtx8RRC4

Length: 33min 21sec (2001 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 24 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/sundownsundays]

And so it begins...

So excited to see this project fully reassembled. The level of detail and attention is unbelievable.

Would've loved to have seen what went into fabricating those HVAC ducts!

[u/Elevator_Operators]

This will always be my favourite build on YouTube.

Praise bracket!

[u/davisch75]

Those cable and hose brackets are unreasonably satisfying

[u/JesusLostHisiPhone]

A lesson in attention to detail. I hate after waiting three months that the 30 minutes go by so quickly. Guess I’ll have a spot of tea now and wait for the next one.

[u/TangoOscarIndia]

Binky has come so far, and it's looking fantastic. Wonder what the next project will be. Maybe an LHD Binky?

[u/ItsLadyWanderlust]

Awesome work!

[u/GalacticArachnids]

That HVAC system might be the most impressive part of the build. It’s so well designed.