Cage Fab Begins

Spent much of the day looking for Teddy’s brakes. Still haven’t found them, but I will prevail. That’s what happens when your garage is packed with parts off three MINIs.

Meanwhile, cage dude is at work. We sent a bunch of pics back and forth, mocking up the proper height, width, etc. so he can start bending steel.

It will be about an inch shorter than this… which will still be about an inch taller than the old one, and about convertible roof height…
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He’s already cut out a bunch of nasty vestigial sheet metal, including the “humps” that the OEM front shoulder belts attached to. He’ll remove the piece adjacent to the tube in this photo, so the main hoop can go all the way out to the yellow tape…
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The main body harness on both sides of the footwell was going to be too close to where he would be welding the footwell plates for the front pillars. So he had to remove the ENTIRE rear portion of the harness, so he could get it up out of the way. I get to put all this back…. FUN…..
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But now, no chance that he’ll melt any wires while welding things in. Ultimately better. This is a seriously stripped MINI.
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Click the image to open in full size.
Click the image to open in full size.

Also ordered Pure Silver paint for the roll cage and GP trim, and Chili Red paint for the mirror caps today. I’ll paint all that stuff myself.

I bought a new hood over the phone from my local MINI dealer yesterday, need to go pick that up, maybe tomorrow.

I’m going to work hard this weekend to get the wreck stripped. And hopefully will get it rolled out and get the GP back on the lift, to finish it up. I’d like to get both of them out of here before the caged shell comes back., if possible.