New Mini owner intro and question
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Ha. Never thought this thread would go off topic onto the smell of dead bodies. Back to my car... :-)
I received a big box from minania this week. I will be refitting the lower dash pad as it was poorly installed. Hopefully it is straight forward. And I bought a roll of Tesa fabric tape to rewrap the harness under the bonnet. As it is now, the harness is wrapped in tape and has been oversprayed in some spots. So the fabric tape should be a cheap improvement short of a new harness. I'd love to get this done over the weekend.
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In many jurisdictions is it an offence to display a plate that has not been issued by the local authority...and/or for failing to not display your "official" one....Bwahahah....seizure of the illegal plate, fines and/or manditory court appearance, depending on local laws. Meet a Cop without your particular sense of humour and it could get interesting....or expensive. Some of us love Minis, some do not.
Yeah.... I got nabbed once (conditional ticket) for not having my front paltge on. I live in Ontario where front and back plates are issued. Being on the border with Quebec, where they issue only one plate to be mounted on the back, I did not know I HAD to put on both Ontario plates. I was "educated" by the constable. I had to show up at the police station with my front plate properly installed, and the ticket was cancelled.
Minerva can probably also confirm that the plate must be properly fastened to the vehicle... zip ties probably wouldn't do.
While waiting in the front seat of a police cruiser (it was raining) with a constable, I notice she had a small kit of "useful" things in a container on the seat. One was a jar of Vicks Vap-o-Rub to put on her upper lip to cover bad smells in "nasty" scenes (dead stuff etc.). Another thing was a screwdriver to remove "bad boy" plates.
Could have been my PC....the smell from dead bodies sticks to everything, and it's hard to investigate if you keep gagging....Vics helps....and I had set of tools and a Leatherman on my duty belt. Working as Hwy Patrol means doing some mechanical stuff....seizing plates was minor...removing light bulbs to check for heat shock after a crash, opening trunks for vehicle inventory when seizing etc.. Also got used to help the occasional stranded motorist with mechanical isues.
If it's not Scottish....it's crap! (Cry of the Mini Tartan Owners' Clan)
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I bought some silicon spray and will give it a shot this weeken. Hopefully this will loosen up the windows. The British car show was a blast. The Mini ran beautifully on its first long drive since arriving in the US. we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. up the FDR and across the GW Bridge. No issues aside from a few potholes and impatient drivers. There were a lot of really nice cars at the show. Officially it was a Triumph club event but there was a broad range of classics. Even a Humber. Even better, I came home with a first place trophy in the Mini class. There were some really nice Minis, too. Including a pair of early Cooper S's.
Okay, a few photos.
[url=//www.servimg.com/view/17486224/124][/url]
[url=//www.servimg.com/view/17486224/125][/url]
[url=//www.servimg.com/view/17486224/126][/url]
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Thanks again. I kept the original 1970 Cape Town plate mounted in its original spot on the boot lid. I thought about mounting the NY plate there in its place but I would have two holes showing. Also I think the old plate looks nice and has been paired with the car since 1970...
So far the NY plates haven't scraped on the ground even though they are so low. The front looks really low. I'll keep them like this for now, until I make time to build a proper bracket. I don't trust the zip ties for long. Getting vanity plates with matching numbers would be neat.
I'm off to a British car show this weekend and hope to post some photos
[url=//www.servimg.com/view/17486224/123][/url]
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In many jurisdictions is it an offence to display a plate that has not been issued by the local authority...and/or for failing to not display your "official" one....Bwahahah....seizure of the illegal plate, fines and/or manditory court appearance, depending on local laws. Meet a Cop without your particular sense of humour and it could get interesting....or expensive. Some of us love Minis, some do not.
Yeah.... I got nabbed once (conditional ticket) for not having my front paltge on. I live in Ontario where front and back plates are issued. Being on the border with Quebec, where they issue only one plate to be mounted on the back, I did not know I HAD to put on both Ontario plates. I was "educated" by the constable. I had to show up at the police station with my front plate properly installed, and the ticket was cancelled.
Minerva can probably also confirm that the plate must be properly fastened to the vehicle... zip ties probably wouldn't do.
While waiting in the front seat of a police cruiser (it was raining) with a constable, I notice she had a small kit of "useful" things in a container on the seat. One was a jar of Vicks Vap-o-Rub to put on her upper lip to cover bad smells in "nasty" scenes (dead stuff etc.). Another thing was a screwdriver to remove "bad boy" plates.
.
"Hang on a minute lads....I've got a great idea."
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In many jurisdictions is it an offence to display a plate that has not been issued by the local authority...and/or for failing to not display your "official" one....Bwahahah....seizure of the illegal plate, fines and/or manditory court appearance, depending on local laws. Meet a Cop without your particular sense of humour and it could get interesting....or expensive. Some of us love Minis, some do not.
If it's not Scottish....it's crap! (Cry of the Mini Tartan Owners' Clan)
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2 minutes to take the US plates off
Unfortunatly in Colorado, you can't get vanity tags on antique plates. Dumb state missing an opportunity for revenue!
I think you don't get the gist of my evil plan. Say my UK tag is OBC 715. I apply for a vanity plate with the number OBC 715. Then when the state sends me my new plate, I stash it in the boot, and keep the original UK plate on the car. Now when the friendly face of the law pulls me over for beating up on a BMW at the traffic light, I show him my registration and it says what? OBC 715, registered nice and legal like to my car. Would you like to see the plate, officer? It's right here in the boot. Bwahahah.
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2 minutes to take the US plates off
Unfortunatly in Colorado, you can't get vanity tags on antique plates. Dumb state missing an opportunity for revenue!
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Just my opinion, but the US plate on top of the other plate looks awful. I run vintage plates on my car under the year of manufacture rule, but if I wanted to run the UK plates that came with the car, I would apply for vanity tags, using the UK reg number, then the number would be legally registered to the car, and if the numbers wered run, would come up as the correct registration for the car.
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To mount my North American-style licence plates, I used plastic covers with back panels.
On the front, I bolted the back-panel to the standard mounts with long bolts and plastic spacers to bring the panel just ahead of the bumper. Then the plate and clear cover are bolted on with 4 short SS bolts and dome nuts. I like it centred on the original brackets, so it doesn't hang down and get smacked, but doesn't stick up and interfere with the grille access.
My car came with the long backplate for European style number plates (no plate though). I removed it and bolted the NA cover back-plate on with small bolts through two of the original mounting holes. Then the licene plate and clear cover were added with the same short bolts and nuts. My bootlid is the later type: non hinged number plate and fixed light. The eouros tyle palte holder had two more small bolts out beyond the sides of the N.A. plate. Since the car had just been painted, I sealed the two holes with small dabs of clear silicone seal. Some day, I want to mount red LEDs there. I had thought of small red laser pointers as additional brake lights - cool but probably dangerous!
The front clear cover does get cracked and scratched, so needs to get replaced periodically, without having to change the back-plate.
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"Hang on a minute lads....I've got a great idea."
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Thanks all for the tips. I didn't see a photo of the license plate idea. I'm using zip ties at the moment.
I will give the silicon spray a shot with the windows.
-Mark
[url=//www.servimg.com/view/17486224/121][/url]
[url=//www.servimg.com/view/17486224/122][/url]
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Seat belt restorations: Link
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#1. Here's a picture of how my US plates are mounted on top of the South Africa plates. For car shows I take the US plates off.
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Beautiful car!
A suggestion for the tight window winding: try some clear pure silicone spray lubricant sprayed on a paper towel, then rubbed into the groove the window slides in. The silicone is an excellent, drying, non-staining lube that won't (shouldn't?) affect the rubber. In winter here, we sometimes have issues of the windows freezing shut after being wet. Silicone prevents this. I even use it on the very thin vinyl weatherstrips on our house doors that somestimes freeze to the steel door skin in very cold weather.
Enjoy the waves and smiles - you'll probably never get used to them, a good thing.
.
"Hang on a minute lads....I've got a great idea."
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The Mk3 got a friendly wave while driving across the Verrazano Bridge on Sunday.
//youtu.be/3C9fy0716NY
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Just wanted to say thanks for keeping us up to date on your progress. Very interesting.
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That being said, my Mini is red.
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