A brief flurry of Ebay activity and a run to Minispares in Enfield, has now left me close to getting the Yak on its wheels. The first key purchase was a complete rear beam, this already had the radius arms and rear brakes. So it was a fairly simple bolt on job, just four M10 stainless nuts and bolts had it sitting on the back of the Yak chassis. I haven’t got my coilover dampers yet, so I will have to rig some temporary struts to support the rear end. I noticed the bent and useless front tie rods would be ideal. A quick drill through the clevis to accept the lower damper mount and we have the rear end sat up nicely.
At the front, the twin bolt subframe has been stripped of its suspension arms and these are being cleaned ready for powder coating, then refurbished with new bushes and bearings(bought from Minispares). Test fitting the subframe to the YAK chassis threw up a few headaches, firstly the nice new “twin bolt” bolts bought from Minispares are too long for the simpler yak cross member. Measuring the bolt required to fit through the chassis and into the blind threaded hole in the top of the subframe tower, revealed a 3\4” long 3\8th diameter UNC high tensile bolt. A quick call to ‘Nu Screw’ in Neasden saw four of these bolts and matching washers picked up off the shelf for less than a quid.
Back at the garage the subframe bolted up squarely to the Yaks’ cross member, and three of the four lower (rear) subframe mounts lined up. A bit of levering will get the last one aligned, next time I’m at the garage.
The new estate\van fuel tank again bought from Minispares, was test fitted, only one of the rear support straps on the YAK chassis that bent slowed the install. A bit of brute force bent the support through 90-degrees to allow the tank to be dropped through the chassis and bolted in with some stainless nuts\bolts for the time being. Minispares were able to give me the correct six self tapping screws and plastic clips to mount the tank to the straps, these will be used when the final assembly is completed.
On the wheel front I picked up four Revolution RFX wheels (5 spoke) as fitted to the Rover Mini Cabrio. These were complete with tyres off Ebay and just need a polish to the outer rim and inside the wheel to make them as good as new. From the same guy came two complete brake\hub\driveshaft assemblies, so the running gear is all now in the garage. These will need to be cleaned and new discs fitted, then the car should be rolling on fours wheels. One luxury was a full set of 16 new wheel nuts, the wheels came with 6 or so, but the new rust free ones look great. At two pound each I was fortunate that they were available from Minispares because as mentioned the wheels were fitted to a production mini.
Handy hint.
If you need to strip paint from parts, even the tough carriage paint used on suspension and subframes. Don’t go straight to blasting or Nitromors, get a big 5l can of cellulose thinners from your Auto shop. Put the thinners in a bucket with the parts submerged, Light paint will bubble immediately while the tough paint will eventually bubble after an overnight soak.
