Jared's GTS

[Francois]

Seems like all our Minis start out with the acquisition of an engine; this build was to be no different.

My son Jared is turning 16 this year and is very much involved with my builds as well as Mini events in Cape Town (when school work permits). He also works at Dennis Nathan (Killarney Race Track) during school holidays. Safe to say he is a Classic Mini enthusiast.

When a largely complete GTS engine became available from Brandon in Woodstock we put our hands up and parted with the cash. There was no urgency in this build but we made steady progress in spare time and in between my builds with stripping, bagging and tagging;

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Keeping in mind that this will be Jared's first car it was decided to keep the engine largely standard.

I used;

• 60 thou oversize pistons as I had a decent set on the shelf (no definitely not Mazda pistons) fitted with Hasting rings.
  
• The block was bored to 60 thou,
  
• New cam bearings and new welsh plugs fitted.
  
• The block deck had a slight skim just to make sure it is true.
  
• The head is a pretty stock standard and unmolested 12G940 fitted with new valve guides and valve stem seals.
  
• A GEG300 copper head gasket with new head bolts and nuts was used in this build.
  
• Standard GTS camshaft.
  
• Crankshaft was machined to 10thou/10thou.
  
• A new clutch was fitted as a matter of course.  
  
• Gearbox was checked out by Dennis Nathan and found to be in excellent condition; an unexpected bonus.
  

We started by stripping all the old paint from the block and head.






Nothing like a wire brush to make it really clean;







Nice and clean;







Gearbox pressure washed;

[Francois]

Time to paint the block;

Masking to perfection, and then some more cleaning;









High heat (200 degree C) Plascon Coastal primer followed my black 2K.

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Engine ready for assembly;





Crankshaft fitted;




Pistons and connecting rods going in;




Tightening before torque;










Standard GTS camshaft fitted;




Duplex timing gears next;






New chain fitted;







Engine mated with gearbox;




Chain cover and pulley fitted;




New oil pump fitted;







Large propeller water pump from MiniSpares UK fitted;




GEG300 copper head gasket and head studs from MiniSpares UK fitted;

[Boyscout]

It looks good, love the black.

Just an observation though, the taper on the crank tail looks a bit rough. Did you "lap" it on to the flywheel? It is very important to get a good fit between flywheel and crank tail, if the flywheel come loose it causes all kinds of havock.

[Francois]

It looks good, love the black.

Just an observation though, the taper on the crank tail looks a bit rough. Did you "lap" it on to the flywheel? It is very important to get a good fit between flywheel and crank tail, if the flywheel come loose it causes all kinds of havock.

Taper wasn't as good as what we would have liked but yes we lapped it before fitting the flywheel.

[Vinay-RS]

Were GTS motors all black?

[Francois]

Were GTS motors all black?

Don't know, Jared just liked the idea of a black block. This is not a restoration so some leeway allowed.

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The GTS head (12G940) was a clean unmolested one and needed new valve guides and valve stem seals. It was given a slight skim for trueness.




It was stripped to bare metal and also got the high heat primer and 2K gloss black treatment.




Stock standard ports;




New stainless steel studs with a new thermostat;




Keeping it simple with the rocker cover also in gloss black;

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Not being able to get the cast iron water pump locally we ordered the high flow pump from MiniSpares UK.

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Ready for the clutch to be fitted;




We had the flywheel and back plate skimmed;






New pressure plate, clutch plate and release bearing fitted;

[Francois]

May 2016 Scott Chapman put his 1973 GTS up for sale as parts as he was unable to sell the complete car for asking price. This worked out well as we could negotiate what we required considering that we've been collecting GTS parts for some time.

In the end we bought the car less engine / gearbox , 8.4" disk setup and wheels.

It being a 1973 GTS it should feature 7.5" disks with brake booster (we had disks and booster already), we also had an exceptional black interior and of course we had the rebuilt GTS engine.

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The photographs looked better than reality. It had rust in all the usual places but also a backyard repair on driver side front wing. This seems to have been replaced at some stage with another 2nd hand unit which was cut to short to reach the A-pillar.

Nothing half a tin of body filler can't fix!!




The wing was replaced - properly this time.

A few small holes in the front foot wells, bit of rust in the gutters and behind the rear weld seam;










The bonnet had also seen better days and a good 2nd hand one was sourced;

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The necessary repairs were made and within a week or so it was in primer;











And yes, some idiot cut the GTS lips and then trimmed them right off !!!  





Our other challenge was that the engine bay was painted silver. It looked awefull so out came the wire brushes and the end result was a engine bay cleaned to bare metal;

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I stress again that this is not a restoration as such but a "repair" for my son Jared to use as a first car. Instead of using my usual panel beaters and doing a bare metal repaint we made good with a small budget whilst maintaining a good level of finish.

I must thank Andrew Booysen for his quick turn around on this car (about 2 weeks). Quality is good for the intended use with a realistic price to match.

Painted only; flat and polish to follow after assembly. You will also notice that we changed to solid red. The GTS didn't come with a OEW roof and our intention is to fit the correct GTS stickers once completed.

[Jared Mk3]

Looks good

[Vinay-RS]

It's looking very nice Francois. Good level of attention to the important stuff like the engine rebuild.

[Sean1380]

Nice man, out of curiosity , what make of pistons are those you used ?

The side skirts look very 1275E (the GTS had shorter skirt) but the dish is def not 1275E and not shallow enough to be high compression GTS ones....