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That is absolutely shocking. This 'restoration specialist' should be named and shamed to prevent others from falling into the same trap.

That’s a total Bodge job

Why is there a bronze Bush and not a bearing on both sides?

For a completed restoration, I would be really disappointed if this is what I was presented with - everything about it says lack of attention to detail. The missing protection in those hidden areas especially means that it would start to corrode the minute it was back on the road ☹

You deserve more than 728 subcribers !

A dog with a new coat.

I'm a believer in the saying that people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones. Before you ask what I know, I've been doing this for 30 plus years, and I've never slagged off others' work. After all, nobody is perfect, and it's always easy to find faults.

sounds like a newport accent..greetings from barry island

The point is what did the customer pay for the work done and what would you have charged to do the work to your standards if he only paid a percentage of your price he might have got value for money . Minis rust soon after they left the factory the standard of work you are talking of far better then when it was new . As you say body shops repair cars not create show cars

To be honest I think you were, if anything less critical about the quality of work than I would have been. Everything you pointed out was justified and it shows your standards are high. It is a shame the owner didn't get the work checked before paying the bill.

Just started watching your videos , would love a video on brake pipes please

Minis are particularly notorious for being badly restored and botched by chancers.

is that a japan import

Sadly,that is the condition of 95% of 'restored' cars for sale in the UK. Collecting Cars auction site is the place to find them.

Bodgitt and Scarper...finest Rest or Ration....

Everyone's Mum does a Sunday Roast slightly differently . You have to specify what YOU want from the outset , in writing , that way if something isn't done ("of merchantable quality" ) , then it goes back till it IS done, and done properly .Verbal agreements are worth nothing after the event.Too much wriggle room . Too much money at stake . Too much stress for all parties . Find out about the firm doing the work well in advance . Look around - nothing beats word of mouth . See their work . Bottom line : this is a Business Transaction . No sentiment ... My verdict ( for what it's worth ) on the above job : Slap dash / insufficient time / care / pride taken in the finished product . Did nobody inspect it before hand-over, even briefly ? ?

At the end of the day it depends on the budget your customer gave them to work with. I used to sell these Minis when they were new alongside other BL, Austin Rover & Rover vehicles. I still drive one of the very last Rover 75 Tourers & will very soon have to decide to either get some work done to her or move the old girl on. Biggest problem is finding garage's one can trust to do it right 1st time

Had some work done by Ross on my Rover Mini MPI a few years ago - top job and reasonable prices.

appalling paint job and all the other work I've seen DIY job 100 times better than that

Thanks for the run through Ross. Your comment about not getting restoration work done by a body shop has totally landed with me, it makes perfect sense to me now you’ve explained that. I know where I’ll be coming when I need my mini restoration work done. I appreciate your eye for detail and a desire for a job done well.

Alright if you're a millionaire

Obviously not a restoration

They have definitely had this guys pants down, very poor workmanship back street garage comes to mind!

Quite right to point all that bits out, that is very poor work, I’m with you on that one, do it right do it once, that’s why I spend the extra time on my minis to make sure they are right, my first mini I started restoring at 13 which was my first car is in better condition that that, I’m sure you will do your best to put it right or as best as possible without to much work 👍

ok this job mite have been a quick cheap job not a restoration job now look at the job how much would you charge for this work and how much did they pay but i take it your not cheap

I've worked in truck, car and bike restoration, and race build shops. This kind of stuff happens all the time..Yes there is a big difference between a body shop that's pushing high volume insurance jobs out ever day, and a restoration / race shop that might manage 1 or 2 vehicles a month, with customers that have near limitless budgets. You inevitably work with a customer that don't have much idea about what's achievable for the budget they have to work with. Wires get crossed and everybody falls out. A pro shop that's been building it's name for years gets trashed by a bunch of key board warriors, that don't have any idea what the original brief actually was. Or if there was some kind of misinterpretation between the 2 parties First up, what was the customers brief to the body shop.... Did they say, they want it all mint, never mind the cost; and it has to win at all the shows, if so then there is a problem. If they said they'd like it nice, here's the max price, then the body shop did a good job. There's probably another 20 hours work in getting everything sorted out, if it was done pre prep in the body shop. The boot floor's another issue. as is the door. However there was probably one guy doing the main body in one area and another doing the removable part somewhere else. Chances are they were never married up and checked before they were all painted. But that's how body shops that work on insurance jobs operate. Decals on the side ???? fitment of arches...again, what was the brief. As for cleaning under the bonnet /engine bay, if the customer mentioned to the body shop it was going on to another shop for mechanical resto, they probably thought there's no point charging another hour or so to do work that 'll just get re done. I could go on, but you probably get the idea. If you want a restoration, go to a restoration shop and explain what you want..... If you dent your new Ford go to a body shop...

Unfortunately as the old adage goes ‘you get what you pay for’. This would never have been passed by a reputable body shop but would probably have cost honest money to begin with 👍

all valid points , but ,,,, you dont know what the customer actually agreed to , the whole job may have been done down to a tight budget rather than up to a high standard , maybe this is an exceptional job for the price paid ,,, there are two sides to every story.

Name and Shame

Yeah that's shocking mate I restored my mini around seven years ago it was the first car iv ever done did everything myself including bodywork and paint and it still looks like a brand new mini iv allways thought that you can be a great mechanic and a great panel beater painter but if you dont have the eye to know when something looks right then you are going to struggle to do good work

All valid points, most places have no idea of the standard anymore.

Agree 100%

WTF has it been painted **BEFORE** the body / mechanicals were restored / repaired?!!?!?!?!? Sorry but owner needs to wake up first

It's a sad state of affairs. It's obvious to me that they have just done as quick a job as possible and no doubt only really care about making as much profit as possible. The fact that they couldn't even be bothered to clean up all the filler dust before handing the car back speaks volumes! I can imagine how good the welding is underneath all the filler and seam sealer. Shame

If I was the customer I would be completely gutted at this "restoration"...clearly wanting restore the car to new...and I would be so disappointed....with a Mini...you see so many "restored" and I don't trust any of them...unless they have 100s of photos showing the process. So easy to fix and fill and paint...but it will come back to haunt him quite soon. My first mini was a beautifully painted "restored" 1977 1100...my pride and joy until within a year the filler all cracked and fell off in chunks and I found toilet paper shoved into the holes to create a base for the filler. 😮😢 thanks for a fantastic video and sharing this with us...I certainly learnt a lot!🙌🏼

It would be interesting to know the cost

Blimey Ross, you've got your work cut out there, in general, bodyshops do not restore cars, the bodyshop that I work at certainly wouldn't restore a car, to be honest you are totally correct about the state of that "restoration " they should have contacted you in the 1st place to carry out that work, when you did the close up of the car on the ramp with the paint, it had a bad orange peel finish, I noticed that mainly because that's what I do for a job, paint correction, our bodyshop is officially authorised to repair jaguar/land rover vehicles and the VAG group so the paint has to be spot on......which is what my job entails, I can see you ending up having to do a fair bit of paintwork on that car, good luck with the job, it'll be the way that it should be when you've finished with it.

Mini owner from NZ here. Enjoyed the video and looking forward to the more in depth recommissioning process. Have just started looking at resurrecting a 1980 mini 1000 that has been off the road for about 20 years. Was purchased as a parts car for my sons Clubman which we finish as a father and son project during lockdown. Decided whats left is too good to break up and with classic mini prices being sky high over here it is worth doing. Any way thanks for putting in the effort to document this and I am looking forward to the future episodes.

Would be good to have a closer look at this test bed in the future.

Nice Golf ! Gout is a myth 👍

Love that Golf (having seen it up close )….great work Ross 👍

Excellent Ross, very informative. Thanks for putting it together.

Sad state of affairs with that MPi engine. There must have been some noise going on when the wok was being machined by those clutch bolts! If you don't want to stick to Minis in your videos I can't see anything wrong with the odd Mk1 Golf creeping in!

What set up is that

I am glad you took the time to demonstrate the poor quality of some engine builds. Unfortunately this is not a one off and represents what some less educated individuals put together, using bolts with the wrong thread is classic engine building errors carried out by people who think they know what they are doing, but in reality have no business being anywhere near assembling an engine. Excellent video and one that owners should take a lesson from.

Oooooh!! a 3 main bearing Iron Age 8 valve "racing' engine. My ass !

What a lovely golf

I was thinking of using a similar method to rean out a worn motorcycle swingarm,bto fit sleeves so that original sized bearings will fit

what an absolute faf to time an engine ?????

I dont mean to be critical or pedantic but the way you have the ring gap written on the board actually reads 11.496 inch is wrong it should be 0 . 011496 thou which in real numbers and rounding up is eleven and a half thou 0 . 0115 thou