'Moose'

Blue Beast!
13 November 1999

The last time we saw our car was just before we headed off to New Zealand for 6 weeks holiday. Jonathon from JLH Minor Restorations said that it should all be finished and up and running by the time we got back at the end of January 2000. A new Year's present. :)

So, these pics are the last ones I took before we left. The car is completely painted in a Blue Mica, ironically a Volkswagen colour! But it does look really nice - especially as it hasn't been buffed or polished yet and we haven't even seen it out in the daylight yet. It should be a stunner in the sunshine.

Jonathon has been adding some nice touches to the car. We now have side repeater lights in the front guard just behind the wheel arch. The oval lenses are blue but fitted with yellow bulbs. The same lenses ar used inside for the interior lights on the door pillars and in the new light pod over the rear doors.

The new woodwork has all been assembled, sanded and varnished and is now ready to be fitted. The old wood has been kept for a future project ... ;)

We found some Peugeot 205GTi alloy wheels (from the 1.9l car, the offset is 18mm as opposed to the 15mm of the 1.6l car) and had them sand blasted, sanded and powder coated in silver. We had hoped to fit some hot rod style 'smoothies' (steel wheels with no holes, fitted with Morris Minor hubcaps) but there are none to be had in 15"x6" size with the correct stud pattern and offset. That's been the biggest problem - finding 15" wheels we like in the right stud pattern and offset. There are heaps of after market wheels for the Pug 205 but they're all 15x7" which makes them stick out too far and touch the wheel arch. Widening the guards is not an option right now.

Jonathon's dad has been getting in on the act too. He has fixed up the back seat and has recovered it with the new leather upholstery. It looks a real treat!

That was the situation when we left back in early December. Since then Jonathon has fitted all the panels and the wood. The engine has also had new camshafts fitted which, in theory, will boost the horsepower rating from about 140 to somewhere around 170!! Combined with the larger throttle bodies we fitted a few months ago, this means that we can't use the standard Rover engine management computer (ECU). So, we had to purchase an aftermarket unit that could be re-programmed to cope with the performance bits and the smaller flywheel (from the 1.4l engine). We decided on a GEMS unit - the company has a lot of experience with race and rally cars so they SHOULD know what they're doing. The only trouble is, it didn't work!

There's been a great deal of work gone in to trying to get the troublesome ECU to behave, but it has been a pain in the ass since the word go. After weeks of delay and trying to get it the engine to start up, GEMS finally had a look and decided that the chip itself needed a wire soldered onto it for some reason and it had to be cable-tied onto the circuit board! Sure it might hold it in place but that sort of thing is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for a 'professional' company They also claimed that it was the car's wiring that was at fault - funny how the Rover unit managed to get the car running OK! The problems with the ECU meant that the delivery date of the car has been put back by at least 2 months, probably longer.

But there is some good news ... JLH Minor Restorations have been approached by Top Gear magazine to get together some modified Minors for a special article on modern Minors. They saw our Traveller and when told it wasn't going to be ready for their planned February 3rd filming and test day they delayed it until the end of the month! They must really want to feature our car! Please, please, please let the ECU behave soon!