Das Maus - The Journey Begins

 It's been awhile since I did some car project posts. Mostly because I'm done racing and sold off what's left of the racecar. Also the 1970 2002 is in good shape and I'm just fiddling with different bits and keeping it running. 

But that's all about to change. Meet Das Maus. A RHD 1972 Morris Mini. It started out life in the UK as an 850cc (the size of motor). Along the way, the motor was upgraded to a 998 cc and it looks like it was re-shelled with a later, 80's body.

This is basically a 'barn find' car. The back story is the car started life in the UK. Eventually, a US serviceman bought it and shipped it home back to Virginia. The next owner brought it home to New Hampshire. He played with it for a year and then parked it deep in his pole barn/garage for the next 16 years. Like my huskies, he suffered from Squirrel Syndrome, dropping his interest on his current project for shiny new ones. Jason, the owner, rediscovered the car and did minimal work to get it up on Bring-A-Trailer (BAT) where I eventually bought it.

Being a "barn find" and sitting for over 16 years, pretty much everything is suspect and needs to be tested/updated/replaced. This blog will be a record of my journey.

The first order of business is to replace those 16+ year old dry rotted tires. I ordered new ones from the UK and boy are they tiny.

Dry-rotted tires, cracks everywhere

New tires in the house!

12 inch tires are tiny compared
to my M2 19 inches

I misspoke. The first order of business it to head off to Harbor Freight and pickup some SAE wrenches. All I have owned and worked on for the last several decades are Porsches, BMW, and Subarus. My extensive tool collection is all Metric. "9/16th's ? What the hell kind of thing is that?" It hurts my engineer's brain.

Oh, it was named "Mouse" or "Das Maus" by my friend Andy, a UK exile. So it's full name is Mini Mouse. Yeah, I know, just roll with it. It was also delivered the day before my half marathon, so I added a decal to commemorate both items. 

Working on the braking system is coming up.