Between the downtubes …

Recently, from a thread on MINI2, I bought a toggle switch panel with properly chromed rings. Today, encouraged by a visit from Jared, I got round to removing my old toggle switch panel (which I installed in Jareds MINI in place of his which was missing the rear fog toggle) and installing the chromed one. At the same time I did some other long-pending changes to the “between downtubes” area of GBMINI, including installing the latest official storage solution:


This newest storage option also comes with a piece that fits in front of the hand brake which fits tight against the seats; I am not yet sure how practical it is …
Previously I had put in the storage which comes with ’05 MINIs, but I did not find it very useful for storing stuff. Of course it is better than the nothing you get with pre-’05 MINIs!

Also today, I removed the useless Kenwood / Sirius satellite radio tuner; I had it installed last summer but it always dropped out if I drove near trees which I do a lot on my way to/from work – trying a different antenna, different mounting position, etc, all made no improvement. There are just too many trees in Essex county!

When Jared arrived, we replaced his brake light mod with a soldered diode mod, so that he can have the rear fog lights activated – then we installed my old toggle switch panel so that he has the needed rear fog toggle switch.

GBMINI is in pieces!

For Christmas, Margaret bought me a custom jigsaw puzzle, of GBMINI & other MINIs during the Coopers For Caregivers run last year. Trying to piece it together is challenging because of the scale – GBMINI is close to the camera and a single piece does not represent much of the car – the license plate is six pieces! But further back, the MINIs are smaller and one piece is almost a whole car …

I am not good at jigsaws, and did only a few pieces, but Margaret is very good and has successfully rebuilt all the MINIs:


A great gift, although I noticed that the colors have been slightly offset during printing, so there is a red “ghosting” around the more distance parts of the picture.