20 June 2005: After marking the area to be opened on the roof, I first drilled the corner holes of the sunroof.
Then with a saw I opened the sunroof by joining the drilled holes at their tangents.
Then I made a test fit of the glass with the opening and filed the opening edges.
21 June 2005: Being a bit restless, I decided to open the doors.... a bit late but better than later! I had the risk of ripping the roof off while cutting out the door panels.
And as I thought, this was the scene after the door panels were cut out....
23 June 2005: After the roof was fixed again; making a test fit, I noticed that the upper edge of the door panels were about 2 mm below the window lower edges (the original Mini's complete window unit was resting there). This meant that I had to raise the whole inner tub to the level of the window bottoms.
24 June 2005: So I first shaved a portion off the rear part, where the rear platform would rest; since it would be seen from the windows if left resting on top of the inner panels.
The chassis and the floor were mating by a set of pins and holes, which would come off when the floor was raised. So I glued in a set of guide plastics, so that the floor would still be within the correct margins when raised.
I glued pieces of styrene sheet to raise the floor.
25 June 2005: I cut the door inner panels off.
To prevent the empty engine bay being seen when the doors are open, I cut a piece of styrene to form a partial firewall. I also cut from styrene and glued in the frontal inner panels which were not supplied by the kit...
To make clearance for the door's sweeping (while being opened), I made a bevel shaving at the fender rear edge.
Another compiling and checking for any misfittings.