Hi,

As its getting near to spring thought I'd ask for some general bodywork
advice.

Me and the mrs each own minis. The wifes car is a 2000 (W) year Cooper
LE, Brooklands Green owned from new. Bodywork is pretty good, with just
the usual front seam bubbling, some rust spots appearing in the roof
guttering and there's going to be some under the winscreen rubber.

Mine is a 2000 (X) year Classic, OEW. This has a bit more rust. I'll
list out the problems.

Roof Guttering
Front Seams
Passenger sill, some paint has come right off, but its not bubbling
underneath yet.
Behind the front numberplate, and under the rear bumper.
Having had the windscreen replaced not so long ago, I had noticed
surface rust under the rubber.
A fair bit of paint has flaked off from the drivers side part of the
engine bay. At the moment both cars have the rubber spongy things in
place within the engine compartment.

If the car isnt washed for a couple of weeks, I do 50 miles a day to
work and back, then  tiny little orange spots of rust appear, they are
so small that you only notice them when giving it a good clean, and a
quick whiz with SafeCut gets rid. But I gess these spots need touching
up as well.

Luckly all of the rust seems to be surface only.

Once the weather gets a bit warmer I was going to try and clean up the
paintwork myself, and I was interested in any advice or past experience
of cleaning, priming and painting areas short of a full respray.

Also..any recommended equipment people might be using when touching up
bodywork, and where's the best place (UK) to get mini car paint. I've
looked at Machinemart for tools and they seem reasonably cost effective,
and Paints4u for the primer and paints.

Finally, the big thing that worries me, is keying the new painted areas
up to the old ones. Lukily most of the problems arent on facing panels,
so this might not be such of a problem but I have heard about some
paints not sitting correctly on the old paint and one flaking from the
other.

sorry for the long winded message...

any help gratefully received.

Cheers

Ash