Keeping it on the Road

[Minidave]

I have a friend in Dallas who owns one of the absolute very first '02 Cooper S to hit the US, it's now 10 years old and has about 100K on it. He had a lot of teething problems when it was new, but it has been almost bulletproof since it escaped warranty and he'd like to keep it that way - 4 evar!

To that end we're going to be doing some extensive preventive and needed maintenance on it next week at the DIY shop in Olathe. Our original plan was to work on it at JCCC's shop, but unbeknownst to me when I made the offer to help him with all this, they shut the shop down over the winter break and you can't work on anything till school resumes in mid-January. Oops.

Plan B was to work in my garage, as we've done everything but the clutch in our MINI shop days there. But, given that it's Dec and the weather can get a little "bitey", we came up with a better idea....

Plan C

Dave at DIY Olathe is making room for us in the corner of his facility and we're gonna tear into it on Monday morning, the 17th. It will be so much easier to do this much work on a lift in a warm, dry, well lit shop than on my cracked, heaving, freezing cold garage floor, especially if the weather takes a turn and it gets cold, icy, snowy or whatever.....

Plans include....

Clutch
Ball joints
Axles boots and repack the CV's
lower control arm bushings
sway bar bushings ft and rear
new power steering pump and hoses
supercharger oil
water pump and coolant flush - hoses as needed
16% overdrive supercharger pulley
new ATI crank damper
anything else we find

So, if you're in the area and want to meet a true MINI enthusiast (willing to drive 8hrs from Dallas just to work on his car!) come on by, we expect to be there all day each day, starting Monday the 17th, probably thru Wed the 19th.

The address is here in this link... http://diyautorepairkc.com/

Bruce is the guy who shared the Tatra with me at the Rally for the Lane last year.

[IowaM1N1]

How late in the afternoon/evening do you think you'll be working? I have to work, so won't be able to come by until 6pm or so.

[Minidave]

Hard to say, depends on how our old backs hold out!

If we start at 8 am, I doubt we'd be there past 6, unless we were just sitting around consuming a cold refreshing beverage.....

[Minidave]

Bruce should be rolling in late this afternoon from St. Louis - he took a slight detour to visit family there - then once he get's settled in at the hotel we're headed over to Jack Stack this evening for some real Kansas BBQ, then we'll bed his MINI down in the DIY shop for the night and plan for an early start in the ayem....

I will have my laptop turned on and Skype enabled, so anyone who wants to tune in and see what we're doing, I'm Jagmandave on Skype. Planning for an early start tomorrow, I should have Skype up and running by 9~ish for anyone who wants to tune in. Likewise, anyone who wants to stop in the address is 11509 Strang Line, Suit D. The shop is in a row of warehousy looking yellow biege light industrial buildings, there's a big sign in the back of a pickup truck parked in front of the shop, and all the doors should be open.

I've got the Clubby loaded down with half a metric ton of special tools, odds and ends and just "stuff", but I'm sure there will be something I forgot despite all my planning and we'll be making at least one run to the stores for some little needed gubbin.

Just noticed one other little incentive, they're calling for snow Wed night and Thursday morning!

BTW, if anyone has an old toaster oven we could borrow to cook the ATI damper in before we try and install it, that would be a great help, I have my heat gun, but an oven would allow us a more precise temp - we need to get it to 250-275* for installation

[Minidave]

Well, the day went pretty well, we got to the shop about 8 am and the car raised up onto the rack and started the disassembly process. As anyone who's ever been to a shop day at my house can attest, there's always a lot to remove in order to work on a MINI!

We dropped the subframe and got all of the ball joints, control arm bushings and sway bar bushings installed, we also got the new power steering pump and hoses done and set the subframe aside so we could begin to pull the supercharger. Couple hours and a small pile of parts later she's out and ready for work tomorrow morning. We'll change the oil, install a new water pump and add a Craven speed pulley for a little more ooomph.

Once that's done we'll pull the axles and replace the boots and repack the joints, then it's on to the clutch. If we get all that done and the transmission out by tomorrow it will be a productive day. Wed should be simply reinstalling all the tons of stuff we took out and fire it up, take it to the alignment shop and then send Bruce back south where it's warm again!

[dimini]

Yep, the rack must me making an incredible difference for this project!

Great to see you made so much progress on day one.

[mcconned]

Amazing stuff Dave. Was this a "normal" maintenance or were there multiple issues?

How about a wheel alignment? Were you able to do that as well?

[Sspreso]

Passed you guys at lunch today. Hope the project is going as planned. That lift in the corner will see Taz later this winter for some changes.

[Minidave]

@Dan....an alignment is still in the works, one of my former students works right across the street from JCCC and we're set up with him to do the alignment as soon as we finish our part. The only real issue was that the car was due for a clutch, the rest was all because to get the transmission out you have to remove the subframe, and while THAT's out you may as well........and it snowballed from there!

@Tas, I thought that was you ! We were heading out to lunch and down to Baron to pick up a part.

Dave's DIY shop is a real godsend, I can't even imagine trying to do this job in my shop. Everyone has been first rate and helpful and it's so nice to be able to work in a well lit, warm environment. (Too warm, turn the heat down a bit, dave! )

When we got to the shop this morning the MINI was waiting, first we changed the supercharger fluid, installed the new water pump and Craven Speed 15% reduction pulley for a little more go. We then tore down the axles and repacked the joints and replaced the boots. We also replaced the rear sway bar bushings and installed the new crank sensor o-ring.

Then it was on to the clutch. Pulling a MINI transmission is not a lot harder than any other front wheel drive car, except that it's a MINI and things are really crammed in there! Suffice to say, you have to remove a lot of "stuff" just to get to the nuts and bolts that hold it in, then it's a little tricky even getting it out of the car. Again, having a lift and a transmission jack sure make life easier!

We only had one casualty so far - one of the shift cables broke trying to disconnect it, so Baron is getting us a new set post haste - just another hit to the old wallet but other than that no harm no foul. The car overall is in remarkable condition and really everything has gone pretty well so far - it's just a LOT of work!

[dimini]

Wow...

The tranny's out-- but so is the engine, basically.
Nothing subtle about a MINI clutch replacement.

[Minidave]

Yeah, I almost wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to drop the engine/trans as a unit, I'll know later today when I try to wrestle that bad boy back in and get the input shaft to engage the disc....

Film at 11!

[Minidave]

......and the trans is back in again! it really went pretty well, we carefully lined up the disc since we didn't have a clutch alignment tool and surprisingly it slid right into place with just a little persuasion!

We also managed to get the shift cables installed, and a number of other jobs tidied up. We were just about to wrap things up this evening when I picked up the right side stub axle and found the intermediate bearing was noisey. Why the heck didn't we hear that when we took it out?

Well a quick call to Baron and they would have to order it - for $450! I decided to see if I could press the bearing out and buy one from a bearing house instead. It came out with no real fuss and I'll call around tomorrow to see if I can find one, if not Baron can have the new one for us by Friday.

We're pretty much in the home stretch, as long as we don't get any more surprises...like 3 feet of snow tonight or something!

here's a few pics....

[IowaM1N1]

... one of the absolute very first '02 Cooper S to hit the US,

What's the build date? Curious to know the earliest build dates for US R53s.

Judy's R50 has an 02/02 build date.

[Minidave]

April, '02...they didn't build the S models in the first run....

Well, we got a ton more done today.....

We got the new shifty cables installed, the supercharger's bolted back in along with the alternator, and the subframe with all the new bushings and ball joints and the power steering pump and hoses. We installed the new ATI crank damper too, but we had a bit of a setback. We found the intermediate shaft bearing was noisey and after looking all morning found that even tho it's a common design, it's an odd combination of sizes and just not available. The only solution was to buy a complete new axle assy for the right side - Baron had a really good deal on an aftermarket axle - so at least we're back on the road to completion.

We did have a couple of small setbacks today - 10 year old brittle plastic bits that broke off the manifold pressure sensor - if anyone has one let me know asap.

About all we have left to do is reinstall the radiator and front bumper, then get it aligned. Hopefully we'll get the last bits tiomorrow so Bruce can head for home. Long day.....

[Minidave]

We finished it up today, and Bruce is now headed south back to Texas.....what a day. Everything turned out great tho, it started on the first turn of the key and ran perfectly from then on. A lot of work but the results were great!

http://youtu.be/3H3N2EElBPE

[davester]

Good job and well done. How's the back?

[Minidave]

I'm OK, tired and sore but OK

Bruce hit the road to Dallas after the alignment was done and made it home by about 2:30 am. Here's what he wrote about the drive home...

It made it! I drove 9 hours through the night and got home a little after 2am. It now has well over 500 miles on it since late yesterday afternoon.

The car ran flawlessly on my way home. No issues whatsoever. No warning lights on the dash, no weird noises, nothing unplanned.

It is a car transformed. The new steering pump is quiet (the original design came from the factory sounding like an alternator failing - every time you turned the wheel). The clutch kit is fantastic. It has a slightly lighter lighter flywheel (which I swear lets me feel it reving more easily) but best of all is the clutch feel - it is light and direct and engages in just the right way. It reminds me of the clutch in a Honda Civic I used to own. The clutch is a major improvement from the stiff-grab-at-the-floor of the old unit. The new pulley on the supercharger? WhOO-HOOOOO! results in a much more-willing and useful powerband, with a different whine of supercharger (don't ask me how that happens as the supercharger itself is the same, it's just spinning faster. And it seems happy about that) The front suspension seems much more planted and sorted.

MiniDave seemed genuinely surprised it all buttoned up and worked as soon as the last wrench was put away. But I wasn't surprised at all. We worked methodically, carefully, and with lots of attention to detail. I am indebted to MiniDave giving up 5 full days of his time, many skinned knuckles, and no doubt a sore back to lead me through this. I learned some new tricks along the way too.

We could not have done the work the way we did had we not had the great facilities of the DIY shop. Having the lift available was tremendous. It was invaluable to be able to lift the car up or put it down for all the jobs. To put it up to look underneath for a better angle, or drop it down to get it at a good working height for a specific project. We estimate we adjusted it up/down at least 50 times during the days. And that is not any exaggeration at all.

It's like a new car. Fitting, as all this work was intended to keep it going, keep it relevant, instead of buying a new car. Mission Accomplished (w/o the President Bush references )

A huge big thanks MiniDave!