My girlfriend’s father was a 747 pilot for PanAm. She loved him very dearly, and he left her his Chili Red 2007 Cooper S Convertible. I’ve been an amateur mechanic for decades, so I’ve decided to take on its restoration.

So far, I’ve detailed the engine, and replaced the resistor assembly behind the radiator cooling fan. While I was at it, I replaced the spark plugs, a ripped charge pipe, the very filthy air filter and the cabin air filter.

Next peoject: I ordered a set of engine mounts to calm the rough vibrating on idle. I have a huge list of items to attack. I’ll probably do this work (the entire restoration) over the next six months. I’ll start a thread once the engine mounts arrive.

The cooling fan project was pretty involved. When I was all done, I set the engine on fire. What happened is that the last step is to fill and bleed the radiator, and then I put the scan tool on the car to view engine temp, and raised the engine temperature to 221F, to be sure the fan would start up on low speed, as it’s supposed to.

Since I’d been bleeding the cooling system, the radiator cap was off, and as soon as the coolant temp hit about 212F, it boiled out of the cap-less reservoir. Thanks to the genius of Mini Engineering, this resulted in glycol (alcohol) spilling on the very hot exhaust manifold. The alcohol caught fire and out lept great blue flames. (Because I had to run the engine, I did this outdoors, and it was dark. This made the flames look especially dramatic).

Of course, it was just a small alcohol fire, like a baked Alaska. I was behind the wheel when this happened and I killed the engine before the fire even began. With one puff, the flames were out. There was no damage or even evidence of any fire. I topped up the coolant, put the cap on (!) and bled the coolant. All is well and she’s still dating me.

This is what her car looked like in the midst of the resistor replacement.

 

It looks as though you've got things well in hand. Lots of guys are replacing the plastic expansion tank with stainless. The aging plastic seam has a bad habit of failing at awkward times. The stainless looks a lot nicer too BTW. And always remember, topless motoring is motoring at its best!

 

The Mini is her car.
My car is a BMW 435i hard-top Convertible. I live in the San Francisco area and drive topless all the time. It has a cold weather package with seat warmers, neck-scarf heaters, and a heated steering wheel. I drive topless very comfortably even on fairly cold winter evenings. Of course, “cold” means about 55F around here.

My other car is an amazing Prius Plug-in. No repairs needed in 120,000 miles except a clogged windshield wiper valve.

 

Looks pretty clean under the engine for a 2007 R52. R52 Owner here also. Top down motoring is the best. PS looks like you have some webspoke wheels also.

 

I’m glad to hear I’m working on the same car you have. I’ll be signing a few paychecks over to you in the coming months.

I cleaned the engine quite a lot after that photo. It’s still not as clean as I want. I haven’t found a good way to clean aluminum inside an engine, short of removing and bead-blasting it.

I’ve owned my Prius since new. I went to look at new Prius’ and my engine was cleaner than the new car engines. Really. This summer I pulled the intake manifold and EGR to clean the accumulated gunk — preventative maintenance. Have a look:


Windshield wiper cowling has to be pulled just to access the spark plugs; in this case, I had to pull it to remove and clean the EGR. While there, I cleaned out the cabin air intake, so my cabin air is nice and fresh.



EGR nearly out (it was a bear), Intake manifold still in place.



Here’s the engine with the intake manifold removed. (Intake manifold is pretty easy to clean and remove)




All buttoned up and cleaner than new. That’s a 120,000 mile engine.

 

Yep, I am here for the R52 needs. Thanks ahead of time for the orders.

Yea I would say the Prius is really pretty clean also. Must be the way the wind hits that front bumper and grille. Must channel most of it over and under the car because they are all about the MPG.

 

That's cleaner than my Espresso machine!

 

I keep it clean. Whenever I work on the car and remove anything, I clean it. Like when I removed the windshield wiper motor assembly and cowling, I cleaned it very thoroughly. I want to do that to the Mini as well, because cabin air intakes get really filthy with tree sap and gunk, and then you breathe that stuff, cabin air filter or not. Or if I replace the air filter, I remove the whole intake assembly and clean the whole thing. Stuff like that.

Also, I regularly douse the engine with degreaser and hose it off, so it's been kept continually clean for the six years I've owned it. The BMW motor is also very clean, but BMW puts this massive black plastic engine cover on the engine, so you can't see a thing inside the engine compartment. I keep that plastic off in the summer months to improve cooling.

Do you sell the black plastic trim which covers the Mini supercharger? And do you know a good way to clean the aluminum parts inside the engine, like the supercharger inlet/outlet pieces?

 

I am like that also.


Soap, water, and a brush. Use little degreaser because on aluminum it will leave marks. White marks. Hot water with soap does more and leave no residue. Use the chemical guys stuff or sonax is good. https://www.ecstuning.com/b-chemical-guys-parts/v-mini/ or https://www.ecstuning.com/b-sonax-parts/v-mini/

Chemical guys has good soap called MR.Pink, the degreaser is good also. Get a large soft brush like you have for wheels. I clean my engine bay that way.


Thats my R52 Cooper engine w/JCW sound kit. 270K miles later.





Super changer trim covers here:

https://www.ecstuning.com/Mini-2005-Cooper-R52-S-Convertible-L4_1.6L_W11B16A/Engine/Covers/

 

Gotta like a clean engine.

 

R52 JCW kits unite!

 

I’m going skiing for a few days over the holidays, then I’ll start a new thread in the right section to report my progress and challenges as I tackle all of this, beginning with replacing the motor mounts.

I’m very tempted to buy some of those engine cover pieces, but I’m going to first work on the basics. I have a very long list of items to either test and/or repair on this car. THEN I’ll worry about making the engine compartment prettier.

 

Welcome looks like you are well on your way. Since you may need many plastic parts getting them used can save a fortune as we part cars all the time and many of the plastic parts at the rear of the engine compartment don't have issues so they are really cheap used due to the low demand.

 

LOL your story of setting the GF's engine on fire reminded me of many years ago when I nearly set my GF's Fiat 850 Spider on fire. The Fiat 850 Spider was a tiny little rear engine convertible, cute and fun to drive but not much power. I had just finished tuning it up - plugs, points, clean and adjust the carb, check timing, etc. I had the engine compartment open and was blipping the throttle by hand at the carb, listening to how smoothly it was running when the brass fuel line fitting that was pressed into the aluminum body of the carb came out and the electric fuel pump was spraying gas all over the still running engine. I thought "oh sh!^ she'll kill me!" and dove for the ignition, shut the car off, then ran for cover. Somehow it didn't explode. When the engine had cooled down and my heart rate had returned to normal I hammered the fitting back in with some Loctite Red to make sure it wouldn't ever come out again. Fun times.

You're a brave man to wrench on the GF's car, especially when it has such special history. Good luck with both!