Albert’s life has been quiet the last couple of weeks. The coronavirus has done a toll on this country, including the fun car stuff we all do. Races have been cancelled. Gatherings in general are limited. Lucky for Albert his up coming handling clinic is still on. It is outdoors and not in a crowd, so it should be good. But not sure how much longer that sort of fun will last.

One thing that seems to go along with doing fun car things is to go out for meals. Really good meals prepared by people who know how to do this, and served by people who, at least at the places I frequent, will put a smile on your face.

But, no more. People have been asked to distance themselves from others. This means, no more going out for dinner, lunch, brunch or breakfast. This also means that, without customers, these place we frequent wont survive.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t still have that nicely prepared dinner, lunch, brunch, or breakfast.

My plea is - If you can’t or won’t go out to your favorite restaurant, order take out from them. I know of restaurants around me who have had to close their doors to sit down customers and have turned to take out to try to keep their businesses open until this crisis abates.

I have a daughter in this business and they have turned to take out. I hope it works. She also says that people are ordering meals or gift cards, paying for them, but not taking delivery as a way to make a donation to their favorite enterprise, to ensure they can whether this storm. This may be a consideration as a way to support a place that doesn’t usually do take out.

Please consider doing this, if going out for meals was part of your normal routine. I have already started.

Here, in the NE, we have been impacted badly by this virus. Small businesses are suffering and they will quickly fail without support. I am sure there are other communities around this country of ours that are in the same boat (I also know that some places have seen only a minor impact). Consider your locale, and do what you can.

Any generosity you give will serve this country as well as anything. Consider that the payback is in good Karma.

Also, I hope you will consider passing along this message along to others who are in a position to help others during this time.

Take care, MINI community, and motor on.

 

Well, Albert is under a mandatory quarantine and is relegated to food, Dr and drug runs. He will share those duties with our other 3 vehicles so they all see some drive time. It may not be the most fun, but it will still put a smile on my face each time the engine on any one of our 3 MINIs fires up. They are sweet and they don’t know about the sh*tstorm that has befallen us.

Here in NY, I am glad for this action by the Governor given the lack of direction and truth from the other people put into power to make these hard decisions. And there are too many flat earthers, and general deniers out there to trust that people on the whole will do the right thing (just look to Italy for that).

I know a lot of the people posting on threads that I follow are at an age, as I am, where they can enjoy these fun things we talk about here. That age puts us all at a higher risk from the virus. I am active and healthy. Maybe I am a little better off because of that. I can not say that about many friends and family, including one for whom I the caregiver, who have had or are currently dealing with a severe medical condition. These people are all in the extremely high risk group for death from this virus.

We are all excited about the coming of spring, getting out and doing fun things with our MINIs. I had been looking forward to getting Albert out for a handling clinic in 2 weeks, which I was to use as a test and tune of his new JCW Pro coilovers. However, and rightly so, this has been cancelled. In the NE here things are much more dire than we know because of the lack of the ability to test. So, again, this was the right thing to do.

I hope all members of NAM are doing the same. There is a lot we can all do with our MINIs without needing to be around others. There are people who’s lives depend on you and the rest of us to do the right thing.

Please take care, stay health and keep posting on NAM. This place is a wonderful diversion from other things...

 

I know it has been a while. Albert has been semi hibernating. Today he came out to celebrate his one year birthday, get his annual inspection and an oil change. When all was done, the SA said all was great...

Except....

The mouse damage. Chewing everything!

Now, what is different about Albert from my other MINIs? Same garage; same mice and no damage. Yes, a few nests. I had the same problem with some outdoor Xmas lights I bought a few years back. Chewed to pieces in month. My older light sets, never touched. That would tell me there is a way to make plastic that the rodents don’t like.

Ugh!

Then my day almost immediately brightened when I saw this at the MINI/BMW dealer...


Toyota MR2 w/ a “built” Honda engine

Built for drag racing... And it smelled of racing fuel when it was started... I was in race track heaven for a minute. Then, I switched to Sport mode to enjoy the sounds of Albert...

 

It turns out that MINi/BMW has created the world’s most perfect mouse house. What better place could a mouse want to live. Very well protected. Warm, at times. Plenty of available bedding. And tasty food all over the place and dental floss if you want... For a meager $30k +/- a little, depending on the deals MINI is offering, giving a mouse and their family, if they want, can live in MINI/BMW luxury, with a padded roof, plenty of family space and room to roam about. Just feast your eyes on these living quarters:



An insulated roof



Plenty of available bedding material and luxury living quarters.



Available food and storage space



More storage space

 

I am very sorry for this to happen. It must be heartbreaking especially for a brand new Mini. Good that you find the humor to share the tragedy. Even living in the city both the Land Rover and the MB Westfalia motorhome were damaged by rodents. Both have sound and thermal insulations made of recycled cotton and they were gradually shredded and taken away for building nest in winter. Most people assumes they are the job of mice, but quite frequently they are squirrels.

It took me a lot of scrutiny to finally caught them in the act, with my security cameras. I have three kinds of squirrels. Grey squirrels that is Northwest native, Red fox squirrels from the East Coast, and Douglas squirrels that is Northwest native also. Time and again the ones that do this is the little Douglas squirrels. I have never found the big squirrels being the offender. Once I figured out the culprit I launched counter attack which took some trial and error to find what is effective. I tried trap and caught one, but at the time I didn't realize it was the Douglas squirrel that was actually caught. I was so kind that I let it go and I would lived to regret my kindness. It figured out how to not trigger the trap door of the trap cage from the first time it was caught.

In time I would escalate with a more lethal method, and from the cessation of the attack I knew I had managed to stop them until the next generation. Fortunately for both vehicles they didn't chew into the wiring, but just tore out the cotton insulation. I know some automobiles have soy base insulation for wiring and this is a know issue for a long time that I think automakers would have stopped using them. I am very surprised to see the foam insulation and black plastic cable cladding were chewed up in your case.

 

Thanks...
I am finding these days, humor is the only way to survive. I am surprised that MINI/BMW created such a mess. The engine is the BMW engine used elsewhere, so I expect there are some expensive Mouse house Bimmers out there...

I have had a few nests in the other MINIs over the years but no damage. Whatever it is, they love the air filter housings. Our R50’s air filter was so packed one time I was surprised it would run. This was the first one that was damaged. The dealer said that they could fix it, but my cost. I’ll have them do that. It could be squirrels, or chipmunks or mice. We have all 3 running around. Can’t do anything lethal. The feral cats, which are “pets” of neighbors, might get it or a critter with it and get it through them. We had a kitten kill last year that wasn’t well received. I have a few suggestions from friends that I will try. I may opt to leave the cover off. It is deadweight any way.

An odd thing about the chewed wire is that the way MINI routed it, the wire and its sheath has to bend 180 deg to plug into its receptacle. The sheath around the wire, which doesn’t like to bend, had pulled away exposing the insulated wire. I am going to ask the dealer to extend the wire when they splice in the new one so that doesn’t happen again.

 

Yikes! It's like Hotel Albert. I've never seen anything quite like that. I still hope to meet Albert on track this year. My first 2020 track day would have been today; now I'm hoping for June 29th. We'll see. And I am still hoping for WGI at the end of August.

 

gkp - great to hear from you...

I never did get to see the full nest that was in there. The dealer cleaned out almost all of it; what was left behind ws just a few “scraps”... I can’t imagine! They also said the wire damage was not a problem, yet, and that it would be a good idea to fix it.

Your optimism is delightful and refreshing. I would love to go to LRP and WGI this year. I will note your dates on my calendar. Whether it would be with Albert or Smokey is unknown at this point.

That said, I am not sure what is going to happen with Albert and going to the track. I am leery of spending $1200 on wheels, another $700 on tires and another $300 on brake pads at this point and not knowing exactly what is going on. The chaos management of this mess and having an ultra high risk person to take care of has raised my level of pessimism with respect to me doing anything like that.

However, I do have a set of unused Conti tires with a 300 wear rating I could stick on the current wheels, use the MINI brake pads and “have at it” should things “open up” all of a sudden. I may just need a set of spacers (I am not sure one size larger tires will fit on the JCW and not rub on the coilovers ) and longer wheel bolts.

Anything is possible at this point....

 

Sometimes I wonder about MINI/BMW. MINI in its current form has been around almost 20 years now (how can it be so long???), and yet, they manage to redesign in reoccurring flaws into the car. The latest one is a set of motor mounts that are filled with oil and they fail and leak and who knows what else or damage they can cause. Why does this sound familiar? Well did they not have this same issue on the Gen I R53s with upper engine mounts that would blow out? Well, this appears to be something that I will need to watch on Albert.

 

Mini isn’t the only manufacturer to use that type of mount

 

That would not surprise me. But my question, then, would be - After the experience they had with the R53 (or Gen 1 MINIs in general?), why would they do it over again? And this problem is showing up in the 3 banger MINIs, which I would think be easier on the motor mounts. I would have thought that MINI could have done better here. It seems that Charlie Thompson, who has had his Gen III JCW for a while, does autocross with it, and drives exuberantly, has not reported this problem. Could it be a random bad batch of them? Well - would-a, could-a, should-a - isn’t going to solve this problem. I’ll just have to watch for it. Also, there is a different one for the 300+ HP GP3 which might give us hope for a robust solution, if it does happen.

 

So it is “stick season” around here and north of here in the mountains. That is the season between winter and leaves on the trees. But today was a beautiful day, blue skies, light breeze (if anything at all), and high 50’s to low 60’s for temperature. Perfect weather to take a ride on some of the most fun MINI roads in the Adirondacks and view the sticks... I think this was the first time on these roads with the JCW Pro suspension and I will say, it is impressive. Over the winter, I was feeling that the Pro suspension was a little too much. A bit too stiff for general street use. How much of that is from the RFTs, I don’t know. Yes, I know the RFTs are rough riding, but I run them on my R56 with the Bilstein B8s, sports suspension springs and big front and rear sway bars and they are tolerable. Albert is, at times, harsher than that. Clearly the springs are stiffer than those on R56 and I don’t know the difference between the KW shocks that are used in the Pro suspension and the B8s.

However, winter is basically gone and the JCW Pro suspension came into its own on these fun and twisty roads. Quite delightful, in fact. And the seats in the JCW are better than those in the R56, which helps with the fun factor. Suggested corner speeds were just that, and there was zero traffic (I wonder why???? ). The tires never made any sounds of protest so I was well within their limits, just a faint buzz when pushed. Still not a fan of the Hankooks, but they did get through all of the corners nicely.

So the Pro suspension is here to stay... The RFTs are soon to be replaced with a set of unused Conti DWs. So, we will see what is up with the RFTs...

Stay tuned... Motor On... Being healthy is driving in a MINI...

 

I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. I've driven so infrequently that it wouldn't surprise me if the battery is dead.

 

Oh, no.

I rotate between cars. But right now the R50 need an exhaust pipe repair so it is sitting. Smokey sits on a battery tender and gets out on nice days. The Jeep and Albert get out more than the other. However, I noticed a bit of a rotten egg smell from Albert’s exhaust when I took that drive. I opted to push it a little harder and run it a bit higher in the rpm range to clear it out. I find that Albert has so much power, especially low in the rpm range that I tend to drive in the higher gears and it doesn’t get exercised much as a result. Is there such a thing as “having too much power”?

 

Perhaps you are confused? I would restate that thought as "not enough traction".

At 40 degrees on a wet road (our April) the throttle must indeed be approached with thoughtfulness and respect, and I haven't put the summer rubber on, as that would only make things more fraught.

So high revs in a low gear is too much wheelspin, and high revs in a high gear is way too fast.

Were it not for iRacing I should be in a pickle as I wait for better conditions.

All the best,

Charlie

 

I have wanted a simple lift for Albert (for that matter, all of our MINIs). It needed to be something small that would fit in my small garage, which is also filled with junk. Yes, cleaning the junk out would help, but that doesn’t get me a lift and that is not as much fun as building a lift. And the lift would still have to be small. So, i see no point to cleaning out the garage right now, not when there is a project to do.

I had tried 4 HF aluminum floor jacks. This worked OK for changing tires, but I would not exactly trust a HF jack, well enough alone anyone else’s jack, to stay up if I am under the car. Because those 4 jacks use the jack points on the car, there is no place I deem trustworthy to put jack stands under the car. Plus, those would just get in the way when under the car. I have tried ramps, too. But, the smell of burning clutch kind-of turned me off of those. Also, they only get 2 wheels off the ground and generally, when under the car, it is nice to have all 4 wheels off the ground.

So, enter one of my favorite stores. Metal Supermarkets. If you are any kind of metal fabricator, you’ll love this place. Metal of all manor of shapes, sizes and flavors. After a bit of Mc/I calculating... No, just kidding... I eyeballed this one, I came up with needing 2 pieces of 60” long, 3”x1.5” rectangular steel tube with a 0.120” thick wall. I had some 0.250” steel plate laying around that I cut into rectangles that would fit inside of the lift-point feet on the MINIs to locate the steel tubes. After drilling a few holes in the steel tube, and slotting the holes at the rear end of the tube, I had something that looks like this:




Yup, a steel tube to span between the two jack points on the car so, with one jack, the whole side of the car can be lifted. The little steel plates are located to fit inside the jack points to keep the tube in place. The rear plates are located in slotted holes that allow them to be slid fore and aft to accommodate variations between cars. Nicely done, if I must say so myself. But there is more.

I also envisioned needing jack stand locators that would line up with the jack points to firmly hold the car up in the air. So I whipped up these:



Jack stand locators.

I envisioned that these would nicely match up with the HF aluminum jack stands. I was so looking forward to getting 2 sets of these. But the more I thought about it, I really didn’t like the idea of jacking up the car, one side at a time and resting it on these rounded pieces with nothing but the plastic jack points material keeping the steel tube from just rotating and falling off. Yes, a bit paranoid but that is the way I think.

So, those beautifully made jack stand locators went by the wayside in favor of hefty chunks of wood. 4x8 pressure treated solid lumber, to be exact, with some additional 2x4 spacers and a couple of sections of 3/4” plywood with a hole to match the bolt coming through the steel tube. Stable, yes. Over built, I hope so. Pretty, no. But it all works:



Blue up in the air...

And, it turns out the outside rear view mirrors are located just about at the CG of the car. Nice to know. I felt comfortable jacking the car up about 4” at a time on each side. This would be alternated from side to side until you get what you see above on both sides.

Why did Blue get the first use of these? Well, right now, Albert needs no work done on him and Blue did. Blue needed a rotted out exhaust band clamp replaced. I felt secure and comfortable under the car with this rig. I also fit nicely under the bar...

Yes, it is small enough to be stored inside my junk filled garage...

 

So... instead if jack stands, you used blocks of wood? I would have used the jack stands. I admire your creativity, though.

 

Correct...
Here are my thoughts as to why and this is not to say it is the best...

I felt that the jack pads on the bottom of the car were not wide enough to keep them from rolling over when the car is tilted and the one side is only resting on those, that steel tube and a set of jack stands that are are supporting the car through a rounded tube on the underside of the rectangular tube. And that round section is arranged in the same direction as the narrow section of the car’s jack pad. I know, I am raising one side by 4” and the car is, what, 60” wide, so the angle of tilt is minimal. But that didn’t belay my fears (paranoia?).

But another part of that fear comes from the way the car moves around a bit when being jacked up using this type of floor jack. The base of the jack stands is relatively small considering the 4 points it is sitting on, in comparison to the size blocks I am using and I don’t know how much side loading they can take when the car does move a bit. When I am jacking up one side of the car, that tube (and the weight of the car) is resting on the blocks on the other side, so hopefully it can’t go any where. I want the rectangle tube resting on a wide platform, so it could not tilt when jacking the other side of the car. I was actually surprised at how square and flat the sides of the 4x8 are. There is no rocking at all when one is on top of the other, which makes for a solid stack. All, in all, I more comfortable with this than the jack stands...

 

Well, I thought I would check in on the MINI mouse house... IIIIIItttttt’s Baaaaack!

This time there was a pile of food on top of the oil fill cap. So, maybe stocking up before moving in? There was nothing under the engine cover. Yet.

I guess drier sheets don’t work. Now on to plan “B”. Sonic thingies. Not sure how to do this in a driveway, though.

 

Have you considered adoption?

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Don’t get me going about the useless, and well fed feral cats living here. Some of their kittens got into my garage and thought that having a play date on top of the bonnet of our R50 was a good idea. Now I am dealing with the scratches their claws left in the clear coat...

I guess chasing rodents is too much work...

 

I figured I would check out my engine for mousy evidence now that our cats are getting beyond rodent chasing age. The good news is that there must be other appropriate places in Guilderland for them.

 

Thanks for that...
Glad you are having no issues...

The good news is that the cat scratch marks on the bonnet of Blue (our R50) rubbed out nicely, and he is looking very sharp. Now, the question is, how do I get those feral cats to go after the rodents?????

Albert has be relegated to the garage as Blue gets to run for a while. The new band clamp I put on his exhaust is working nicely and he is once again a delight to drive around in. With the FSD shocks he is much more comfortable to ride in around town than Albert. But I do notice that his age has gotten to his bushings as there is a bit of suspension movement that is noticeable when going over rough pavement.

 

Max Jaxx — Just go for it!

 

Is that yours? Wow!

For me:
Ceiling isn’t high enough... Concrete floor was only poured ~1 1/2” thick and is now crumbling... 2 car garage that was made for 2 cars, 1940s vintage (about the size of the modern MINIs )... On the wall side of the car, the jack needs to be at an angle to the car to operate the lever.

I have been known to “rent” a lift at the local MINI dealer. They only charge about $120 an hour, plus they throw in a mechanic...