I just bought an '03 "S". Am in Savannah, GA. Have 3 teenagers and decided they need to learn how to drive a stick.

I am a car guy. I've been racing in a BMW class called SpecE30 for 12yrs now. Great fun. The class consists of '87-'91 3 series. We are the 3rd largest race class in the world so there's a lot of us. Like any top level competition, the folks that get on the podium are "magic". I am not magic. I'm the guy that brings the beer. Mechanically, I've done a lot of wrenching on old 3-series, but don't know other cars from a hole in the ground.

I came out of school as a mechanical engineer, but I never used it. I was a Marine during college and then transferred to the Army infantry upon graduation. Ultimately I ended up a computer geek.

I'm hilarious, insufferably impressed with myself, quite vain, tenacious, and obsessive.

 

Great post. Don't be afraid to ask questions. You'll find as much information as you can possibly stand on this forum and the Miniacs here are extremely helpful. I drive an '04 S and have wrenched on it extensively so I'm right in your wheelhouse. You probably also want to access www.realoem.com where you'll find illustrations and parts descriptions for everything on your Mini. I think you'll find parts are very expensive via a dealer (you're a BMW guy so you should know what I'm saying). www.partsgeek.com is an inexpensive parts source that I've used a lot and been very satisfied with. Detroit Axle is another good source for hubs/bearings. You've purchased a fantastic little car that's a blast to drive. Welcome!

 

Wonderful post!
Welcome to NAM.

And like cooer48 said, don’t be afraid to ask questions.

It is great that you plan to teach your teenagers how to drive stick. I did that with 2 of mine. They look back at it as a wonderful experience and their cars before they had children were all stick. You probably know this, but I will suggest starting them out in a parking lot where you have room and find one with a bit of a slope so you can teach them where the friction point is on the clutch. My younger one struggled with that one, but once she got the hang of it she was grinning from ear to ear. We probably spent an hour on that one alone.

I am a “wrencher” too and I thought it would be great to show my teens some car wrenching basics. I had them change tires, change the oil, where the spark plugs were, what the brake parts are and what to look for in the way of wear, and how to jump start the car. They are girls and I told them that they may never do this again (with AAA and all of that), but they needed to do it once so they know about doing this sort of thing so they could talk intelligently to shop people and not get talked down to.

If you do any wrenching on a MINI you will likely find a bit familiarity to the BMWs you have wrenched on.

Have fun with it and let us know how it goes with the teens.

Oh, also, we name our MINIs, and post pictures ...

 

Hi and welcome to the NAM family, Ranger!
Congrats on picking up an 04 R53!
I think it is important that kids learn to drive stick shift. It also teaches them to know more complexity, as it will apply though out their lives!
The gen 1 area on this site, will give you a plethora of information and let you know of the many nuances, of these beautiful supercharged beasts!
What they lack in acceleration, they more than make up in handling! They are built for the twisties!
Show us some pics!

 

Welcome

 

Thanks for the welcome guys. Is nice of you to visit the newby forum and welcome folks. After a couple years that sort of thing gets old, so it takes an especially nice person to soldier on and continue to welcome the faceless newbies.

#1 son and I spent an hour today in the Mini. He's getting the hang of the clutch engagement point. Prior to going out, I showed him a flywheel, clutch disk and pressure plate, there's tons of old BMW parts in the attic, so that he'd have something to visualize when trying to manage the clutch engagement.

I do not expect working on the Mini to be much like the old BMW 3 series. The late 80's cars are very easy to work on. Not just simple, it's as much an ease of getting to fasteners. Later cars were designed using CAD so everything could be jammed together in close confines during the design process. Pre-CAD, the designers had to allow for more room between everything and that's what lets you get a wrench in. On modern cars my experience is limited to reaching for my wallet.

This forum is an awesome resource of information. WTG keeping it alive with participation as opposed to the community shifting to facebook. The latter is fine for hanging out with buddies, but worthless for any info of lasting value.

 

Welcome,

check out TIS here also for help. https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/

We have the parts if you need them.

 

Show and tell is always a good approach to teaching and learning. Good idea with the clutch parts.

Given the number of people signing up, especially with “second time around MINIs” it is a little hard to say “hi” to everyone. So I pick a few with an interesting (to me) intro. Again, welcome.

I think you will find wrenching on your “03 to be not too bad. Yes it is tight, but it is a small car, with everything crammed up front. It is not “CAD” tight, though. The engine is an Chrysler OMNI block and things are tacked on to that. So a lot of the design goes quite a ways back. From there, CV joints, spark plugs, shocks and whatnot are what you expect from any earlier car I think you will fit right in with this car.

This Site is sponsored by vendors like Way Motors. It does well to send business their way to keep the site going. Way does well with part and help; he has gotten a bunch of my money...

Here is a thread where the guy has done almost everything that could be done to a Gen 1 MINI, like yours, and documented it.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...n-project.html