what the heck does this connect to? and what is it for? I noticed that the car has been starting really rough the past few days, looked under the bonnet, and noticed that one of the tubes was completly ripped in half, and the other one is completly missing, the one Im pointing at in the picture. another question, where the heck do I put the oil? And get an oil filter? I just don't know where to get anthing right now aside from minimania.com. thanks again guys.
his wife

heres pics

 

oh and when the car is started there is a vacuum on it. If I put my finger over the hole, it kills the car. I was looking at the manuals I have and it could either be the vacuum pipe or the breather hose. thanks

 

The one thats hooked up is the breather. Im not totally sure but I think the other one goes to an emissions control system that probably was disconnected. Mine has a hose hooked to it going to nowhere.

Put some zip ties on the lines to keep them connected.

Oil filters, take your pick: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...lter-info.html

As for parts theres a bunch of places too check out. Heres a few:
www.7ent.com
www.gbcarparts.com
www.djminis.com

minimania and 7enterprises have real fancy websites which is convienient but you also pay for the convienience. Although the staff at 7ent is pretty helpful when you call.

Dion at djminis is pretty good too. Hes pretty reasonable and can find you just about anything.

 

Some cross reference part numbers can be found here:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...arts-list.html

The top-most part of the engine has a big round cap, about the diameter of a soda can (no, not the carburettor, the engine ... next to the t-handle screws). Unscrew that cap and that's where the oil is added. Make sure you use the correct oil (20-50W conventional oil) since the engine and transmission share oil. I assume your Mini is a standard transmission - I have no idea what fluid is used for the auto transmission Minis.

Although I find it very frustrating to use, the forum search tool can be helpful for finding information like what you asked above. Click the 'search this forum' button on the top-right corner of the thread list (right below the page index links) and enter text you want to find. The search will 'OR' the words together so if you enter the text "oil filter" a list of all threads that contain the word oil or filter will be displayed. At least that'll give you a starting point. I found the above link using the search.

If you're looking for parts suppliers - there are a few. MiniMania.com is an easy way to order parts if you don't want to pick up the phone, although there's never a way to know whether the parts are in stock or NLA (no longer available) without calling. I prefer some of the others listed below, but I have bought my share from MM.
http://www.minimania.com
http://www.7ent.com
http://minimotors.com
http://www.minisport.com
http://www.heritagegarage.com/
http://www.gbcarparts.com
http://www.moss-europe.co.uk
http://www.minispares.com
Good luck,
Jeff

 

FWIW, my Mini has the same carb, and the port you're pointing to has nothing connected to it on my Mini.

Jeff

 

similar carb here - it is a part of the emissions system which has been removed from your car (usually happens when the standard air cleaner is dumped for the cone filter). like you I discovered the blocking the line completely would kill the car. I believe the correct routing is from one of the breathers but I have breather filters and don't care for the extra hoses running all over. The line was intended to suck vapors out of engine voids back into the intake system for reburning. You might want to zip tie a small piece of metal mesh or similar over the opening to function as a filter just to prevent sucking a small chunk of crud thru the opening and screwing something up.

If you have other vac' leaks I suggest to track them down and replace hoses as needed. Mine ran like crap until I got all those leaks fixed...I could not hold an idle below 1500 rpm being the most notable. Many suggested messing with the mixture on the carb but it turned out to be the timing was off to compensate for vac' leaks. The good folks at Abacus Racing (VA Beach) id'd the problem in about 30 seconds of listening to the motor and fixed it for pennies. A piece of hose, two rubber plugs, and 5 minutes with a timing light.


For me one was on a port I'm not using on the larger sportmini intake manifold and another was on the vac' line to the servo I have on the disk brakes.

 

so that's probably not the reason our car wont start unless we have the throttle pulled almost all the way out? if we don't have the gas pushed down about half way when we shut the throttle down, the car dies within seconds. It was working great, and within a week, the little bugger is falling apart. although we have found a really trustworthy person to fix the rust damage. he doesn't use bondo at all, which is great, and he's got reasonable time. He's even letting us do it in increments so we can afford it and still have the mini on the weekdays. but I still haven't found anyone who can fix the engine/speedo in this area. i called nisonger today,and the price is a little better than what I thought it would be, but still, with all the other repairs, I might have to wait on it, and keep on using our GPS system as a speedometer. Im just hoping that the speedo problem isn't at the transmission end. I did what Graham at heritage garage told me, put it in neutral and push it backwards with the speedo cable undone from the speedo, and it turned when I was pushing it backwards, and when it was installed into the speedo, push the outer cable back to expose the inner turning cable, and see if it twists, and it does for about 10-12 turns, then I can't turn it any more. I still love harvey, and I love driving him, but I don't want him to turn into a HUGE money pit, wheras a small one is OK. We will be going in on saturday to check out the underbody for rust damage at the auto shop on post.

I've also had people offer to buy him from us, one guy even offering 17 grand. I said no, but that is 11 thousand more than we paid for him.

 

so that's probably not the reason our car wont start unless we have the throttle pulled almost all the way out?

Youmean the choke? There are those that say the choke needs to be pulled all the way otherwise something is wrong....I can usually get away with about 1/2 choke but no choke is where I was when the idle was set VERY high - cuz of those vac' leaks....

"no bondo" .... well I was an assistant for an auto body class for a while and 'bondo' or 'filler' is not evil. In fact I'd be hard pressed to do a repair with "no filler". What's bad is too much filler. Filler is not used to fill holes nor should there be 1/4 inch or more to fill sloppy work. But a skim coat to smooth seams and the like is normal. Watch those hot rod tv shows. They skim coat the entire body then sand it 'all' off to get the smooth they want. Then a high filling primer and repeat the sand process.....often more than once. Filler is an important component when used correctly.

I pulled a fender on a Camaro once that had over an inch to change the profile of the fender when they didn't buy the correct replacement tho!

 

mpminiman, I think you have a broken inner cable on your speedo, they're not expensive and I think it would be worthwhile to invest in one. You still could have a speedo head problem as well, but if it's not locked up chances are it's OK. Stick a small screw driver in the square where the speedo cable goes and spin it - the needle should move and it shouldn't bind - if so it's probably OK.

The other's are right to point you towards a vacuum leak. If your car has a brake servo, look carefully at the hose that goes to it for cracks or a break at one end or the other right at the fitting. It's easy and cheap enough that you probably should just go ahead and replace it anyway, along with all the other vacuum lines. Just buy some hose at the local auto parts store and do them one at a time. Your case sounds exactly like a lean condition, and the fact that it happened "suddenly" points to a broken hose somewhere........

Another simple and easy to check fix is that you could have dirt or water in
the float bowl of your carb. Take the three small screws out and take the top off of the float bowl and look. Blow it out with compressed air and you should be good. Also check to see if the pot is stuck in the lid (the dome shaped thing on the carb), it should float freely up and down. You can check it by removing the air cleaner and sitcking your finger in to move it up, (engine off of course) it should move up with some resistance but smoothly, and it should drop right down again when you release it. If not, take it off and clean it with spray carb cleaner and wipe dry, it's a very close fit, but should move freely. The "dome" only goes on one way, so pay attention. Loosen the damper plug on top all the way first, and it should be full of light oil (think 3 in 1 or ATF) to the inner ring, not to the top.

What part of the world are you in?

 

If those hoses are pretty dry cracked pull them off or measure the hole size and buy some new hose. They sell it by the foot at your local napa and its cheap and easy to fix.

 

I've already purchased a new speedo cable because the old one was snapped. I finally found a place in the area that can fix the speedo head and do some engine repairs. Oh, and i live in KY

 

If you have an automatic it takes the same oil as the standard Mini. You have to buy the oil filter off the internet though because it is a cartridge type filter and none of the local auto parts stores sell them.

 

a few more resources

MOSS has revenctlt shifted their Mini supplies to the US - in the past we had to work thru Moss-europe. Go to MOSS and request a Classic Mini catalog - in addition to the standard fancy pictures you'll get complete exploded diagrams and parts lists....with the actual parts numbers that you can then use with any supplier. VERY HANDY. You can also find these same lists online at MiniMania but I find paper much easier to work with sometimes.
mossmotors.com

starting here: http://members.tripod.com/austin_america/id68.html
dig around....the America has the same drivetrain ....

lots of carb info http://www.teglerizer.com/sucarbs/index.html
lot of dead links but not ALL are dead and good info to be found