Changed the oil. Found a decent deal at Meijers - buy one gallon of Royal Purple $35.99, get a quart for a dollar. After 26,000 miles, I also need an air filter.......next!

 

Today I installed a WMW 15% reduction pulley, new belt, spark plugs, upgraded my undertray to the 2005+ with the power steering fan ventilation, did an oil change, changed all the filters and rotated the wheels. MINI is happy.

 

I let a friend of mine drive my MINI to get a feel for her, since he is going to potentially buy his MINI tomorrow! Made him love it more.

 

Just did my second oil change at 10600 miles. Car is purring along smoothly now. I did my first change at 4k miles, and I'm thinking every 6k is gonna be my oil change interval.

I also checked on the NM torque arm inserts I installed a week ago. Took the insert out and there was quite a bit of dirt and grime on the inserts, and I also noticed I over torqued one of the bolts. Anyway, I cleaned it up with some WD40 and torqued it properly this time. Much less vibration at idle than there was before. If you have the inserts and are experiencing more vibration than you think, check the bolts.

 

Picked up a rear seat delete panel from Pete the other day....it was used, and had a few holes for some sort of attachment from the prior owner but what the hey, the price was right And I can always get some plugs from a hardware store.

Of course, you know I just couldn't leave well enough alone just removing the seats and then installing the unit.....it wasn't modded yet

So I striped it with some left over Countryman JCW red roof stripes. Then added a logo for our club presidents shop.

Whole thing cost $75 bucks.

REARSEATDELETE004.jpg?t=1314577315

REARSEATDELETE005.jpg?t=1314577241

 

Sweet! Is that a nitrous bottle?

 

Today we installed a "stubby" antenna and an "objects in the mirror are losing" sticker. Love it!

 

AWESOME that was the first 2 things I did to mine.

 

Got my Inspection 2 stuff done yesterday; installed the little MINI Bluetooth thingy I found on Amazon.com; love it!

 

Where did you put your sticker? Pics?

 

he most likely put it in the sideview mirrors

 

ordered my mini DOS bandit badge

 

No pics but I put it on the driver's side side mirror. Kept me smiling in traffic this evening!

 

Just changed the spark plugs on my JCW MCS. They were looking pretty bad, not sure when the previous owner last had them changed....but the car has 88,000 miles on it.......it deserved it

 

I've always been partial to mine on the inside rearview

 

This weekend I installed a stubby antenna, no holes license plate bracket & "chrome" front turn signals behind my clear lenses for the no yoke look. I also did the red belt line molding black out (red out?) kit but it was too intense, so I took it off.

 

That is awesome..... Now I have to get one...

 

I added the "Actual Size" sticker in the usual location on the back window. The cool thing was it was in the Transformers style Font. So it's a bit different then all of the normal ones I've scene.

 

I drove to work really fast. made record timing

 

I finally took the car down off of the jackstands and pushed it into the corner of the garage. It will sit there until I can afford to pull the motor and ship it to Florida, so Thumper can start his magic. He will be doing the full rebuild using a majority of the NitroStick parts, plus a custom TPR2 head. When it's done it will have more power than anyone needs in a MINI, and I will be one happy person.

 

I hope it doesn't take too long to scrape the scratch together to ship that thing down there....

C ya,
Dutch

 

Nice, where did you get your stubby antenna from?

 

Oil change @68k......$98
Right Front Wheel Bearing (OEM) Replacement...$350
Cruising to work after these done.....Priceless.

So despite all the fun factors afterwards, does all this seem too much to you? I did at my fav local shop so I trust them but should I still be a bit price-sensitive?

 

It will probably be most of the winter, theres really no sence in rushing it with all the snow and such around here. I'm hoping to start a new job with Southwest Airlines soon, so that will defenately pay for it. No cap on overtime, and I will work until my fingers bleed to get it done. Not to mention FREE flights, so I might be able to use that to my advantage. (Free plain tickets + ByteTroniK + a little experiance may= extra $$ on the weekends)
I am really looking forward to MITM 2012, and hope to bring some new ideas/vendors to the table. So keep up on it and I hope to see you again next August.

 

I found a nail in my runflat :( third one in 2 weeks