Today, I finally got the LCA Bushings w/ brackets replaced as well as the Front sway bar bushings. Have to say it's a litle unnerving having to lower the subframe, and removing the bumper. It's like open heart surgery for a car.

This marked the end of my maintanence for the week on Egan. Over the past few days, I've also replaced following:

Upper and lower motor mounts
Serpentine belt
Ignition Coil and Plug wires
Rear Sway bar bushings
Added MINI Madness lower chassis bar & Cabrio Cross Brace

It's been rather tiring doing all this, but with the assistance and advice from my Dad, and lots of Classic Rock playing in the background, it went alright. It just goes to show if you have the right tool for the job, everything goes well.

On a side note, once I got the wheels back on the car and lowered it off the hoist, I started it up to make sure the ignition coil and plug wires were working. I noticed immediately on the #1 Cylinder plug there was some air escaping. I quickly turned off the car, got a wrench with a socket, and discovered the spark plug was loose.

Got the torque wrench out and torqued all the spark plugs, which apparently were all slightly loose. (#1 was the worst though) Never known for the spark plugs to ever come loose. Certainly dodged a bullet there.

This will be the last big project I do for a while. Have over 87k miles on the MINI right now, but I'm planning for some more maintanence when I hit 100k miles. (Fuel Filter, Ball joints, springs and shocks, spark plugs, etc)

The only thing I'm going to do before then is get a different exhaust seeing as the oem one is cracking and rusting up at the resonator, and muffler.

Overall though the experience was very rewarding. And I already have an appointment set up for the MINI dealer to get my alignment done for Monday.

 

Wow, very impressive and sense of accomplishment when you can do things for yourself. Nice to hear you and your Dad worked on this together . Happy Fathers Day .

 

At one point I was ready to throw in the towel and just have MINI do it because everything was taking longer than I anticipated. After a spot of dinner and a beer, I figured it would be best to stick with it. Besides, like I said, a great learning experience.

I'm by no means a mechanic, but if I can do the basic stuff without having to resort to outside help and ponying up extra dough for it, I'm happy. Although, that just means less business for the pros, so I'm not helping the economy.

 

So I took the MINI in to get the alignment done, as well have my old tires from my old wheels dismounted (since they were run-flats), and had them do an inspection.

Turns out I have a couple oil peaks from the Oil Pan gasket, and the Crank Sensor o-ring. The brake fluid also needs to be flushed. I decided that since they are already working on it, and I'm planning to keep the MINI for the long haul, I went ahead and let them do it. In total, everything will cost around $1100.

I'll be picking it up from the dealer tomorrow then rather than later today.

I just know though the wait will be worth it.

 

Got the MINI back today, and runs drives like new! Mini of Madison was very helpful and their service was great. Definitely encouraging if and when I need to go back there in the future.

I'll definitely be taking the MINI out for a drive later this week!