Hey Guys,

I've been the owner of a Yellow 04 R53 for almost a week now. So far its been a blast to drive. As a part of my planning I paid for a pre-purchase inspection at a BMW/Porsche/MINI shop in Boston. They told me he following were in need of replacement:

Car has Alta CAI, 17% pulley, short throw shifter, Oil Catch can, MSD Ignition Coil, cooler plugs, short throw shifter, cat back SS exhaust, adjustable rear sway

Front Lower Control Arm Bushings
Pass Side Motor Mount
Serp Belt
Oil Pan Gasket is weeping
Valve Cover Gasket weeping

I am fairly handy and do most of my own work on my previous cars (VW Corrado, Jetta, GTi, Saab 900)

Are all of these repairs reasonable as a driveway DIY? No lift, no airtools?


Also as far as the car, it has a 6 speed. Does this mean it has LSD stock?

Why doesn't the key FOB unlock the doors only lock them?

Sorry just getting all my initial questions out at once!

Looking forward to being active on the boards

TG

 

Motor mount, valve cover and oil pan gasket and the belt should all be easy driveway repairs. The control arm bushings are possible but will be much more difficult. I believe the LSD was only available from 05 on.

 

Welcome. Your smile will get wider and wider as the weeks pass as the R53 is a GREAT ride.

The VC gasket and motor mounts are easy. You didn’t say how many miles but you should also consider checking your balancer and replacing it with an ATI along with its seal and a crank sensor seal. Both of which will eventually leak.

As for the LCA bushings that can go either way. It is not a simple job and is much easier with tools and a lift. Greasy’s is not that far away (Wooster) and you should consider them for that. The pan gasket should be done at the same time and the ball joints as you are there already.


You have a bunch of upgrades. The LSD may not have been factory installed but you never know unless you test for it.

Broken? I would replace the battery in the key before I did anything else. It clearly is communicating with the car. Do you hear any clicks. The door actuators are known problems. Didn’t the dealer have an opinion on that?

Welcome to NAM. There is no problem that your ride has or will have that has not been talked about in detail here.

///Rich

 

Since it appears you are in the boston area, if you do get to an item you don't want to diy, imo, Greasysgarage out in worchester is well worth the ride....good prices, and they know mini's, especially gen1 cars, backwards and forwards....it seems about 50% of the cars you see there are mini's.
As for your questions...looks like mostly answered, but motoringfile.com has a buyersguide, with year by year changes and fixes on the r50/53/52.....you might need to dig a bit to find it, but it is useful!!

 

All the gaskets, motor mount and serpentine belt should be pretty easy to replace in the driveway, not sure about the lower control arm bushings. Most things on a Mini are pretty simple as long as you take your time and research first.

 

nice mini

try holding down the unlock? the windows and moon roof should open... this could check if you need a new batt in the FOB or possibly been programmed to do somehting else?

 

+1 on all of the above advice. Do everything except the control arm bushings--let Greasy's do that: your time and knuckles are worth more than what it would take to do that.

 

Here is the buyers guide http://www.motoringfile.com/mini-r50r53-buyers-guide/

 

Thanks guys! I'm surprised not one person said the bushings were a DIY! I still may give them a go. I am a good ride from Greasys (down on South Shore) I think if I remove the whole control arm then ride down in the wife's car to a garage they will press them in and say that step...who knows I am going to do the easier stuff first.

I had an estimate done before I bought the car and it was 4hrs (=$400) labor, that's new swift springs!

 

I would definitely go with PowerFlex bushings and when I did them I bought them from Way already pressed into the brackets. I then sent back the brackets.

That said, you said you had to do this on your back and without air tools. It can and has been done, but it is not easy. In fact it is harder than hard on your back and without air tools.

///Rich

 

The front control arm bushings are a pain, you have to drop the front sub frame, and depending on your mileage, what the car was exposed to there will be a few parts that are seized.

I had to take it to a mechanic, took him 6 hours, needed an air chisel and mini jack hammer thing just to get past seized bolts, had to pull out one of the axles just to get enough leverage to crack the control arm loose.

He only charged me for 4 hours, but if he charged me for 6, I still would have been glad I didn't torture myself with it.

 

No one can say if a job is a DIY for another as everyone's skill levels are different and the value of their time to do it is also different. I suggest starting with what you think will be easy and going from there. That way you can get comfortable, and decide where your stopping point for DIY is.

As for parts get the powerflex for your control arm bushing, that way you won't need to replace them again.
When you do the oil pan gasket, do the crank sensor seal as you will be there already.

 

Not to sound ridiculous, but it took me a day to realize that on the fob, while the main unlock and trunk unlock are marked with obvious symbols, the lock is, obscurely, the Mini symbol in the middle. At first I thought there was no lock button. Is this what the OP meant?

(In my defense, I was coming from a '97 Miata with entirely manual keys.)

 

Front Lower Control Arm Bushings- Way has pre-pressed powerflex in brackets if you'll DIY. Took me some time to gather courage to do it since it involved sub-frame drop. If you're doing it yourself, a spare pair of wrenching hands would help a lot. Change the sway bushes w/ powerflex & the inner ball joints w/ OEM, Lemfoerder or the package Way has. It took us 6hrs to finish mine at a careful pace. Clean your power steering fan & swap out the power steering hose clamps w/ the adjustable screw-type ones along the way, too.

Pass Side Motor Mount- VibraTechnics, Colin Greene can help you.

Oil Pan Gasket is weeping- make sure it isn't from the crankshaft seal or the crank position sensor O-ring. If it's the crank seal. Change your harmonic damper w/ ATI or PRW Fluid damper along the way. DIYable. Get a tensioner tool & chicken-foot crank pulley puller for easier/faster work.

Check if you still have your low speed fan, if not, check this link for the workaround:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...lution-32.html
You may get the mouser .33ohm resistor, the detroit tuned 1 or simply bypass the resistor & always get high speed on (it'll be better than no low speed). This is an easy fix.

Get some strut tower anti-mushrooming plates if you don't have yet. Fix the mushroom 1st, swap out those strut mounts & install the said plates. After all suspension work is done, get it aligned.

 

So, my experience this past weekend replacing the lower ball joint and LCA.

Lower ball joint is not that bad. Just a tight space especially the bolt that is below the CV joint. I had the front of my car on jack stands and ended up jacking the motor up about an inch to get the bolt out. Some people might not agree with this but i ended up cutting about 1/2" off the bolt to make it easier to drop back in.

LCA!! This would have been an 1 hour job if i had the right tool. I watched a video on youtube and the one trick they mentioned was to use a saw zaw to cut the bushing out. This is great if the saw zaw would fit. Getting the saw zaw blade to go flush with the LCA housing was a problem. I would recomend a Pneumatic Reciprocating Saw http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...Fe9aMgodrQYACA.

I am 100% positive if i had the saw it would have taken me about an hour! The saw zaw was nice to cut out the bushing itself but the metal colar / sleeve was the hard part.

To get the new bushing back in i used 1/2" all thread rod with some washers and my buddies bushing cups just like the video shows. Went in no problem.

Also, another side note for the LCA is when putting the lower control arm back in the new bushing. It was not something that you are able to just push back in. We ended up getting a truck ratchet strap and hooking it up to the lower control arm then the other side to my rear suspension. You will also need to have the lower control arm bolted back in under the rotor and the ball joint lined up. Once we had it all lined up we used the strap and ratcheted it back into place. It worked out great.

No need to drop the sub frame at all. With all the right tools i think i could have done the ball joint and LCA bushing in less than 3 hours total (plus pizza!)

So, i hope this helps. I also bought the LCA bushing and lower ball joint on Ebay for about $35 bucks each (just OEM replacement parts). So, i spent about $70 plus pizza and beer A local mechanic was going to charge over $200 for just the labor.