Folks,

I bought the OEM gauges for either side of the tach and have hit a stumbling block in their installation.

Mini suggests that to get the vacuum tube through the firewall, you need to cut off the tip of a certain nipple in the firewall and feed the tube through. The problem is that that dang nipple is rather inaccesible. I can barely get to it with the tips of my fingers, let alone get a tool in that cramped spot to cut the tip off. I'm not exactly excited about disassembling the whole wiper mechanism to get at the thing.

Can anyone who has installed the gauges themselves suggest how I should go about it?

Thanks,
Duaneo

 

Look for a rubber grommet behind and to the driver's side of the brake booster. I ran my gauge wires through this grommet a couple of days ago. It should be easier to access than the factory-specified nipple.

 

I thought cutting the nipple was fairly straight forward on my 05 MCS. I took a normal pair of scissors, stuck it under the cowl and got the nipple between the blades and snipped it off.

 

Then I used a straightened-out wire coat hanger & a helper to stick the coat hanger thru the opened nipple. One person from the footwell, the other from the engine side. threading in into the car from the engine side. Once the wire is thru, tape or tie the vaccuum line to the wire & pull the tubing thru. It's easiest to put the tubing from the inside out to the engine side. Then pull the tubing to the proper lengths inside & out... its slow work. I didn't need to, but time like this you might also think about using some talc or a little soap on the tubing to get things sliding a little better.

 

I just did this task recently. I poked a hole in the nipple with a long sharp awl, cut a point on the tube tip, and was able to feed it thru by feel from the engine side. At that point, I did have trouble getting the tube up thru the steering column along the path I wanted, since the tube seems to have a mind of its own as far as which way to go. So I stuck a thin wire down from the steering wheel side, and connected the tube to the wire with some tape, and pulled it thru.

 

I took off the driver side vent near the wipers, gave me more room to work with the tight space.

 

Thanks for the help folks. The key for me was an exacto knife and a pair of vice grips attached to the end. The advice about feeding the wire through from the engine side was also very helpful. Trying to push that hose through from the footwell gives "pushing rope" a whole new meaning.

I'm still feeling a little foolish as I've got the hose over to where it's supposed to be tied in and I can't figure out where cut a vacuum line and insert the tee! The layout of my MCS doesn't seem to match up with the diagrams in the instructions. According to my manual, the parts in the neighborhood of the line I'm supposed to cut are related to the fuel system.

If any of you have installed a boost gauge in your 2004 MCS, can you post a picture showing where/how you tied it in?

Thank you so much. You're saving me from sheepishly going to the dealer and asking them to finish it for me.

Cheers,
Duaneo

(To add insult to injury, I dropped my 8mm socket while reattaching the intercooler support brackets and it has disappeared down the front of the engine. My guess is that it's lodged in the fan shroud. If any of you can suggest how to get it out short of holding the car upside down over my head and shaking it, I'll be even more thankful)

 

Too bad I didn't see this thread when asking my initial question.

Thanks for all of the help!

Cheers,
Duane

 

there are tools that have long extending/flexible necks with strong magnets at the end. you just use that and jam it in the place you think you dropped your socket and hope it catches on it