Well with 188k miles I finally cleaned out my garage with the intentions of just replacing the spark plugs, wires, filters, oil, transmission fluid and crankshaft gasket. Once I took a good look under the car I decided to take off the whole front end and remove the supercharger too because I could see a coolant leak.

I removed the supercharger and waterpump. Removed the waterpump end cover to inspect the gears and to my suprise they looked perfect, and it still had a bunch of oil in there. After all the storied i've read of the gear failure at low miles I was expecting to be replacing my gears too. They look brand new still.

As far as I can tell this is the original supercharger becasue it has the date sticker still attatched.

I'll be ordering various seals, water pump and some new supercharger oil, as well as a smaller pulley since I have the damned thing off.

Here are a few pics of the gears and car.

 

Good to know, I am at 106K and still looking fine.

 

That's good news. A couple of NAMers have reported over 200K (one at 244K) on the original S/C. It looks like for quite a few R53s owners, it may last the life of the engine, which many of us thought unlikely years ago. BTW: Are you running the stock pulley?

 

Yup, car's bone stock.

 

Gears look good.

Did you track down the coolant leak? Was it coming from the engine block or from the the coolant pump?

Btw, how long did it take you to remove the SC?

 

Looks like a leak from one of the water pump/flange o-rings. I'd replace both the block face flange o-ring and the water pump o-ring(one may come with the replacement pump).

The gears look spectacular too!

Jeremy

 

Thanks for the reminder on the block o-ring. I am replacing the water pump because there is very slight signs of it leaking very slowly out the weephole, there's mineral? buildup all around it.

 

I'd say it was no more than 2 hrs. And that was going slow, as i'd never removed the core support from a MINI before.

 

Just make sure you use distilled water, if you're not using any of the diluted OEM coolant (one of the few items I would spend money on at a dealership).

Great success on your car and the S/C and like a Timex, still ticking, I hope I can go that long.

 

Your Information is good news as I have a 04 MCS with 92K on my Supercharger, I would be happy to get 120K out of it, no noise as of now. Hope it makes the next year, more so with the car going to the dragon next month.

 

that is impressive. looks like your s/c is in great shape and ready for another 188k miles.

 

Yeah guys, I was shocked to see how good it was inside. The teflon? coating on the rotors looks perfect too.

15% upgrade going on since it's all apart, and much easier to deal with the pulley now vs. on the car.

 

Wow! I have nightmares of my car looking like that after I take it to the dealership to have the check engine light analyzed. You da man! Perhaps I should wait to say that after we see it back together and running .

 

I was suprised how easy the whole front end comes completely off. Especially if you're ok with draining the coolant and pulling the radiator. If you do that you can just remove the whole front carrier/core support and have all the room you want.

 

I just removed my SC and the front of my engine looks exactly like yours in respect to the oil gunk on the rh side of it. Do you know the origin of the crap?
By the way, my SC oil on the waterpump side was A: Present in apparently sufficient amount and a very clear light green color and B: the oil drained form the snout was a very rich brown color, like a good beer, with no junk in it. I can assume that I do not need to do anything but replace the fluids (per other posts)?
I thought I had a waterpump failure but it now looks like the alternator is crapped out.

 

Crap coming from inlet to supercharger and leaking from gasket. Very common.

Your oil colour front and rear is normal from what I've seen. I'd just add new oil and be on your way. Make sure the PTO gears are good and that there is no play or slop in PTO shaft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZARD3Qi403Q

Jeremy

 

I'm sure this is a sigh of relief for many people. My car sounds good but I intend to replace my fluid in a couple of months here.

 

The almost oval shaped gasket that goes on the tube from supercharger inlet to throttle body. Also o-ring for crank sensor.

Don't forget to pick up a new waterpump to block o-ring.