Hi all

Brought my 05 mini convertible in for maint today, and the dealer has found:

leak in oil pan gasket
leak in valve cover gasket
leak in power steering pump

Best as i know, the first two aren't a big deal.
They want $1200 for the power steering pump, i told them to top me off and I'll "do it next time". They said the lines are fine but the pump should be replaced. Is this typical, or can new seal(s) be put in? Is it difficult to repair/replace on ones own?

I think they want like $700 for the oil pan gasket. Told them I'd "think about it".

I'm happy to do my own work on things like this if the fix isn't urgent (i've got the bentley manual).

Can anyone provide me with any recommendations as to the urgency of these matters and if i want to get involved in doing these myself? I'm low on special tools but high on handiness and improvisation.

Thanks
Eric

 

I should think that at least a weekly check of the oil level would give you a good sense of how much urgency the pan and valve cover deserve.

Likewise the power steering fluid...

I shouldn't want to be surprised by a low level for either of these items - the consequences would be most unfortunate.

Best wishes,

Charlie

 

I've known about the valve cover and oil pan for quite a while now, so i've been keeping an eye on those levels.
What about the power steering?

How hard are these to DIY?

What are the consequences to continually topping them off for several months until i have the time to do the repairs myself (if that's reasonable)?

thanks!

 

Don't know how hard it is to replace, but I can tell you the power steering issue, unfortunately, is extremely common, to the point that a MINI tech I spoke to said after five years, count on it going at any time.

What I'd like to know is if there's a better aftermarket solution, so this won't happen again.

 

Well, there's a power steering leak and power steering pump/cooling fan failure, AFAIK, problems with completely different ramifications.
I've got the leak (for now).
What happens if I keep topping it off and keep an eye on it and replace the unit inside of, say, 6 mos?

thanks

 

I wouldn't mess around with trying to keep the PS pump on life support. It's a known weak link and the electrical side is going to go eventually anyway.

I also wouldn't pay $1200 unless you want to completely avoid getting your hands dirty. The EHPS pump swap out is doable at 1/3 of that price, including the new pump. Here's one of the better DIY sources that I've found:

http://www.billswebspace.com/MiniR53PSPFanDuctDIY.htm

When I saw the post title "3 leaks" I half expected to see the crank seal and the crank sensor O-ring on your list. These seals dry out over time (especially the latter) and eventually require replacement. I had to replace the O-ring on my '05 last year. When you get around to doing the other gaskets you might want to have these other candidate leak points checked out too.

 

Check your oil regularly....
The ps pump is a good diy..will save you some $$. Just be sure to use the propped fluid to top it off....
the valve cover...should also beca good diy.....
Imo watch the oil pan gasket....and combine it with a big job like a clutch...it is imo axbit more than a diy'er will likely want to do...

 

Yeah what ZIP said.

But if there is a leak in the PS line then air is getting into the system and making your pump work too hard causing premature failure....$$$$$$$$$$$.

The hose from the reservoir to the pump is the usual one, and costs about $80.00 and then you will also need one hose clamp.

Make sure the PS fluid leaking is not drenching your electric PS pump. If so, attend to this problem post haste. Chronic leaking of fluid on the pumps are part of a long debate over some MINI engine bay fires.

 

They said that the PS leak was very very small (possibly new) but the oil pan leak was a "full drip".
Is the oil pan gasket leak any more than a problem if the oil runs too low and the engine seizes? If i keep topping up, is it safe for the foreseeable future?

I read one of the DIYs on the oil pan gasket, it didn't look too out of my league.

If i can get the car (safely) jacked up to shoulder height, does that make working on the oil pan gasket easier, or is it not worth it?

Not that i intend to let it get that far, but when the PS pump dies, what does it take out? Everyone seems very cautious about keeping that from happening.

thanks

 

The oil gasket requires putting the car in service mode so you can take the a/c
compressor off of the front of the pan, otherwise it's a matter of removing the
rear lower engine mount and about 15 bolts, dropping the old pan, cleaning things
up, and carefully torquing the pan and new gasket on, following the correct
tightening order. $700 sounds like almost twice what it should honestly cost.
I believe the PS repair requires dropping the subframe, so if it's time to change the
front control arm bushings or any ball joints or tie rod ends, better do them
at the same time to save doing all that labour twice.

 

I glanced over the various online guides earlier. Seems to me the hardest part is accumulating parts and tools. And jacking the car up to a good height.

If anyone knows a quality, honest mechanic in the Bklyn/Queens/Nassau/Suffolk area of NY, i'm all ears.
Otherwise, i'll just do it myself and flatbed the car if i screw up badly.

 

The misses and I just changed out the oil pan gasket while fixing a leak in the crankshaft sensor. Two days work to replace a $2.76 o-ring!. We went by the Bentley manual and several of the online DIY threads. We took on the oil pan gasket since we already had most of the up-front work done (removing/loosening the car's front end). We tried to remove the PS pump to at least inspect and clean it but were stymied by the inability to get the damn thing out of it's little spot. The lower bolt simply would not clear the mounting area.

That being said, I'd recommend giving it all a try if you're reasonably comfortable working on it yourself. We had none of the special tools and made out just fine. It was actually quite fun and we are much more confident now about tackling future repairs.

It really helped to make copies of the pages from the Bentley manual to keep from getting your book dirty, and having copies of the DIY threads on hand as well. We put them in the order needed since the Bentley manual has a lot of references to other sections. Again, we took it slowly, carefully, and thought everything through. That made a huge difference.

The only thing that might slow you down is loosening the tensioner to remove the serpentine belt. We didn't have a tool so I place a socket (13 or 15mm, I think) on the main bolt for the tensioner arm and used that to get leverage on the tensioner with a flat metal shaft. In my case that was the shaft for a sliding shop clamp, like for woodworking. I wedged it under a small "ledge" on the tensioner pully assembly, braced against the socket, and pushed it until the misses could get a piece of hard metal wire into the hole provided on the tensioner spring assembly. I wish I had photos but hopefully you can find a similar "shadetree" solution.

Maybe there is a fellow owner in your area willing to assist. I know if oyu were out here i'd be happy to do so. It's very rewarding and can save you a ton of cash. In our case, close to $2,000 with what Mini quoted us (for items that weren't actually the problem, FYI).

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the inspiring post.
I'd actually prefer to do the work myself, not just because of cost, but because i like taking things apart and building stuff ( http://www.ericfeldman.com/stairs ).
My one concern is having my car in a state of disrepair and not being able to get to work because of it, or starting during nice weather and having an issue when it starts raining (no garage to work in here)
I guess i'll schedule it for the next holiday to give myself some extra time.

 

Good planning. I will add that having someone to help was a tremendous, well, help. My wife is very analytical and tends to stop me from just doing something stupid without thinking it through. She also helped keep all the bolts and parts you'll need to take off organized. We took time to make notes and label things. It's not entirely necessary but I know it helped us.

Be prepared for fluids of various kinds, have lots of shop towels and old clothes. Latex gloves were great, too, as always. Like I said, we learned lots from this relatively safe repair.

 

I think one of my major concerns is the weights associated with everything. Undo enough of the wrong bolts (or right bolts at the wrong time) and heavy things fall on you or break.

 

Maybe a few photos can provide some inspiration. As you can see, I'm no car mechanic. I'm holding the aforementioned clamp used to loosen the belt tensioner. We did have the benfit of plenty of garage space and I should not take that for granted. A couple of other things to note, when we got the "Mosular Front End" loosened, I used two pieces of strategically placed 2X4 to keep it pulled out to give me more room to work. I also had lots of towels and cat litter for fluid spills. Also, you can see some of the removed parts and the inside of the engine. That in itself was worth the effort. Pretty cool to look up in there after removing the oil pan.

 

Actually, that was a bit more frightening than i was expecting. Good on you, though!

Actually, this begs the question -- how many miles since the fix, and have you been checking for leaks? What with most people posting about how the dealer had to try 2 or 3 times to get it right....

 

We had no problems with that. There is a point where you realize the engine is getting wobbly because you've removed some of the supports. Just don't get crazy and it stays put just fine. The wife was nervous, to be sure.

The oil pan is the only thing I thought would be heavy but it's aluminum and very light. It just may surprise you when it comes "unstuck". The A/C compressor will require something to suspend it once unbolted. We just used a wire hangar bent and attached to the compressor and up on top of the engine, can't recall exactly where. The bumper carrier is aluminum as well and surprisingly light. I would say the heaviest thigs were the tires.

As always, the biggest thing is making sure oyu have the car jacked up and supported on jack stands. I used the car's small jack to get things started at the designated jack point. Then I used a floor jack to get under and raise it high enough to remove the car's jack and put jack stands at those jack points. Make absolutely sure it's solid before oyu really get started. I even yanked on the car pretty hard. If it had fallen it would have been bad, but not nearly as bad as with me under it.

 

Not a ton of miles, we only did this a couple of weeks ago. It may well leak again but we have less than $100 in our DIY attempt. Our time was well worth it and saved us from sitting around drinking beer anyway!

We check for leaks daily and have found nothing. Again, I think we put much more care into putting it all back together. We've never done it so it was easy for us not to be complacent. I suspect some mechanics rush through it as fast as they can because they do it all day long. Everything went back together very well and we torqued all bolts ot recommendations. If it doesn't solve the problem then I think there's a cause we didn't address, not workmanship.

Sorry to inundate you with posts but I feel like you're right where we were a few weeks ago, debating our ability and the costs. We took it on and I am glad we did. That being said, you have to be comfortable or things may well go badly. Do what you think is right for oyu, I'm only sharing my good experience with a similar repair.

 

Congratulations to you and your wife.
It was good to see pictures of the work and read your posts. Had the same fix by a shop, shortly after I got mine and it was good to actually see what had been described to me.

 

I am truly lucky to have a wife who keeps me out of trouble, is so meticulous, is mechanically minded and actually enjoys getting in and getting her hands dirty.

 

I've been looking for these two gaskets, can you give me their official names, part numbers, or links on sites? I can't seem to find them.

So I'm looking at the Oil pan gasket, Valve cover gasket, PS hose, PS fan... Anything else suggested to be looked at or replaced? Car's got 55k on it now, lots of local driving in there.

Doing the job in a few weeks. Collecting all the parts and tools now.

thanks!

 

for a 8/04 R50,

Part 09 on this diagram is the crankshaft sensor o-ring (pulse generator, crankshaft) p.n. 12147514983,
and 01 is the crank shaft seal (shaft seal) p.n. 11111492244.
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...82&hg=11&fg=10

Oil pan gasket is here:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...84&hg=11&fg=10

Valve cover gasket is here:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...87&hg=11&fg=15

 

 

Oil pan gasket
http://www.waymotorworks.com/oil-pan-gasket.html

crank sensor o ring
http://www.waymotorworks.com/cranksh...or-o-ring.html

valve cover gasket
http://www.waymotorworks.com/valve-c...0-r52-r53.html

All in stock