I didn't feel this really needed a how to, it's pretty simple but I believe something that will help a lot.

The other day my Mini cranked once then wouldn't do anything. All electrics worked, just would not crank.

Narrowed it down to the starter. I went to run a power line straight from the battery to the solenoid when I noticed the line from the solenoid to the starter had blown clean off. I also noticed it was a bare copper weave.

It was incredibly corroded.

Before I installed my new starter I bought a jar of liquid electric tape and globbed a ton of it on the bare wire and stud to hopefully prevent future corrosion and the same problem from ever happening again.

Note: in the pics of old starter the solenoid is broke because the nut for the 12v constant going to the solenoid was seized on the stud and when I was removing the nut the stud ripped out of the starter.

 

What year car was this on ?

And how many miles ?

 

02 r53, right under 140k, but the starter is of the same design for all of them. They all have that bare wire. So I know this will apply to all r50, r52, and r53. Not sure about anything after.

Yes I realize the manual versus auto starters are not interchangeable but they both have this bare wire

 

Here's a pix of a new one. The details say auto and manual are the same.

http://new.minimania.com/part/NME761...-Cooper-S-Only

Drive Hard. Drive Safe. Keep Grinning.

 

Maybe it's the same either way for the S model, but the base model has a different starter for manual versus auto.

Regardless they all have the bare wire. This was mostly just to point out a reliability mod that can be done for very cheap by anyone replacing the starter.