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An eBay special S badge to brighten up the front a bit!
I also freed my stuck caliper. It turns out the emergency brake return spring area just needed a bit of cleaning and lubrication and all is well again!
The local junkyard got a 2003 R53 in so this past weekend we went down to grab a few parts for the beater R53 we are rebuilding and see what else we could scrounge up for my car. It turns out the junked car had a full UUC exhaust system! From what I understand these were $800+ back in the day and sounded amazing. I had the entire exhaust dropped out in about 15 minutes and we took it home for $52
It needed a bit of welding repair but our local exhaust shop fixed it all up for $25. So $75 for a full UUC exhaust - I'm not complaining! I'll be swapping the UUC system onto my car and moving my JCW catback over to the beater R53 we have. The junkyard car also had an adjustable rear sway bar. My car already has one but for the $20 the junkyard charged for it we figured it would also be a nice cheap upgrade for the beater Mini!
Pics are working for me. Great journal so far, car is super clean! Your family has exquisite taste in cars! lol
Thanks man! My dad got my brother and I into E36s way back in the day so there will always be some form of ‘90s BMW in the family!
Spent some time on the Blue Ridge Parkway yesterday. It was an amazing drive and I highly recommend it to anyone that hasn’t done it yet. A couple pics from the trip:
Well a quick trip down to visit some family in Florida was also in order. All in all about 1800 miles put on the R53 within a few days without much issue at all. Just a bit of oil to add and it was good to go! After driving about 600 miles straight I had a slight occasional rough idle that I’ve chalked up to very high engine bay temps as well as high humidity in FL. But it could potentially be early signs of a TMAP/MAP sensor failure, however no fault codes yet so I’m not too worried!
At Daytona International Speedway and Daytona Beach!
Next up I swapped out the JCW exhaust for the UUC junkyard find.
I’ve gotta say - if you have the chance to grab one of these UUC systems and are on the fence, my advice is go for it. This is hands down one of the best aftermarket exhausts I’ve heard to date. Little to no drone while cruising but just a nice hum to let you know something is different. But any amount of throttle input and the car sounds very throaty and deep. This is not one of those droning, raspy, annoying exhausts but truly a worthwhile upgrade. If you have the chance to pick one up I would highly recommend it. It may just be a placebo but the car also feels quicker. I don’t know if having the M7 intake and the free-er flowing exhaust helps at all but it feels stronger.
I’ll try to get a sound clip in a few days for future reference. (I can’t find any online right now)
Yep! Super glad I had the chance to pull it. It needed a bit of welding repair but not much at all.
I realized I never posted a picture of our beater R53 so here it is with mine.
tej,
Really nice salvage find! Bet you were pleased as punch with yourself. Every once in a while you get lucky right?
Good job!
rob
p.s. A little jealous of the Fla. pics. Here in Md it's rain and the bars, restaurants, all "non-essential businesses" are closed, etc.. even the beach and the boardwalk in Ocean City is closed and we're one sneeze away from a total lock down due to "the bug"... I've had my own business for 30 years and never laid anyone off and will probably be laying everyone off by Monday. I'm not taking it well... I feel responsible for their well-being and this is out of my control.
tej,
Really nice salvage find! Bet you were pleased as punch with yourself. Every once in a while you get lucky right?
Good job!
rob
p.s. A little jealous of the Fla. pics. Here in Md it's rain and the bars, restaurants, all "non-essential businesses" are closed, etc.. even the beach and the boardwalk in Ocean City is closed and we're one sneeze away from a total lock down due to "the bug"... I've had my own business for 30 years and never laid anyone off and will probably be laying everyone off by Monday. I'm not taking it well... I feel responsible for their well-being and this is out of my control.
Thanks! Yeah it's really unfortunate but hopefully we won't have the lock down for much longer and local businesses can go back to normal hours
Another junkyard find - this time R56 front brake upgrade kit. I pulled both sides front brake rotors, calipers, lines, pads, and wear sensors for just about $80. The pads have good life and the rotors look to be recently replaced.
From what I understand this setup should bolt right onto the R53 without any modifcation at all. The R56 rotors are substantially bigger than the R53 so I'm excited to see what extra braking power this offers.
Yes the R56 S brake kit will directly bolt on. The only thing you need is our conversion brake lines as they will adapt from the R53 to the R56 calipers and allow you to not have the lines bound up. https://www.waymotorworks.com/stainl...rsion-kit.html
Another junkyard find - this time R56 front brake upgrade kit. I pulled both sides front brake rotors, calipers, lines, pads, and wear sensors for just about $80. The pads have good life and the rotors look to be recently replaced.
From what I understand this setup should bolt right onto the R53 without any modifcation at all. The R56 rotors are substantially bigger than the R53 so I'm excited to see what extra braking power this offers.
sweet find. I love junkyard scores...I used to find so many things for my ford 4.6s and 5.0s..
the r56 brake swap will be my next move too. I just wanna 1st get some front braces from a convertable and the rear adjustable sway bar and then come the brakes.. but building on a budget has really slowed things down.
Last edited by MiniManAdam; Mar 29, 2020 at 07:15 AM.
Another junkyard find - this time R56 front brake upgrade kit. I pulled both sides front brake rotors, calipers, lines, pads, and wear sensors for just about $80. The pads have good life and the rotors look to be recently replaced.
From what I understand this setup should bolt right onto the R53 without any modifcation at all. The R56 rotors are substantially bigger than the R53 so I'm excited to see what extra braking power this offers.
Thanks for the info! I ended up getting the brakes on a couple weeks ago:
Closest to the camera is the R56 assembly.
With the wheels back on its tough to spot the difference!
The brakes definitely feel more confident and stronger even with the cheapo auto parts store pads that came with the calipers from the junkyard. Overall I'm really pleased with how easy and effective this upgrade is.
In other news I changed the oil/filter at my 5k mile OCI and used Liqui-Moly Molygen 5w40 this time around. After driving around for a while a couple days after the oil change the car has started making the timing chain rattle on cold starts and occasional warms starts again
I'm thinking it's time for a chain and guides replacement now. At ~143k miles on the original chain and guides with the previous owner driving the car around with the sticking tensioner I am guessing that the chain has finally stretched out just enough to smack the tensioner in on startups... The bright side is I'll get a chance to replace my belt tensioner that has also been making more of a racket these days.
If anyone has any tips/tricks or even ideas for anything else I should do while I have the timing cover off please feel free to let me know. So far I'm planning:
Chain, guides, tensioner, timing cover seal, oil pump seals (2), guide bolt cover seals (2), front crank seal, oil pan gasket (broken guide retrieval), and the belt tensioner.
I'll also be going with MINI parts from FCP for the chain and guides. Not something I want to do again for any reason really, and surprisingly the MINI chain is cheaper than the OE replacement. Of course I'll also be dropping the oil pan to grab any of the broken guide pieces that are in there (I know there is atleast one).
Can you post a cold start with the chain rattling sound? My mileage is close to yours, but Im hoping the nature of an underpowered R50 meant it wasnt as abused (prior to my ownership)
Can you post a cold start with the chain rattling sound? My mileage is close to yours, but Im hoping the nature of an underpowered R50 meant it wasnt as abused (prior to my ownership)
Yeah I can try to grab one later this evening. From what I understand it's not really a matter of if the engine was thoroughly enjoyed but rather if you let your chain tensioner go in a stuck/semi-stuck state for too long. This causes the plastic guides to take on excess wear from the chain slapping and the guides eventually break. This leads to the chain being run on a broken guide which then lets it stretch out to the point where the tensioner can't do its job anymore.
Luckily I think I've caught mine early enough but if I were to keep running it like this I'm sure we would eventually see the timing cover guide for the chain break off
Well I haven't heard the chain rattle at all over the past 3 or so days. Multiple cold starts and warm starts with no issue. I'm guessing that maybe the new oil had something to do with it but I know for a fact that I need new guides at the minimum so that's next on the list. Luckily doing the guides is much easier than the chain and all I really have to do is pull the upper motor mount and valve cover. Should be pretty simply to knock out.
A long overdue update -
I knocked out the timing chain guides in a day as well as the oil pan gasket. I was expecting to find the broken chain guide in the oil pan but instead found a broken hydraulic lifter plastic tip. That explains the ticking I've had. Here are a few pics of the chain guide job:
About 2 weeks later I swapped out a few of the rocker arms since I found 5 intake side lifters with cracked plastic tips and 1 exhaust side badly cracked. All in all a pretty simple job, just be careful to not catch the plastic caps of the lifters on the spark plug tubs to avoid cracking them.
Also found a bit of camshaft wear but the car runs great so I'm sure it'll be fine for now:
After all the work the car runs great with no more weird noises and the ticking is gone since the lifter change. It might just be a placebo but the car seems to pull harder with the broken lifter being swapped out. All cleaned up after testing some turtle wax ceramic coat:
