I had to look that up...very interesting, I have never seen those before.

 

I don't remember if I've ever seen any in person. One of my great uncles had a Beetle with semaphores when he was stationed in Germany though. It also had mechanical brakes that he said would jam if he panic-stopped the car.

Hopefully the plug change will go smoothly. He also said that he's heard that changing the plugs if they've been installed for a long time has a tendency to kill coils, so I guess we'll see how that goes.

 

GM coils are good for a hundred thousand miles and they start breaking down, that's the main reason why I did new coils and wires. I also ordered new injectors. I love my Escalade ESV and with no prior maintenance history it looked like most things were factory. It now has over 256 thousand and is going strong and I plan on keeping it forever.

I talked the wife into going on our cruise in June. We reserved and then were going to cancel because of COVID. The main thing is we did not want to wear a mask on a cruise. Since the rate is going down, she has calmed down some she feels better about going.

 

 

A few months ago I finally finished cleaning out the gas tank from the van. New sender, new hoses all around, and a re-cleaned carb, and it ran great. I've been slowly fixing the wiring; the field wire for the external regulator was barely hanging on. It will probably get a new dash harness in the distant future.

I also helped my dad pick up my aunt's '97 Mustang from Atlanta. The oil was overfilled by a quart, and the drain plug had been put on by a trained gorilla with an impact...

Now that I can move the van again after fixing some wiring, I'll hopefully get to back to my routine Mini maintenance. It has mostly been sitting except for driving to the trails, but I'm still overdue for an oil change and brake fluid flush.

 

Well, I finally got around to changing the oil and rotating tires a few days ago, and I changed the brake hoses to some red braided steel ones and did a fluid flush and bleed today. I also swapped my center caps to black ones with the classic mini cooper logo. I also grabbed an underbody shot of my skid plate and XBrace since someone asked a long time ago about some of my other mods.

 

Very timely on the skid plate. I was just looking at options the other day. If I'm not mistaken, the one you have protects the power steering pump, correct?

The center caps are very cool. They go well with BRG.

 

Yes, it runs all the way back to the cross member on the subframe. You can see a bit of the fan shroud through the triangular hole labeled "oil." I don't know how much protection it really provides since the front of the car is all plastic, but I figure it's better than nothing. I've seen some pretty nasty debris on Atlanta interstates.

Thanks! I had a set made with the modern MINI logo as well, but I decided these look better.

 

I will never own a mini without a skid plate! The steel plate on my car has saved it from potentially detrimental damage more than once. See pics below. That was the most recent impact. Large rock came out from between the dually's of a dump truck I was following. It rolled into the other lane and a car going the opposite direction clipped it and it was chucked under my car. It would have definitely destroyed my ps cooler and a good chance I'd have lost the oil pan too.

 

That’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been concerned about. The aluminum oil pan hanging down without much protection has always worried me. I wonder how my aluminum skid plate would have handled that impact.

 

It would most likely have saved your car but aluminum doesn't like to bend, at least not more than once. The benefit to steel is I can heat it up and bend it back. If it was aluminum, there's a good chance it would crack trying to bend it back. That impact felt like the entire car was lifted off the ground. The rock looked oblong and I think it caught one of those holes and rolled which forced it up into the plate. You can see the gouge leading up to the first hole, then the massive dent. That plate is THICK and HEAVY! The fact the dent is so deep is crazy to me. I wanted an aluminum pan and was thinking about swapping at one point to save weight off the front of the car but after seeing this I'm not so sure anymore. I drive over 40,000 miles a year though so reliability is number 1 for me.

 

Yeah. I went with the aluminum for the weight, but I’m questioning that choice now.

 

Wanna trade?? Lol jk. You've had your mini for 16 years? I'm thinking you'll be fine. If you hit something that seriously damages the aluminum its a good excuse to upgrade at that point. Otherwise I'd leave it. The other option is, if you hit something that damages it, is having it welded back together if it cracks.

For what its worth, I was into off-roading a lot in my younger years (trucks, jeeps, atv's, dirt bikes) and most the skid plates I used were aluminum. I never broke one. Food for thought.

 

Well, $192 later I am the owner of a new Interstate AGM battery. My old one was about as dead as they get. I'm curious to see if I get any more life out of this one than the old standard lead acid batteries.

It had been iffy for a while, even though I had it on a maintainer when parked. It cranked slow Saturday morning, and when I got back from a five hour race, it was dead. I'm glad I had a buddy there to jump me off.

 

I am sure one of those gold laced batteries is in my future.

 

I really hadn't been planning on an AGM, but when I realized that an AGM from Costco was the same price as the normal Duralast Gold batteries I had been buying, I figured I didn't have much to lose.

 

My new zinc-coated wheel studs came in a few days ago to replace the rusty black-phosphate-coated ones I currently have. I had planned to install them soon and also swap my summer wheels and tires onto my Audi so that I can fix what I suspect to be a leaky valve stem, but I clipped a sapling with my bars at ~14 mph up on the Stanley Gap trail and had a pretty big crash. My helmet took the brunt of it, but the concussion is going to take a bit of time.

My dad and I also went to the HSR event at Road Atlanta last weekend and unexpectedly ended up getting to do some touring laps because I took the Mini. I had the winter tires on at the time, which actually made slow laps a bit interesting. It would certainly be a fun track to lap at speed.

 

Very sorry about the dirt (moto?) crash and hoping for quick recovery. I had 45 yrs continuous street moto experience until the last one (2014 BMW R1200RTw) sold 5 yrs ago but no dirt motos owned whatsoever. Purchased a new 2017 Yamaha Grizz 700 which didn't work with serious issues of hand arthritis for thumb controlled throttle, thus sold that and moved to new 50" class Can-Am side-by-side with both steering wheel and gas pedal. Now 5 yrs later, nearly 11k miles combined on that former unit plus current Can-Am Maverick Sport Xrc (64" class rock crawler edition). Point being, sometimes prudent to modify how the sport is enjoyed rather than stopping altogether.

 

Thanks . Mountain bike, actually. I never got into motos and probably never will. Even though I didn't see that sapling because of the sun, ten years ago I wouldn't have hit it because of the narrow XC bars we were all running then. Big wide bars are great on the sketchy stuff, but I may end up cutting my 760s down a little bit after this one.

 

Aha! Did a bunch of that when younger but not much technical single track with objective of avoiding OTB landings! Most other cycling was on pavement with mid-week evening training rides for weekend mountain grade club rides plus century and self-containing touring. All that long ago now "in the rear view mirror", instead with Specialized Como e-bike being my sole (assisted on command) pedal mode.

 

I actually cleaned the techy bits fine and clipped that tree on a straight section of trail. I rolled into the impact after the bars were ripped out of my hands, so I took most of the hit on my left forearm and shoulder. I still banged my head pretty hard though.

I haven’t done too much road riding lately. They cut those rumble strip things into the shoulder on some roads here, and while they’re annoying in a car, they’re kind of sketchy at 35 or 40 mph on a road bike, to the point where hopping sideways over them is almost a better option.

 

Sorry to hear about the mountain bike accident, hope you heal fast.

 

Sorry to hear about the crash. Hope you get well quickly. I love mountains but it's strictly on foot for me -- mountain bikes scare the hell out of me.

 

Thanks, y’all. Hopefully I’ll start feeling a bit better soon. I need to hunt down my spare lug nuts so that I can change those studs.

 

I ended up returning the first set of studs that I had bought because they were junk, so I ended up with some from Motorsport Hardware instead. The length is a little goofy with the stock wheels, but they should look okay with my 15x7s. Hopefully the black zinc finish will last longer than the black phosphate on my old studs.

Old and rusted:


New hotness:



I’ll clean those wheels someday…