Well I’m tickled pink. The iPod adapter in the parts car actually works. Need to find a scosche passport (or similar since those are long gone) to convert it to correct 5v charging instead of FireWire, and get the harness that lets you have it and Sirius at the same time…


Getting retro tech working is always so cool to me.

 

Yesterday got up early and before work I bought a used engine hoist with a blown cylinder, then bought a new cylinder from harbor freight and a second set of jackstands from Lowes.


this how we ended the night.





today I started cleaning up the rear suspension and brakes because my son wanted to color match the rear calipers to the front JCWs. The exposed hub area of the rotors was also looking a bit tatty, so we did a bit of painting with Vht caliper paint. I’m happy with how we did the back side of the caliper two tone so they look more like normal calipers, lol.










we can’t afford r56 trailing arms at present but even the stockers do look good in silver!

 

Used heat gun to cook and harden the paint, then We scrubbed the back sides of the wheels to get old caked on brake dust and grime off them. They aren’t perfect but a lot lot better now. Also had to use the rubber eraser wheel to remove years of stick on balance weight residue etc.


remounted and the whole thing just looks so much cleaner appearing. It’s too bad the polished lips have failing clear coat because otherwise they’d look really great!


How we ended the night tonight.

 

Calipers look great! But make sure you put a few good coats of clear on them so the brake dust is less likely to stick. I must not have applied enough as my JCW fronts are always red and rears are grey unless I scrub them :(

 

Good call! Been there and done that! What I found works is either a ceramic infused wheel cleaner like Chemical Guys hydro shine (modern), or a wheel wax in the old days.

edit, unless you want to build up enough clear to come back and polish them perfectly smooth.


even with clear my old f31s purple brembos would accumulate brake dust like crazy, finally took the wheels off, cleaned them super well, then applied a coat of Hydroshine, let it dry 5minutes, and buffed in… then a second coat, dry and buff in. Seems to seal the pores in the paint so it can’t stick. After that the dust just rinsed right off.


will have to heat cycle these with some braking action a few times to be sure it is fully cured, but will do the same to them since I still have a half bottle of hydroshine sitting here in my arsenal.

 

put rear back on ramps and front on stands, since I will need a second set of stands for car 2.

thanks to @Xplct for the tip on cv nut size (32mm) , wife picked me one up at harbor freight while she was out and about, and I got both off with ease once I got off work at 8pm, and used my rubber decal removal wheel to remove the residue of least 5-7 former wheel weight locations PER WHEEL! but didn’t really do much else today.

we may get some done tomorrow if Alex comes over for the 4th, if not will be the weekend before we get anything disassembled.


if anyone has any suggestions for hookup points for the engine hoist to block etc I’m all ears.

as I get access to stuff I have been putting pb blaster on threads, letting it creep via capillary under bolt /nut heads, etc and hoping this will make things easier and less subject to snap-age.

so far I’ve found that rear struts are absolutely blown, the front left strut seems to be dented etc.

Edit: ran the decoder: donor has “sport plus” suspension option and the JCW has SportPlus also but sits about 1/2” - 3/4” lower.

figure I can swap the good struts over too.

 

Suggestion: Get rid of the Sport Plus suspension. Your kidneys will thank you.

Monroe makes a QuickStrut that comes completely assembled with springs, shocks, mounts, etc. Unless you're building for track use only, you'll thank me later. If you're not a professional driver, the car already handles better than your ability to drive it.

 

The Koni FSD or special active - whatever they call them now - are fantastic. I have never heard anyone say anything bad about them. Nice sporty feel and increased damping. Win-win. They don't break the bank either.

 

Interesting @cooper48 both minis have sport+ and the donor rides so nice I thought at first it was sport aka regular. Could simply be the non runflat tires.


It’s getting fixed on the cheap, aka reuse anything good I can and only spend what I must as I spent way too much on the dually and the accountant said ixnay on any more spending for a while. And it need to be running and driving in the next month to get inspection and registration renewed

 

Didn’t get much done between grilling and shooting fireworks, but got most of the suspension bolts up front broken free, pinch bolts loosened, etc, caliper mounts undone, disc retainers came free no problem
(hint tighten with impact one uuugga, before you flip impact to loosen, seems to break them loose in my experience)

still need to knock loose the tie rod ends but that should be about it.


also got the IC off, the JCW housing top off, mostly ready on the fuse box, etc.


will have to wait till my son is here Friday night -Sunday night to do more work on it. It’s his car, and requires some sweat equity,

 

^^ just a heads up. Not sure if you know or not- you can leave all the wiring on the engine. There is a plug on the driver's side ECU and a ground on the same side that need to come off and all the harness goes with it. Would have saved me some time if I had known.

As for the points to pull the engine, we used a chain and used the motor mounts and bolts. While it would be better with a dedicated eyelet or removing the mounts altogether (just for the room) it worked out fine. Only thing that slowed us were the coolant hoses in the back of the 06 we're working on.

 

For mine, it was just a matter of cutting the coolant hoses in the back and replacing with new, made it a ton easier and didn't break any of the plastic T fittings.

 

I didn't recall fooling with all those lines on MY04 MCS so it was weird to see then all there. Since I didn't know if there were available, I was able to remove without breaking them. Still, I'd like to swap in some brass "T-fittings" but I can't pay $25 for one single cross fitting. I just need to hunt them down online. I'm sure someone makes them (wish someone offered a "kit" )

 

There are two of them that I have seen at home depot that would work in brass hose barb fittings, but I haven't seen the the one that has two large barbs and the smaller barb fitting on top in brass.

 

AFAIK, you couldn’t buy an R53 with the sport suspension, at least in ‘06. When I bought my R50, I’m pretty sure sport+ was optional on the R50 and standard on the R53.

 

HereYaGo =
No problem

EDIT: and this (reservoir "t") from eBay: 3/4"x5/16"x3/4" in aluminum

 

Saved for later in case I need them LOL,, thanks for that find!

 

thats probably gonna be interesting then because we are swapping a prefacelift engine, into a facelift car. So we may have to strip the old engine of wiring, cooling pipes etc and transfer them onto the prefacelift engine… guess we will know more once we get the first one out, hopefully this weekend.

as total mini noobs (though I’ve been on the bmw side for a couple decades) , all insights are very gladly accepted.

 

Got some things done today, not as much as I would have hoped, but it was literally 103 in the shade in the garage and I got wiped out and had to take a nap!

Used full switch panel from UK finally came in mail early today, so first Alex installed it himself and we tested all switch positions including rear fog worked first, then finally disconnected power, removed the power lead from the fuse box, unplugged grounds amd computer and main harness connector under hood to start getting it ready for engine pull.. Now we just need a red 7506R zevo LED, as we are keeping the pre facelift clear reverse light because a: free, b: I actually liked the contrast against the chili red paint.
From my experience with changing to LED on the dually, that zevo “spoon” design does seem to work the best in a reflector style housing for even illumination and throwing light, vs the bazillion leds pointing everywhere style.





Got shifter cables disconnected, amd cables off mounts, and half the exhaust bolts broken free, still need to get O2 off, and rear DP to cat back Off first, would have finished that but…

As we got left front suspension apart, was a lot of grease everywhere, the inner cv boot had complete split around the entire circumference just aft of the axle clamp…it was definitely going to be dying soon. Had never taken a CV out before, had to go get some inexpensive prybars from Walmart to get the cv shaft out. . Set of 4 was $13, so well worth it… we spent a good 2 hours or more cleaning the hell out of things while it was apart. Entire lower arm was coated in about 1/8th inch of grease as was the xenon height sensor. Sprayed with simple green, scrapped most of grease off, and then oven cleaner’d the lower arm and Alex got to scrubbing.
since floor was now soaked from wash ing amd rinsing, rewashing, re-rinsing etc, I abandoned working underneath on exhaust for rest of evening.





We cleaned up the left JCW caliper and gave it a double coating of hydro spin so it can stay cleaner and be easier to clean up in the future, and then cleaned the inner fenders and bottom side of strut towers up as well. They were near matte black on the red parts and brownish grey on the black parts. Probably never been scrubbed since 2006. Lots of simple green loosened the road grime and brake dust and we bought a little 2.50 plastic brush at Walmart in the home cleaning section that has been a real godsend for cleaning up undercarriage, brakes, and suspension. Just has a good shape, narrow but long and a good handle offset so you can get into places without scraping knuckles. I think it was titled as a grout cleaning brush? An old child’s toothbrush got into the tightest areas to get the calipers clean as possible.






once truly clean, gave the area a coating of ceramic hydro shield to keep plastic bits black and the red paint clean under there.

 

Didn’t get engine pulled today sadly, had issues with disconnecting the exhaust At the post cat connector. One stud was already snapped totally of from someone before us, the other one was dead stuck , wound up dremeling it nearly in half lengthwise , air chiseling, etc and eventually the impact was able to get the nut off.

so I will need to chisel or drill out the snapped one, and then chop off the now destroyed remaining stud and chisel or drill it out so I can convert to thru bolts and nuts.

Other than the upper o2 which I’m still fighting to get loose, everything else has come free with no issues, including the exhaust manifold bolts.

Also got fuel rail out since the 380s will need to be transferred to the new engine, Alex got the 3 bolts for the passenger axle undone and we discovered the PS electric fan is completely MIA…. It’s pretty much just the mounts, get into front end service mode and whatever lines are behind the engine left to do.

 

So these are "correct" replacements for the plastic ones?

1. 2. 3. https://www.ebay.com/itm/323991846526


Wish someone would package these as a kit to keep us Mini folk from having to search all over the place for reasonably priced parts.

 

How do you disconnect this bloody brake booster clip… pic borrowed from another thread.


that’s literally all that is holding this engine in at this point.







in progress pic from yesterday

 

Figured it out arteries going inside amd cooling off so my brain worked again.

push in on hose, and push in on white part of fitting, then pull hose, to release.

 

Engine/trans is out amd sitting on ground. all the bolts for the trans to block interface are out, damn trans won’t budge a mm. Probably a stuck locator pin or something Can’t find any place to pry from to try to get it started.

 

Any one have any suggestions or tips?



As an aside, I’ve been enjoying driving the parts car so much I’ve decided to get one for myself. Just not red, brg or the pale blue. Or one with the god awful black n blue interior, lol.

finding a decent one at an affordable price within an days drive to fly out and drive back is a real challenge.