I have an '09 Cooper S (R56) with the N14 turbocharged engine. It cranks but won't start and I've been unsuccessfully trying to diagnose it. Was working alright until a few months ago when it started getting harder to start until it eventually wouldn't start at all.

Things I've looked at:

• No fault codes that point me in the right direction. I sometimes get 2F8F Engine switch-off time, plausibility after cranking for a while and the car stops cranking by itself.
• Low pressure fuel pump works - I pulled it and hooked it up to a battery and fuel went whoosh into the air.
• Rail pressure reaches about 5 MPa (50 bar or 725 psi) when cranking, close to demand pressure of 5 MPa - tested via OBD2 BimmerLink app. Haven't physically tested this.
• I've got spark - I pulled the plugs one by one and saw spark when clamping them to ground. The plugs are black from residue. I smelled fuel from at least one of the cylinders when pulling the plugs.
• Timing - I pulled the valve cover and the chain plastic guides are all intact and the chain seems okay. It is probably due for a new chain though. I haven't properly made a timing measurement yet, not sure exactly how to do this.

Electricals - I swapped around the coil pack relay with the windscreen washer relays and it didn't make a difference. Also checked the footwell junction box (JBE) and I didn't see any water damage. The lower connector that runs to the coil packs didn't have any obvious water damage.

In the past this car has been a bit of a headache - I've replaced the low-pressure fuel pump due to failure, I've replaced the thermostat housing due to leaking, I've repaired the main engine fan resistor as it just stayed on at 100% always, I've cleared out at least three mouse nests as it lives on a farm and often sits when I'm away, and I've swapped a solenoid in the valve body that limp moded the car frequently (it had a burnt terminal pin, this problem was the worst and took the longest to solve).

Any help would be appreciated! I'm going mad from reading forum posts and watching youtube videos on the R56 and none of them so far have helped me start this car.

 

Welcome to the club, I'm currently fighting a crank, no spark.. Fun stuff.. pull the rest of the plugs and crank it to see if you can see the tops of the pistons getting wet from fuel.

 

To check the engine mechanical timing, you will need a special tool like this one:

 

Thanks for the replies guys.
@PaulMcC - I re-inserted the plugs, cranked the engine and pulled the plugs immediately and they all smelled of fuel, so I think fuel is good.
@Maybe, maybe not - I have one of these! Or at least a similar kit I bought from Amazon/eBay last year. I also have a timing chain kit ready to go (I think from ECS Tuning).
However I have a worse problem - I bought a compression testing kit with a deep well attachment (the Maddox from Harbor Freight - $54) and the results were not good.

• 95 psi cylinder 1
• 45 psi cylinder 2
• 45 psi cylinder 3
• 30 psi cylinder 4

So it looks like I'll be pulling the head and taking a look. Will I be able to get away with just replacing broken valves - or should I be looking at rebuilding more of the engine? Should I do a leak-down test first?
I have the Bentley service manual and it only describes removing the head. It also mentions a bunch of special Mini tools I'll have to buy . Time to start searching for some good Youtube tutorials.
By the way - I'm on holiday for the next three weeks here with this car, so I'll be working on this every day that I can, with the goal of being able to drive it before the holiday is up and I fly back to Australia. Fingers crossed...

 

Whoof, that's some anemically low compression.

But my experience says that's not a 'broken valve' problem. Broken valves result in compression readings of 0. This is indicative of a head gasket or ring failure. Because you have all cylinders below normal (>130), I'd lean more towards ring failure.

Bentley manual is useless for any major service work. Spent 10 minutes last night looking for torque specs of oil filter housing to block...flipping manual doesn't even show the oil filter housing/heat exchanger service anywhere, even though those gaskets fail on every one of these cars.

 

As for the 'special tools' - you'll need, minimum, the service tool set for timing chain, an angle torque wrench, and an assortment of e-torx and torx bits. You can improvise with some of the other stuff.

 

Ahh - makes sense. Do you reckon these readings could be because the timing has skipped by a tooth or so? Wondering if I can get away with just swapping the chain and re-timing if so.

 

I imagine it's possible that the timing is off resulting in low compression across all cylinders.

Pull the valve cover and take a look. I'm not familiar enough with these engines to say how far out of time they can be before they smack valves, or what being 'one tooth off' will do to engine timing/compression tests.

 

Yes. Start by installing the cam tool to check whether the mechanical timing of the cams and pistons is wrong.

 

I agree. The Bentley manual can be very annoying at times!

RealOEM.com shows that the four oil filter housing bolts are M6 X 30.

On Bentley manual pages 20-8 to 20-9 (see below), you will find BMW's general recommendations for torque specifications. Each M6 bolt should be stamped with the bolt class. Use the table in the second image along with the bolt class stamp on the M6 bolts to determine their maximal permissible torque.

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply with this info, I appreciate the effort.

I had already decided that I'd torque them to 10 ft./lbs., as they're the same size/class as the oil pan bolts which torque to 8.8 ft./lbs.

It's more the fact that the manual completely ignores the component and procedure that I find annoying. Oh, and good luck with lower end engine mechanicals, you're on your own there. As well as the camshafts/bearing caps, they have a blanket table giving torque specs for the cam bearings but nothing else.

 

Due to the Bentley deficiencies and omissions, I soon plan to purchase a Mitchelll1 subscription, which should fill in many of the gaps.

 

Would the newer paid TIS site have the requisite info? I know it's expensive, but helped me a lot. I planned ahead with a list of things I needed and downloaded a whole bunch of stuff to only have to pay for one day access once.

 

Well, I've taken apart the front-end of the car. I found the front of the engine washed in oil from the turbo oil inlet (definitely) and maybe also the oil cooler. So I've got a new turbo line ($19.30) and oil cooler gasket ($9.64) on order from Rockauto.

On the timing - I tried manually turning the engine so that I could try fit the timing kit to the intake and exhaust cam shafts. I found that it won't fit as the shafts are a little bit off. Not much, just a few degrees maybe.

I bought a leak down test kit ($30 OMT from Amazon) and followed the instructions to inject about ~30 psi of air pressure into each cylinder at top dead centre. The percentage leak-down varied a lot from 20% to 70% - I didn't really pay a lot of attention to this. I did however notice that for each cylinder I would feel and hear air escaping via the exhaust outlet. Not a whole lot of air but enough - it's possible I wasn't really at TDC though as it's pretty hard to work out (I had a dowel on the piston moving up and down). I found that if I rotated the crank with the air running that I would hear air moving from intake to exhaust, with a point in between with a bit of resistance/compression where things got quieter. Honestly the leak down tester confused me more than it helped.

Right now I'm deciding whether to pull the head or not. I could instead replace the chain and fix my oil leaks, then roughly re-assemble and see if she starts. Thoughts?

 

On the N18 (don't know about N14) there is a crankshaft locking pin that sets the crank and timing set in the correct position. In my case, the cam timing locking tools included this pin. The tools should fit when in this position, just something to try if you were guessing and checking position.

Installing a new timing chain/set is financially cheaper than pulling the head, but if it's not just the chain you have to go BACK into service position and back to removing the head. It's not THAT much harder to pull the head from where you are now. And at that point, again isn't too much harder to drop oil pan, remove connecting rod caps, and drive pistons out from bottom, leaving the block in the car. I can't recommend doing this because it's easy to damage things, but is how I did mine. The purpose of going this far would be to check rings per post #5 by spaktakular. I should qualify, an R60 (what I have) I think is harder to get to where you are, so maybe taking the head off and pistons out are comparatively far more difficult than I imagine (relative to getting to where you are now).

Sorry, I don't know how to read a leakdown tester, but 70% leakdown and hearing air rush past what should be a closed valve, doesn't sound like a GOOD thing exactly. Flashlight in the spark plug in in a completely dark room, look into intake/exhaust port and see if can see escaping light, further if a light leak concentric around the valve vs only on one side? Might not work on intake side if carbon fouling is present. Sorry, unscientific brainstorming at this point. Small borescope camera (from amazon, etc.) down the spark plug hole may/may not give you clues.

 

Thanks mate - you’re right, I don’t think it will be a lot more effort to remove the head at this point. Actually I’ve already ordered a new head gasket ($28), head bolt set ($24) and valve stem seal set ($21) just in case…

Just installed the fly wheel locking pin for the first time and yeah wow - the engine is definitely out of time.

It looks like the intake cam shaft is behind by 10 to 15 degrees. My math on the 40 tooth cam gear says this is probably 1 tooth off, maybe 2.

The exhaust cam shaft is also slightly behind but less so.

How do I proceed with installing the timing tool? I’m thinking remove the tensioner and then try use a spanner to get them on?

 

Ruh-roh...

Here is a video in my watch-history on seeing an out of time set, seems to be the same situation as yours:
Again, I'm an N18 and unaware of differences.

Here's a sorta decent video on things: It wouldn't surprise me if there is a BEAUTIFUL write up in this forum somewhere.

These two videos are N14 I believe, and actually were 2 of the most helpful videos when I was doing my N18.:

A couple things I really like that he did was place a couple thousandths of shim stock to take out any play in the cam timing tool and the cam (placing between flat surfaces of tool and flats of camshaft). And using a vice grip pliers to apply counter-torque to the camshaft while torquing the cam sprockets. Oh, and the tip about raising/lowering the block with engine mounts removed for easier access to the friction wheel mounting bolts.

A direct answer to your question, yes. Once the chain is off you should be able to rotate back to correct position to install the cam lock tool. Depending on valve springs fighting you, might need the hands of a buddy.

EDIT: Again these videos are from my personal youtube watch history when I did mine and unaware of possible differences. If you end up with the head off, and decide to check valves or lap them/their seats, replace valve stem seals, further special tools are needed for the valvetronic spring setups on intake side. I say needed...I've seen others get by without them, but I don't hate myself as much as those crazies.

 

I'm hoping for no bent valves or engine damage of any kind. Good luck!

 

Thanks for the videos and positive sentiments guys!

The head is off! And no valves were bent! It looks like I got lucky, the engine timing was just off. The head gasket seemed intact to me too. And the plastic timing chain guides seems totally intact.

There's a lot of carbon build up on the intake ports - I sprayed these down with carb cleaner and blew them out with compressed air. A bit better but still lots of carbon. I put the valves on a rotary buffer to get most of the carbon build up off - they're looking good now. Any tips on how to clean up the engine block? I would love to take it to a shop for a hot chemical bath but I don't have the time or cash.

I have new valve stem seals, head gasket and head bolts - otherwise everything else is going back in as it was.






Intake valves - first one has been buffed.






Intake post buffing

Exhaust post buffing

 

Personally, I'd now take the time to hand lap each valve to its seat. Some valve lapping compound and a little suction cup tool you roll in your hands. Cleans the seat up a treat. I think for the valve ports I just used non-chlorinated brake part cleaner and a brush to get off what I could of carbon.

Assuming you run to the auto parts store for the above, some engine assembly lube (pink Permatex stuff where I live) would be good if you don't have it. And they likely sell an engine block degreaser in an aerosol can.

 

It worked - the Mini starts and runs again!! And honestly feels better than ever - smooth idle, great response, no error codes, sounds mean.

I'm back in Australia now - but last week I got her assembled and running again. I lapped the valves, carefully re-assembled the valve train using motor oil as lubricant, re-attached the head with new gasket and bolts, installed a new timing chain and timed engine, and after re-assembly and a frightening start-button pushing moment the Mini started!

The problem after all must have been what I found before - the timing had skipped by one tooth (10-15 deg). Thanks for your help guys!!

I'm attaching a gallery of photos showing some of the fun along the way - here's a few bullet points:

• Head cleaned as much as I could - intakes seem pretty clean and shiny-ish now. No carbon crud.
• Turbo oil inlet hose leaked all over the front of engine - replaced
• Oil cooler gasket replaced - maybe was leaking, not sure. One of the bolts holding it on sheered and is stuck - I left it in and used gasket maker
• Oil filter and cooler assembly gasket inspected but not replaced
• Vacuum pump had a lot of oil underneath - bought gasket kit and re-sealed
• High pressure fuel pump had a lot of oil underneath - didn't do anything about this, just removed and inspected the gasket. The bottom bolt sheered off in the head - didn't replace, just added gasket sealer.
• VANOS solenoid had oil-crud on it - cleaned.
• Injectors tips sprayed with carb cleaner and wire brushed - blackened but seemed okay anyway.
• Lost one of the two long bolts holding in the head cover - went back on without it
• Right upper engine mount had two bolts sheer off due to rust - welded a nut to one and tried turning, this caused the mount to snap in half. Replaced mount at about $70-80! Replaced bolts from local hardware store.
• Wire brushed as much rust as I could off the sub-frame extension mounts and re-painted.
• Post cat O2 sensor replaced due to previous fault - this was totally seized but after many breaker bar extensions, air-powered impacts, flame torch and PB blaser it eventually came off. Threads were stuffed from rust but I was able to sort them out with a file and get the new sensor in.
• Turbo wastegate seemed lose but went back in - maybe a mistake as I got a few 2885 error codes when full throttling up hills after.

Cleaned head

Cleaned head showing an air intake

Lapped valve and seat

All valves re-lapped and inserted with new stem seals

Re-assembling valve train - the collets were a pain

Fuel injectors before cleaning with wire brush and carb cleaner

Old head gasket - no obvious leaks

Old and new timing chain and guides - old chain is a bit longer

Oil cooler seemed a bit leaky

VANOS solenoid with crud

Vacuum pump disassembled for new seals

Broken right upper engine mount with replacement

Re-assembled and ready to start (it started!)

It's back!

All the non re-usable parts that came out for the bin

 

Thanks for sharing your solution!

 

@greengrass, nice work brother/sister! Very well done. I remember that feeling, where she feels stronger than she ever did. Good on you mate, very nice work. Many thanks for sharing. Keep us updated, please.

 

Awesome! Bet it pulls strong through the revs!