Well my buddy called me on July 4th and told me that his car overheated twice in less than an hour on his way up from Jersey City to Maine. He stopped by my house and I ended up lending him my 09 Clubman S for the weekend.

2004 Mini Cooper S with 70K. *NEVER HAD THE COOLANT FLUSHED*

He also said he topped off the coolant with some store bought "winter mix". Uh oh.

Drained the coolant and flushed it multiple times with distilled water on Fri and when I went to fill it up via the overflow tank I could hear it pouring right out onto the floor.

Couldn't see any leaks in any hoses and made sure every hose I had disconnected was reconnected properly.

Went away for the weekend and picked up a new thermostat and gasket today thinking that was the likely culprit. After taking the airbox out and ECU, I was able to shove a light and have a good look see.

Saw that it was leaking from the short 4" hose that is connected to the lower bleed valve that connects to the water pump.

#4 here:



I couldn't believe my eyes when I pulled out the hose. The nipple on the water pump was completely rotted.

You can see in the pics below how clean the hole is on the pump itself. Looking at images on the web it is clear that this nipple is pressed in and not welded in. It is made of an extremely thin aluminum and the bottom part of it that sticks in the water pump must have completely rotted away given that my buddy never changed the coolant (nor did the previous owner whom he knows).

So this is a lesson for everyone - CHANGE YOUR COOLANT!

Now the question is I wonder just how much damage there is to the car -

a) from the exposure to old coolant for god knows how long
b) from the current exposure by not having any coolant (thermostat out, water pump exposed)

Does anyone make an after market water pump that is way better than the stock one? At least in this particular nipple department? I just can't believe how thin and flimsy it is.

Now I have to take the whole front end off and replace the damn water pump. Joy......

Here's the old thermostat versus the new one:



Here's the hose as it looked after disconnecting the clamp! 95% of that aluminum nipple is in the hose. WTF!





Here in the top left corner you can see the smooth round hole where the nipple is supposed to attach.



I had to mangle the nipple (in terms of shape only) to get it out of the hose. It was extremely flimsy. But the edge of it was already mangled.



Here's an image of a stock water pump with the weird aluminum nipple on it I got from ebay.



Here's the disgusting coolant that came out of the car.



Interestingly the thermostat gasket was not leaking at all.

Given that the car has 70K........should I re-oil the supercharger gears now? Or wait? I don't even know if the car is going to be 100% after I put everything together. I wonder what happened to the missing bit of the nipple - either it rotted away slowly or it got pumped out?? I couldn't see or hear anything when I pulled the hose out.

Ugh.



Has this water pump nipple failure happened to anyone else?

 

havent seen that happen to a water pump yet. I've had good luck with Gates, Laso, and Graf, as well as OEM. I did have to warranty 1 Gates, which according to my parts jockey has less than 1% return rate. definitely re-oil both supercharger banks. We service the superchargers every 80k at the shop. while youre in that neighborhood, replace your leaking Crankshaft Position Sensor O-ring (CKP), and dipstick tube o-ring.

 

This actually happened on my Grand Cherokee. Just spun a nipple on the lathe and welded it to a new pump - and works great. Thats probably what i'll do when this happens to me and my original, never flushed coolant!

Top tip - never a good idea to mix different coolants. Not saying this may have caused the pump nipple to corrode, but it has a tendency to turn into a gel - thats when your REALLY screwed and have to try to clean the heater core, radiator, and engine passages. Yikes.

Keep us up to date on the project!

 

Will do on the crankshaft sensor and dipstick orings.

I just pulled the supercharger out.......

I checked the oil......on the water pump side......and it was perfect...But it stunk.

I rotated the pulley and I looked on the water pump side to watch the vanes....and the friggin teflon coating was PEELING OFF the supercharger vanes! The pulley required some force to turn and you could hear the peeled coating rubbing around.

Luckily I have a spare take-off supercharger in the closet. Going to pull it out tomorrow and make sure it rotates freely.

 

Wow crazy water pump failure there while heater hose. Supercharger got heated up there to bubble off the coating. Was there rotor to rotor contact/noise present too? Easier to see with the outlet horn off. Keep up the good old maintenance!

Jeremy

 

Yeah was crazy.

Followed a few DIY guidelines here (kudos to the original posters) for supercharger removal, supercharger oil replacement, and water pump.......

I did the following:

New air filter
New oil
New coolant
New water pump
New supercharger oil
New intake manifold gasket
New coolant expansion tank
New water pump flange
New spark plugs
New low pitch horn
New crankshaft position sensor o-ring (was leaking oil out of the front)
New parking led bulbs
New side marker led bulbs
New drive belt
New (3) radiator hoses
Cleaned his intercooler (full of oil)


It was about $1000 in parts.........and I charged my buddy $500. I think he got a steal. I bet at the dealer the bill would be closer to $2500-$3000.

Now after having put it all back together unfortunately his radiator low-speed is not working......which based on my research is probably why his power steering pump has failed (anyone driven the MINI without power steering? Holy cow that is hard work).

Going to do the resistor mod but haven't had the energy to read 36 pages of it yet. That will have to wait for next time.

Drove the car and it was smooth. No rotor-to-rotor contact...just flaking teflon that I blew out with some compressed air as best as I could.

 

Here are some pics.

 

That's a good friend.

(edit: meaning doing all the work rather telling him to find someone to fix it!)

 

Nicely done. The fan repair is childs play compare to what you've already gone thru. Good luck.

 

I'm told the dealer has a low speed resistor fix now that just plugs in, you might see if your local dealer has them - much easier than cobbling one together or replacing the whole fan assy, they also might replace that power steering pump under the extended warranty they announced not too long ago.

 

Have you got a part number by any chance?

Knew about the water pump recall - evidently it's 13 years / 150K so he's well under that. Thanks.

I wonder if they would replace the radiator fan because that could have caused the power steering to fail in the first place but I won't hold my breath on that one.

 

Rad fan shouldn't cause a PS failure - they separated the fan/ps fan circuit sometime in 2003. Would be curious about an OEM resistor fix though.