You don't necessarily have to mount the gauges in the drivers compartment. On my TR6 I have a hour meter and fuel pressure gauge under the hood. I have a rebuilt engine sitting on my run stand with a oil pressure gauge teed into the oil pressure port for pre oiling and startup.You have a light to let you know when you have a issue, the gauge will let you know if the light is correct.

Another option is to use a Veepeak or one of the other Bluetooth devices on your ODB2 port to transmit all the engine data to your phone. I am not familiar enough with the MINI to know if it will give you actual Oil Pressure but would assume it will tell you the status of the light. I use the Torque app for my wife's MINI and my F150. I am sure those more familiar with the ECU on the MINI can provide guidance.

Happy Motoring Safari

 

Does this sound like knock? Was a sound from what seemed like the timing case and another from about cylinder 3... Can't catch a break with this car. This wasn't fully warmed up, but it sounded bad enough that I didn't want to keep running it. What's your take?

 

I may be wrong, but the two videos sound very similar. The other is here at Con Rod.

 

Yeah pretty positive it's either a rod or bearing. So.... FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!

Time to do some research and figure out if I want to rebuild or swap or what.

 

You may also want to consider the timing chain tensioner.

Iceman's video definitely has more tormenting going on inside the block!

 

I think the timing chain tensioner may have given out due to the low oil pressure, but there's definitely bad things in mine. I actually just ordered a long block from All Mag Auto (can't tag users here? Seems silly).

 

Best of luck with the new innards and transplant.

 

Thanks, I'll need it. Brings total cost of the mini close to $10k. If this thing goes bad again I'm just burning it.