Hello Everyone,

I have been reading on the site since owning my mini. I recently had the timing chain rattle and decided to repair the turbo drain tube leak, my repairs went beyond that. LONG story short, I performed the walnut carbon blast and upon cleaning up under the car, I found a unique spacer(?) or cam piece. I was hoping that someone would be able to help identify it or point me in the direction of what it came off of.



As I'm sure I'll be asked what else did I repair, here are the repairs I performed was the replacement of the water pump, friction wheel, tentioner, oil pan gasket,all engine mounts, coolant pipe, fuel injectors, and removed the front end to access the turbo/catalytic converter. Any help anyone could provide would be great!

Thanks,
jat2304

 

That part looks a lot like the front bumper carrier inserts. I've you've had your MINI in the service position recently, I'll bet that's where these came from even though they look slightly different than the inserts used in my car. They go here on both sides. There are four of them, and they sometimes fall out of the front bumper carrier when putting it back together.

 

 

I've got my 2008 MCS apart and have done all of that same work and never run across that part. If you have a theory let me know and I can check it out while I'm still in service mode.

 

Hi CantComplain,
I want to go a bit more in detail about the repairs I have completed. While tearing down for the oil leak. I found the previous owner used coolant stop leak clogging the aux pump for the turbo, clogging the turbo coolant galleys, there was oil coking with a bit of axial end play; so I'm replacing the turbo. So that lead me to perform the walnut blasting. Lastly, I remembered, I had the dealer replace the left and right wishbone bushings. I was wondering if this might be a part left over from that? Anyhow, I appreciate the help!

Thanks,
jat2304

 

Looks suspicously like the metal piece in the old thrust bushings I swapped off our BMW 325.
It came off in pieces, one looked like that. Is there an equivalent on our mini's?

 

WHat year and model do you have?

To me it looks like a lock washer that would fit over a shaft, so the shaft diameter would be the thickness of the inner hole. Haven't seen anything like that in my very similar travels. I took out the turbo and exhaust as one and never separated them though. I did order the fibrous washer to replace if I did though and the diameter looks similar, but it's perfectly circular and doesn't have the flat inner sides. I'm not a suspension guy in general and haven't mucked with it in this car, but it doesn't look like anything in the e90 I've done some suspension work on. Plus if you had that done at the dealer, how would it have ended up on your garage floor?

How confident are you it came off of your Mini?

 

Sorry for the delay in response, I have been a bit sick for the last week. This is the first European car in my garage and I'm not finding anything like it on realoem.com. My Cooper is a 2007 Mini Cooper S build 01/2007. I use to work a a diesel tech on Freightliners and sometime I would forget a socket, in my earlier years (it became expense!). I could see the dealer tech forgetting to grab it in the process of the repairs. I did not split the turbo. The oddity to me is that I only found it after blowing off the rear/firewall side of the engine.