MINI 1st Gen Most liked posts in thread: 2002 MINI Cooper motor mount

Made a bit more progress last night and this morning.

The passenger side mount bolts loosened up pretty easily, and everything came apart without too much difficulty.

The old mount was pretty nasty looking




The engine and motor mount bracket was covered in a thick layer of yuck, so I will take some time to clean things up before putting everything back together.





I am thinking of giving this bracket a quick spray of black after cleaning and before putting it back together. This is after the first round of degreasing.





The replacement of the upper engine mount is proving to be more difficult. I didnt realize the end of the bolts went thru the body and were exposed and heavily rusted. They did loosen, but are still very difficult to turn and I dont have enough space to get my breaker bar on 2 of the bolts.
If I had a short 16MM socket with 1/2 inch drive it might work, but I only have a long 16MM with 3/8 drive.
I've re-sprayed everything more and will get back to it later today or tomorrow.

 

The upper engine mount is now removed using a bit of leverage. My old cheap in-the-car socket wrench gave it's life for the cause and I needed to complete the job with my even older in-the-house craftsman wrench.

The upper mount did have some cracks visible after I removed it, so I am glad I went thru the effort to pull and replace it.

Next up is more engine gunk cleaning and painting of the motor mount bracket and things can then start going back together.

 

Motor mount bracket is now painted flat black..

Time to start re-assembly

 

After a mental and physical break, I ran off to the store to get a proper tool to help remove the plastic rivets.




Worked really well on most of the rivets but two were so stripped and damaged I had to go ape $hit on them to get things apart.

The final rivet would not release even after I was able to get the fender liner out. I was finally able to work it out, but I took some collateral damage in the form of broken clips to hold the plastic wheel arches on. Some were previously broken, but now I am not able to get the arch re-attached until I procure some new clips.








Fender liner is finally off, and I cleaned that and a few other interior parts that have not seen the light of day in over 20 years.


The engine mount bolts are all sprayed and I will do battle with them another day.

 

Skid plate came off pretty easily.

Next I have a bunch of engine greasyness to clean up and see if I can start loosening the engine mount bolts.
New parts are expected later today.

Unfortunately my real job will be getting in the way of my MINI job for the rest of the week, so I'll have more limited garage time.

 

The big stuff is done.. Assembly was much easier than dis-assembly.

Waiting on plastic clips to re-attach the inner fender and wheel arch, which will be next week.
Then I can get the wheel back on and the skid plate re-mounted and do a proper road test to see if it actually feels different.




The painted bracket looks really sharp. The unpainted drivers side mount now looks out of place to me, (but not enough to take that side apart at the moment)



Overall parts cost was about $180 for the 2 mounts and plastic rivets and clips that I broke on dis-assembly.
Tools cost for stuff I didnt previously have (16MM, 18MM, e12 torx sockets, and a plastic clip pry tool) was about $30.

Satisfaction for doing the job myself instead of taking it to my repair guy.. priceless.

 

Yea.. Happens more than I like, but I am almost always able to get myself out of the jams I create. Stuff is usually harder than the videos I watched to become YouTube certified in these repairs.

 

Yea.. the carpet matches the drapes.
If anyone sees my car upside down in a ditch, you'll know who it is