Most liked posts in thread: Dark Silver in the garage

so looking at my maintenance log for it, it tells me I've driven this car 240 miles since Jan 1 this year. I got gas once to top off last year's gas. I better put at least one more real drive on the car before it gets put away for the year.

 

So I was going to sandblast the arms this weekend. Just one quick rear wheel bearing swap on my daughter's Subaru which has been in the garage for a week. Or so I thought.

I finished the weekend with more tools in my garage, but the wheel bearing is still in that rear hub carrier and I didn't achieve more than completely destroying the bearing in the car, then ripping into the suspension arms to get the whole darn thing off the car and into my shop press, which then ran into more rust issues. Bottom line, I didn't get to touch my Mini.

Nice big 5 pound slide hammer and 1190 foot/lbs impact gun added to the tool collection, so at least it wasn't a totally blown weekend.

 

Quick trailing arm update - the early snow and super frigid temps we had over the last 3 weeks have slowed things down in my garage, but I finally buttoned it all up last night. The car sits on its wheels, needs an alignment (next spring) and it went without major obstacles. I had to order some parts I didn't thing I needed and that cost another 7 days. I recorded everything on GoPro, but there's a lot of editing needed to keep this concise. Will do that on a cold boring winter weekend, I think. Until then just some photos and general comments:


It all began with a big breaker bar, getting that trailing arm bolt loose and the old part removed



this came off



this went on - 5.1 pounds less unsprung weight, although the bolts are heavier as they are all longer. Basically 5 pounds off unsprung weight on each corner



Along the way to get the first one back on the car



One critical issue - without some modding, that fuel filler hose on my car would rub on the trailing arm casting edge. Had to shorten the hose and file down the ridge on the arm.



Driver side done, or so I thought. I put the big washer on the trailing arm nut on backwards. So I had to rip it all out one more time. Good practice.



From below. Who needs a GP when you can do this for a few hundred bucks with junk yard parts and some time?



Before the wheels went on, I replaced the resonator mid pipe of my Milltek with the straight pipe. My son's car with the straight pipe in it sound sooo much better. Now I wonder if I can put that resonator into the crappy Megan Racing system on the electric blue daily driver, as that system is way too loud...

 

I rode my bicycle about 5000 miles this year. No need to cold start a car twice a day. Prefer the quiet and healthy mode of transportation for the dull daily run to the office.

Everything else is either really short range to the store (again, don't want Mini to run 1 mile stints), or really long runs for at least 100 miles, plus I'd have to shuffle cars in the driveway to get one of the Minis out of the garage. Instead I usually grab the Subaru Outback that sits outside. And then there's our ridiculous winters - all Minis in hibernation for 5-6 months minimum while the Outback dominates the roads.

Once Minis wake up in spring, I start working on them and can't drive the car because it sits there in pieces until I get enough time to wrap it up, which is what happened to the dark gray car this year. I got a lot more Mini miles in during 2018, because the Outback had some extended garage time while being worked on.

 

I already have a chili red one to work on. However, pepper white or dark blue R53 models are welcome to be abandoned in my driveway, especially JCW with low miles and prior obsessive care given to it.

 

Hey thanks. Anal German here. Can't have a car that isn't done right. This one is my baby - first R53 I bought. Took me 2 hours to decide to buy it after it was posted for sale on NAM back in 2014 I think. Favorite color. This car has all the mods, the electric blue is staying sane. Allows me to do the things on this car that if it was your only car you would think twice about.

Big picture stuff coming up for this car in the future are racing seats and roll bar with harnesses. Maybe a stereo upgrade, and the Milltek, which is already in the garage, just waiting for a few OEM hanger parts to arrive. So there'll be more updates to this thread that go well beyond clear bra removal

 

The car is back on the "work side" of the garage, after I finished the LED headlights on the daily driver. Two things to tackle this weekend - the clunk coming from the left rear, and then the big job, installing the resonated Milltek exhaust.

I didn't get done. Rust on this car and previous owner choices took extra hours to deal with, but there's no rush. I want this done right, so I am working out the issues as they come along.

But first the clunk - I was able to hear it just rocking the car back and forth while in gear. It also was audible on load change while driving. My first guess was a loose downlink, but once I pulled the wheel off and rotated the hub, it was clear that a brake shoe was making the noice. The inner shoe had come off the piston. These springs that are supposed to hold it in place never felt secure when I first installed it.



But an easy fix - just rip off the caliper and re-attach. But then when I have them off, why not do full maintenance? Since I am running brass bushings on the rear calipers, this was a perfect time to re-lube those. 2500 miles since install.



A complete clean and re-lube of the shoes, and 60 minutes later the rear brakes are as good as new.

Then the exhaust job. I was originally going to record noise levels and sound of the one-ball modded car, but decided to just ignore it. I don't recommend the mod, not for noise, but for other reasons. It doesn't sound much different than stock either. More on that later.

The car lived in St. Louis for the first 9 years or its life, and the owner did drive it in salt. The bolts on the exhaust show that history and nothing I have in my garage was able to move them. So it was time to cut. Not having a lift, I could not use my saws-all on the upper bolt and had to improvise. Made swiss cheese of the bolt with my small dremel and then used a chisel to pop the rest of the nut off the bolt



The lower bolt was cut with a big grinder in no time. After that, the removal was quite easy.


100k miles of service.



I already knew I needed a passenger side hanger in the rear and all new rubber mounts. Bought those from ECS and must say, don't waste your money on the cheap parts. I had to re-use one of the center support rubber mounts from because the aftermarket piece would always slip right back out of the cross brace. What total junk.

In rear then I found that I should have bought new hangers for both sides - the driver side hanger was all bent down because of the lack of weight balance with the other ball. Easily 3 inches below where the new ($46) mount on the passenger side snugged up near the frame behind the shock mount. So I rolled in the floor jack and gently bent that hanger into shape again. I think it will be ok, but will need to keep an eye on it. One-ball mod definitely has some mounting issues.

The next snag I ran into was the passenger side mount for the rear rubber support. The first owner had that removed completely after that part of the exhaust was cut out. Bolts went back on and when I tried to remove one, the stud snapped off. Since they are welded to the frame on a side you cannot access I needed to improvised again.

I drilled it out, then found a similar bolt and nut, fitted with the heat shield to get it into the hole from above and eventually mounted the rubber hanger. $%%*!!

Then I started the install. I spent about 2 hours with the center support and the crappy mounts slipping out. I have a hunch the hangers on the resonator aren't exactly in the right place, explaining a lot of tension in the rear direction. Maybe it's all going to snap in place, but right now without the rear connected, the pipe behind the resonator makes full contact with the chassis cross brace. I don't think OEM touches there. Going to be noise if that is the case, and I may need to remove it again to bend the hangers a little.

In rear, I need to shim the hangers with washers, as my son had to do the same with his Milltek, plus I read of that issue in several threads on other sites. We'll see if I can sort that out tonight. Not much time today, but my son is coming here to work on his custom fog light mounts, so he can help get my car out of the garage

 

I have been contemplating to open a Mini shop - then I realize I am far too anal to ever get a job done in less than 5x the specified time, so it probably won't be too popular. Muffler jobs definitely not scoring high in my "fun R53 jobs" rankings.

The car is still on jack stands as I had no time yesterday. My son came back from summer college classes to work on his custom front light mount for Chili Red during the week, so tonight we need to get my car buttoned up and out of the garage. Currently my driveway and garage have all three R53s in it, then there's a Chili Red R50 two houses down the street.

The part that still bothers me is how the pipe is making direct contact with the center cross brace, but it's not connected to the rear yet, which may very well lift that center unit up so that all that it isn' treating on the mounts but rather only stabilizes front back and left to right motion via the center rubber mounts.


don't buy these mounts - go with OEM instead

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-meistersatz-parts/exhaust-hanger-mid-pipe-priced-each/18101174146~mei/

they don't have metal through the entire base, making it impossible to install them, as one end is fed through the bracket and then holds in place by tension. These are pure rubber for 1/2 inch from the end, and just twist right back out of the hole when you try to snug up the other side. Plus, the hole with the bolt threads is completely filled in rubber and needs to be drilled and cut clean.

General advise, just like Bentley manual states - replace all rubber mounts when the exhaust is replaced. At 100k miles hree out of four of my hangers were ripped and non-functional, one was missing (because one-ball mod - no need for it, so first owner pulled it off).

 

I know exactly what you mean. My son's Milltek has moved around a tiny bit over just a few hundred miles, so it may be time to fix it. I am going to wait until he is back out of my garage to get under my car and add the clamps.

 

Turns out he added the hose clamps as well. Did his homework, . Exhaust rattles a tiny bit, because it is tucked very close to the already sanded-back lower bumper lip. I'll give it a few days. If things don't improve soon, I'll get under it and add some spacers below the inner rear hangers, maybe 1/8" or 1/4" max.

The car is quiet compared to the electric blue with Megan Racing exhaust, not much different from the Chili red with non-resonated Milltek. I haven't been out of town with it, but at low revs it is quite smooth.

One thing I noticed and my son confirmed is that in idle just after startup, the revs change up and down far more than with the OEM exhaust. Seems to be a Milltek side effect, but nothing that seems to kill the engine. Still was somewhat odd to see it do that. Megan exhaust has no such effect on the electric blue car.