Exterior 1st Gen Engine Bay Clean Up

If your getting tired of hearing all about my VW you'll be glad to know that I have turned my attention back to the MINI for some much needed love. It looks good on the outside:



but the engine bay is oh so plain. We really just wanted to dress up those horns, but pulling them isn't as easy as most would think. Knowing this, I decided to take care of a few things while I was in there. Ideally I would like to paint the rails since the factory paint is horrible, but that just isn't in the cards right now. So we will be pulling a bunch of parts, some will get chrome and others will get polish. We won't be deleting anything, but the wires and hoses will be tucked and hidden away as much as possible. So it began yesterday:



I actually got all of that off without removing the front end. I am still going to pull the coolant overflow tank, transmission mount, and belt tensioner, but all of the other parts have been sent out. I won't get them back until next Friday and I have to work through next weekend. Hopefully I will be able to show you some progress pics next Monday.

 

Thanks Mr Jim, I have some updates despite waiting on parts. After removing the trans mount I went ahead and removed the front end to do make it easier to clean in the bay and do some work on the parts of the core support that can be seen:


and since I didn't want to remove the AC lines, I hand polished them too:



Having all of this stuff out of the way makes it real easy to get in there and clean, but since the supercharger and intake are open, I can't use water so it is all has to be done by hand. I also had the wheels polished and then I polished the inside of the bolt holes:

 

Pleasant surprise this afternoon since parts weren't supposed to be ready until Friday. Stopped by to see how the parts were doing and he had everything polished. I pick up the chrome pieces tomorrow. This MINI's future looks so bright your gonna have to wear shades :

 

I got some things reassembled. Intake manifold:


Trans mount with Powerflex bushings:



and I painted the GP intercooler with some Eastwood radiator satin black paint:



Too bad most of it will be covered:

 

Thanks guys

I took all of the parts except for the front core support to a polishing shop. Last year I tried to polish my intake manifold on my VW and realized I was way in over my head. Sanding and polishing aluminum is also a very dirty job. You can do it with small tools, but it will take a lot of time. All of the parts pictured were done in 3 days :eek6:. I do have this kit from Caswell that I use for small jobs and touch ups:

https://www.caswellplating.com/buffs/alpolkit.htm

 

Speaking of chrome, One thing I learned from doing the engine bay on my VW was that beautiful polished parts just don't look right if they are assembled with dingy flat hardware. On this bay, as I pulled the parts, I put all of the hardware in a bag and sent it out for chroming. I picked it all up yesterday and it looks amazing:



I am still waiting on the hood latches since those went to a different place. Another trick I learned was that stainless steel acorn bolts can be used in place of nuts to hide exposed studs like I did on the three nuts on the front of this valve cover:

Before


After


Now reassembly can begin in earnest. Unfortunately I have to work this weekend so it probably won't be finished until next week.

 

Cool will do, thanks for the heads up

 

Just got back from my National Guard weekend. Friday I managed to get this much done:


I'll get it all wrapped up tomorrow.