Engine Drivetrain 1st Gen Cooper S Machined a low cost bolt on kit to refill the supercharger oil w/o removal or mods

Welcome to M/A!

Nice, informative post! :cornut: We Gen 1 MCS owners appreciate these things!

 

interesting. do you have the link to get one?

 

I don't have a R53, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn once....:beer


"If your interested in trying out the kit its for sale at
MBKperformance.com"

 

Seems like something that should have been thought of long ago...

 

Welcome to a new forum sponsor.

 

i know it was a hard day at work yesterday but i cant believe i missed that :mad2:

 

No problem.... We're here for you....

 

This is not needed just like a belt tensioner stop.

The bearings and gears either fail or they don't. No amount of changing the oil in the SC will help if they are set incorrectly which is what causes them to fail in the end.

I am still on the same 12 year old SC and Oil for 100K now with no issues with a 15% pulley. Also have a new SC on the shelf for when the Original fails.

 

Oh no Dave, you have jinxed yourself.

 

NICE! And encouraging given the HP you have on the mistress Dave. I'm hoping to keep mine going, saving $$$ for RMW kit w/ TVS.

 

Yeah the gear and bearings failed and lost all the fluid. So adding or changing the oil would have done no good at all. It would be like putting oil is a car without putting the drain plug back in the pan. Your kit does nothing to prevent the leak from happening which is how you get the above picture.

Like I said, this product is worthless just like a belt tensioner stop.

 

Sorry Dave but this is backwards, the gears and bearings fail because of loss of oil, the oil seeps through rotor shaft seals of the S/C, as they wear with millage, into the rotor pack itself and is simply burned off through the intake system.
So keeping the W/P gear housing level full, will prolong the life of those gears and bearings. But only until the seals are so bad that they aren't working at all, so us, this is a life extender not a fix, but the extension should be comfortable enough to warrant the cost of the kit.
Honestly my only concern would be the hoses coming off.

 

Look either way you say it the bearings and seals are not life time parts. They all fail in time. This is a mod for a 13 year old supercharger at best and is a waste of money. If this was out when the car came out it would be a great idea but now, not so much.

Almost all of us have a pulley on our SC's which causes the heat in the Eaton to degrade everything faster even with a 15% pulley. Not to mention a 17% or silly 19% pulley. Things fail on a 13 year old SC it just part of owning a modified car.

 

I'll one up you mine is 11 years old almost 170k and have had a 15% pulley on it since 65k. I checked the fluid while doing my water pump around 90k and it was still full on the PTO side. added a splash of oil for what dribbled out.

I'm with you Dave if its gonna fail it will fail and no amount of changing the oil will stop it.

 

I'm with Dave.O on this one.

I recently swapped out the S/C on my 120k mile R53....the seals were still good with plenty of oil at both ends but the nose bearing was shot. Factory installed bearings...they had simply worn out. I had installed a "Recharger" adapter on my S/C which allows for drain and refill of S/C oil but my failure mode had nothing to do with oil so that device proved a non-starter for me. I did not re-install it when I swapped out my SuperCharger.

Mine is a street driven car so I'm not at high RPM for extended periods....therefore I run a 17% pulley. I am not trying to kid myself, however, I'm constantly running the S/C at higher RPM than designed for...therefore I anticipate less S/C life than a factory built car. But swapping out the unit is not that difficult, and is easily accomplished during a weekend for anyone who works on their Mini.

I won't fault anyone who decides to use this mod, its just not for me...I worry a bit about those soft filler and drain lines in the engine compartment (The "Recharger" was a hard line device), and how to keep them from being damaged and sealed....Hopefully the creator has addressed that and provides good instructions for routing of lines and sealing off of the tubing ends.

 

I'm actually in partial agreement, if the seal failure was quick or immediate, then yes it really wouldn't be worth having, but since it takes time for the oil to seep out (I think I got 30k from the time mine started making noise until I was worried about driving it) this just may help extend the life of some gear sets, or at least give someone extra time to determine if they should fix or sell the car.
Honestly, if the kit is inexpensive enough and/or you're going to have the car apart to that extent, it really wouldn't be that bad of an idea.
Hell once you install it, the actual maintenance part would only take a few min and not really cost much considering how little oil is actually used.
At least this is something that is available for people who may want it, and yes it would have been nice if someone would have done this 5 or 6 years ago, it would have been much more viable then.

 

Duplicate post. Doh!