Most liked posts in thread: MINI Max has a new little brother, Buzz

So, here's what I found today.....by process of elimination.....

I had Rose crank while I checked for spark - plenty. Check

I had her crank while I checked compression - plenty. Check

I looked at the plugs, black and sooty around the perimeter, and two are wet.



Engine will not start hot or cold. Idle was very rough and low when it did run coming home from school, and dies often, although it always restarted till the last time, when it didn't. I have a carb problem.

This summer in Milwaukee one of my classic Mini buddies had the same problem - he drove from KC to Milwaukee and when he pulled into the hotel parking lot it died and would not restart. Repair consisted of a new o-ring for the choke mechanism..... apparently when that o-ring fails it dumps the float chamber's contents down the carb and floods it, with an electric fuel pump running it will just keep pumping gas into the carb. Maybe that's how my crankcase got overfilled back when I was first getting it running?

At any rate, I have a complete carb kit in stock so I'll tear it down and see what I see...the carb is the only part I didn't touch when I rebuilt everything else - naturally!

I have a new set of firing pins I can put in when I put it all back together too.

 

So I pulled the carb off and took it apart.....when my friend Seth had a similar problem in Milwaukee this summer the o-ring in his choke had broken, dumping fuel into the carb. When I pulled mine apart I expected to see something similar but mine looked fine other than a few cracks in the shaft seal on the outside end - not usually a problem other than it can let dirt in.

You can see several splits in the outer seal, and the tan o-ring at the other end which is still pliable and looks OK.



So I went ahead and took it all apart, the only other thing I found was a slightly worn oval main jet - which is pretty normal - and some more torn shaft seals on the main shaft.

I cleaned it all up to re-install this afternoon, hoping that somehow it will now run, after it died on me the other night and hasn't started since.....



So, I turned the key and learned a few things....

1) I now need to pull the choke to start a cold engine - never had to before

2) The engine now idles below 1K, wouldn't do that before either.

3) The engine idles much more smoothly - I thought the lumpy idle was due to the HP cam I installed.

4) The mixture came into tune perfectly - would not do that before either - you had to lean it out so far it almost wouldn't run before you could see any difference.

5) Then there's this.....

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cJXn1i1Nu4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cJXn1i1Nu4[/ame]

I've never seen one do that before!

Anyway, the engine seems to run well now, although it's raining so I didn't get to drive it tonight after I was done, I'll do that tomorrow.

Right now I'm happy that it runs again!

 

Well, free in that I didn't pay extra for them but there are still plenty of them in there, just not that big nasty one right in my face!

Our drive to Lawrence got moved to Sunday, so today I'm going to tackle another rattle fest in the left door - it should be pretty straight forward tho, once I get the door panel off.

Oh boy, I get to use my special door panel removing tool!

 

Well, no joy in Mudville today......the further we drove yesterday the hotter it ran, it only got to about 205* but to me that's just a lot hotter than it should have done on a nice dry 85* day.....and it gave every indication that the further I went it would just continue to get hotter.

The one thing I am going to try today is a smaller water pump pulley, the theory is that since I'm turning much lower revs it may not be getting enough flow - that's fairly easy to do and it will be about 85* again tomorrow so I can take another run and see what if any difference it makes.

I'll take another run on Friday - it's only supposed to be abut 60 then so I want to see if the cooler outside temps make any difference - I may have to drive it a lot further tho, maybe to Topeka or Manhattan to get the same results, or prove that it won't heat up.

I'm planning to go to Mini 56 in April so I need to know it will be reliable on a long run regardless of ambient temps.

Lastly, I'm going to have to pull the motor again - the clutch is slipping. It's my own damn fault, I reused the old clutch cause it looked fine, but now that the engine makes decent HP it will slip under the right loads. :blush2:

 

I haven't driven Buzz since I got it all back together, I'm still engineering the cooling thing so I didn't want to put coolant back in it and just have to drain it again, but I now have a plan....parts are ordered and on the way and I'll have to make one part. Once I have everything together I'll show you all what I'm doing.

In the meantime, I found a deal on some Miata seats and I'm building/modifying the seat tracks to adapt them to Buzz.

Monday I'll take one of Buzz' seats and one of the Miata seats up to my local upholstery guy and see what he'd charge me to make the Miata seats match what I have now.

If it's too expensive I may just run with the one Miata seat on the driver's side for now. We have the Classic Mini Fun Run (Part 4) coming up Nov 13-16, so I want to get it drivable and ready for that trip first, then I can see about the upolstery.

Plus too and also, our 20th anniversary is this weekend, and we're going out of town, so that will put me back a few days too, plus school etc etc etc....

 

Danko, here's a sneak peek at the Miata seats......

 

Yes officer, the speedo is off about 10 mph, so I was going exactly the limit *Wink, wink, nudge nudge, say no more.....

So no one is surprised that my Mini can bury it's speedo, and it feels like it has plenty more in hand?

I don't know what the theoretical top speed is with this gearing, but I'll bet it will do the ton, given enough road and a favorable wind!

Given the 90 mph speedo, I'm guessing it ran out of gears rather than engine in the original configuration.......

 

Done items in red

 

Two Mini-Poopers ready to hit the road!

 

Yeah, if the squirrels get tired they can chase them and speed me up again!

I tore the covers off the driver's seat as it needed a little help in the padding, the headrest has a long tube that goes down into the backrest and it had poked clear thru the foam and into my back on the trip home so I had to do some work on it. I found an auto upholstery shop right here in the 'hood, and he sold me enough foam for 3 seats - for $10! I spent $20 on a spray can of 3M glue!

I think the seat came out nice!



I got the seat re-padded and trimmed out and it looks pretty good - we have a MINI Club event this Saturday so I'll give it a test them.

I also made some new brackets for the wood dash - it rattled and buzzed something fierce (how Buzz got his name) - and I epoxyed them in for some extra strength. I also put some felt along the edges of the wood and shimmed the glove box door latch so I'm hoping that will take the noise level down a few notches.





We'll see what happens on Sat.