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

Success! Sort of......

My wood dash repairs worked a treat, completely eliminated all the noise coming from it, but unfortunately not all the noise.....it's still pretty buzzy and rattle-y, so many more to go.

So Saturday afternoon after the donut run with the KC Miniacs I took it up to school so I could put it up in the air on the two post lift, and there was good news and well.....other news.

The good news, the body is really solid..... hard to find any Minis like this, most of them are simply rolling piles of rust held together with paint.

Now for the other news.....

The engine is leaking oil from everywhere, well at least that's how it looks. Rather than try and patch things up in the car, once I get back from my trip this coming Thursday, I'll schedule an engine-ectomy......it will be a lot easier to replace gaskets and seals with it on the engine stand. That will be the time to change the motor mounts too.

One of the biggest rattles seems to be in the heater and the heater fan isn't working - they could be related; once the water's out I can pull the heater assy and fix what's bugging it too.

I found the right wheel bearing was loose, I reset it and it feels fine but I will pull them apart and repack them at the least. That also might have been where I was getting the vibration at highway speeds. I tried to balance the wheels but our equipment at school simply won't balance these tiny little 10" wheels, I'll have to take them someplace. My buddy Don's had good luck with his, so I'll try his place I guess.

All in all Buzz is in pretty good shape and worth spending the time and money to update him a little and fix those things that bug me.

I'd love to put in a taller diff ratio while I have the engine out, but unless I find a way to get more HP out of it I'm not sure it will pull the taller gear.

I found a source for bi-zenon replacements for the 7" halogen headlights for a fairly reasonable amount of $$$ - about $380 complete, which is less than MINI charges for the zenon upgrade on new cars! Being able to see at night is a real plus.....it's on my wish list for now.

The car still has the English headlights and I though I could just buy some sealed beams and swap them out, but nooooooooo.........

And as it turns out there is a bit of rust - the headlight buckets have big holes rusted in the backs of them, since I have to buy new ones anyway to accommodate the US style sealed beams, 7Enterprises has some nifty plastic ones, complete with all the hardware and seals needed to install them, so I ordered a pair.

Before we head down to the Ozarks I am going to get the fog/driving lights wired up and working, and I'll take a look at the heater to see if there's anything obvious I can do to stop the noise.

I found it has an extra engine steady, and one end of it has poly bushings, I'm going to replace those with stock rubber ones and see if it helps the vibration also.

While I have the engine out I'll address the engine compartment, and paint the engine block and head. I can't decide what color to use the, I'm not a big fan of the old Morris green that was originally used on these engines so I was thinking maybe black block and gold head - like an old Jag motor, or maybe just red. I dunno......

 

Well, I may have solved the mystery of the bad vibrations...if so I may have to rename him!

Turns out that since this isn't the original engine, it doesn't fit perfectly - the base of the carb is hitting the firewall. There's evidence that someone tried to make a little extra clearance with a hammer, but it didn't work, the edge of the carb is worn significantly so it called for a different strategy. After looking at it for a moment I noticed a 1/2" thick spacer.....aha! Exchanging that for a thinner one should move the carb far enough away that it won't hit anymore, now all I have to do is find one. I looked in all my leftover Jag parts as I changed the carbs on it from Strombergs to SUs and I remember having to use different spacers on them too, but no joy - at least I couldn't find any.

Next idea, I went up to British Victoria's Secret (A local British cars parts purveyor - they don't carry Mini parts per se, but some things carry over from MG and such MG, Triumph, Austin Healey, Sunbeam Parts & Accessories - Victoria British, Ltd. and spent a few minutes looking thru catalogs till I found just what I needed! $10 later I'm home fitting it to the carb. It still took a little engineering but now I have plenty of clearance and I won't have to beat the firewall in or weld a small divot into it!

I didn't get it all finished tonight but tomorrow will tell whether I cured Buzz's buzzes......fingers crossed!

In the pic you can see where the paint is worn off the firewall from the carb hitting it....and at the left of the pic you can see the black spacer I put in between the carb and the manifold.

 

Actually, I'm planning for a set of Zenon's, these are a temp solution.

I'm very familiar with Cibie's, I had them in all of my cars back in the 70's, but now that Zenon's are available, they're even better.

 

Forgot to talk about the oil leaks....it's been suggested to me that the reason it's leaking oil from everywhere is too much crankcase pressure.....and in doing a little research (by looking under the hoods of the other cars this weekend) I saw that they all had some sort of crankcase pressure relief - but mine doesn't. It has the one vent at the top of the valve cover that simply is open to the air (it's supposed to hook to the air cleaner I think, but it doesn't match up at all) so my friend Don gave me a breather assy. In order to install it I'll need to drill and tap some mounting holes, and I'll also have to drill a breather hole into the drop bearing's housing, as that's where this one mounts. Then I'll need to figure out how to plumb it to the intake somehow. Some guys just mount one of those little breather filter assemblies on the outlet, but that lets a fine mist of oil vapor onto the engine over time and miles.

Once I have the engine out I can address this more easily, so it will have to wait till then - that also gives me more time to figure out how to plumb it....

I'm also seriously considering ordering a taller diff ratio, it would be nice to get the revs down so I can cruise at least 70 mph.

 

If you could find one, VERY spendy!

Well, turns out they are available in Hengland for only about $3K!

 

Today's rattle repair brought to you by the fine folks at Buzz Laundry detergent!

When we left our hero he was valiantly searching for the source of Buzz' cacophony, and slowly but surely Buzz has been giving up his secrets, one at a time. Yesterday it was the heater bracket bolt that was loose.....

Today, it was the alternator. I noticed that occasionally the belt would squeal for a moment on start up and I found out why - one of the bolts was missing. I found a good one but had to shorten it about 3/8" so it would fit - no biggy - I have a hack saw. Then once I got everything in place and adjusted properly, just as I started to tighten the last bolt - snap! - it broke off, so back to the bolt bin, found another likely candidate, cut off about 3/8" and Bob's yer uncle Annies yer auntie it's nice and tight.

Job done, on to the next.

Alternator, now tightened and adjusted properly....



I've been debating on which way to pull the motor, out the top, or drop it and the subframe together out the bottom - I was leaning towards the former, now I'm thinking the second way might be better as I won't have to remove the brake booster and associated brake lines - either way I'm waiting on a friend to bring his engine crane over, and I'm still planning the wiring reforms and fuel pump replacement. I'm running into so many weird odd things in the way of a good electric fuel pump install that I'm considering going back to a manual pump off the engine. The block off plate is there, as long as the cam has the lobe to drive it I can get one for about $40, cheaper than the electric as far as I can see, and should be every bit as reliable.

 

The idea is to introduce the fumes into the intake and burn them in the normal combustion process. My buddy Don gave me a breather assy that bolts to the intermediate plate and pulls vapors from the crankcase away from the splashing oil, it mounts in a fairly innocuous place and will easily plumb into the vacuum port for the booster. That's the way another friends '93 carbureted car is plumbed and it seems to work for his car so I may give it a go.

 

After getting the new headlight buckets installed and some sealed beams put in them, I decided to take the lights to another level (is that not the worst and most overused cliche' ?) anyway I found a good deal on some Hella H4s (Thanks for the links, Crashton!) and as I've decided not to spend the money on Xenons right now, all in with 55/100 bulbs and shipping the Hellas cost me $100 - I'd spent $35 on the sealed beams, so they went back to Autozone today. If anyone wants a set for their car the link is on page three of this thread....

anyway, here they are...as the come from the box...



Bulbs installed....



and in the buckets



and I did wind up taking them to a whole new level -



I got Buzz up on the lift ready to start the engine-ectomy. I measured and it does go high enough to clear the engine/subframe if I take it out the bottom so that's what I'm planning to do - we'll see how it goes. I have a friend bringing down his engine hoist on Tuesday so I can pull the engine out of the subframe and get started on it. More as it happens.