1st Gen R53 Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: My 2005 R53 Daily Driver build thread

ok, I have done that adjustment already twice, but I did it with the door card removed. I don't see why it would give me a different result, although I clearly see the time savings. The card removed lets me see the little teeth in the plastic track the bottom screws ride on, so I can tell the amount of adjustment I am at and am going to (count them, mark them)

Thing is, I almost feel I have moved it too far down there, rather than not enough. Think of it that way - the bottom edge is where I have the most leaking, while the top is already totally snug. Wouldn't it walk the bottom edge out further and cantilever off the top edge of the window if I pulled that bottom of the rack and with it the glass even further away from the inside of the door? The only variable in this that may work against my logic is that the glass top edge is held in place by the door and the window seal, which acts as a hinge in the middle of the total track to top edge line.

My window seals poorly about 3-8 inches above the bottom of the glass when closed. it is totally fine above that.

I suppose without having to rip into the door card, I can move it around a few times and do a garden hose test.

Another thing is that the glass is just a hair too far forward when compared to the passenger side. It is still fully on the seal, but the gap is larger between B pillar and glass, likely allowing more water and air pressure to hit that area, so it can work it's way behind the seal? Maybe if I ripped into everything one more time and spent a few hours until I got the glass to be exactly where it was before, that minor adjustment would solve the issue...

Something to do this weekend. I may even drive it again. Took it for a 2 mile run last week, first Mini miles of the year. I have some face masks to drop off with a friend, so that's a good justification to burn some sub $2.00 premium (regular is 0.98 here right now).

 

Hit a racoon a few weeks ago. Lower front left corner. $500 for a rough fix (all the way down to a new radiator core support, because that thing is completely shattered). Would be nice to work on it, but FCPEuro as usual overpromised on shipping dates. I was supposed to have everything yesterday, but they are still waiting for BMW to send crap to them.

Long term, when I actually have time to work on this car, I will get the Aero bumper from ECSTuning and figure out how to install it. The driver side edge clips that hold the little spoiler with the side marker is messed up that it won't really hold well on the stock bumper cover, and you really can't buy any of those any longer. Used cost is above aero bumper at ECS.

Anyway, a dinky raccoon destroyed everything between front edge of bumper and the driver side wheel. New fender liner, fog light, core support, etc

I drive that car 200 miles a year maybe. Meh. No space to work on it because I am selling a house and the new house needs a garage built. It never comes at a convenient time.

 

not really a job improving the Electric Blue, but it is what I had to do to make room for it in the garage over the winter. Turned a 2 car garage into a 3 Mini garage with a set of ball-bearing dollies from Amazon (stay away from anything else...). These actually roll, but it's still tough to get going unless you pre-orient the wheels where you want to move it. My garage is a slope, so going uphill and maneuvering into position takes some tactical planning

No son around to help, only his red car in the way. I used wood blocks to stop it from rolling into the wrong direction, a rubber hammer and 2x4 piece to "steer" the wheels, and the rest was all muscle.

Dark silver is now hibernating, trickle charger plugged in. All I will be doing on it this winter is remove the DDM intake to take some measurements for the DIY box I am building.


ball bearing dollies


Ready to roll


winter parking spot


parallel parked

There's actually enough room to work on a car in front of it, just a little less than I'm used to.

 

the box on the bars is the GoPro, the box on the downtube is for the light. These last an hour and are as bright as car low beams. The video didn't turn out because the card was full. I did record the "unboxing" and assembly of the bike. Assembly took just an hour with my anal attention for detail, taking stuff apart to make sure everything was put together and lubed properly. Very impressed with this brand, as they are equipped just as good as the Surly, Trek, and Specialized bikes I checked out locally, except this bike is at least 2 grand cheaper.

I ride bicycles more miles per year than I drive my Minis. My commute is 26.8 miles round trip and I ride that almost every workday of the year unless the snow is too deep or we are getting stupid degree windchills. On average I get in 6000 miles per year. The fat bike will see a fraction of that use, but I bought it for the really bad snow days plus some bike touring on loose soil. Not sure yet when I will do that but there are a few places that are on my bucket list where this bike will serve me well.

My regular commuter bike is a 1999 Gary Fisher mountain bike with some modifications and much skinnier Continental "winter contact" tires that work fine on light snow, but when it gets rutted from cars, that bike gets scary real fast. For fun I have Cervelo road bikes (my Ferrari Enzo and Porsche 911 substitutes). These carbon toys see 500-1000 miles per year, mostly on really nice days and always just for fun. Those bikes easily fit inside the Mini with just the tires taken out. This dump truck of a fat bike will look goofy inside the hatch area even with tires removed. I will take some pictures when I do that the first time

I am still undecided about a roof rack to the Electric Blue car. For example, I just can't see how you put a fat bike up there without at least a second person helping you. Almost certain to mess up your freshly polished paint in a really bad way It'll still could useful for ski, which I cannot fit inside the car unless I go alone, plus I'd need some gear bags to keep the interior dry on the way home. This year I haven't gone skiing at all because of that transport problem.

 

Floor mats again. Still rocking the WeatherTech winter mats, but the summer mats are pretty worn, plus the bottom foam/velcro is all torn. So I was looking for a new pair and found a great price on a set on amazon, but they are labeled as "for convertible???" - what exactly would differ on Mini R52 floor mats that make them not fit into my R53? Price is under $80 which is why I am curious - all the R53 sets I found elsewhere sell for over $100

description:

MINI COOPER Genuine Factory OEM 82110396133 Cooper Black Carpet Floor Mats 2003 - 2008 (complete set of 4 mats)​

 

Duh. I guess sometimes reading the Q and A pays off. Could care less about rear mats, as they a) were never stepped on and b) the car has a rear seat delete. 5 bucks less for the R52 mats sounds like a deal.

 

Quick update, as we are still getting snow, two of the Minis are still in hibernation. The blue daily made it through winter just fine. Two tanks of gas is all I needed.

Last night I installed those Blind spot mirrors - https://www.ecstuning.com/b-helix-parts/blind-spot-mirror-set/mr-mir50a~hlx/

Not the greatest quality as already pointed out by somebody in this thread. One of them separated when I tried topush it on the motor mount. Back to the shop, preheat glass with heat gun, hot glue gun and fixed it. The blue tint takes some getting used to, but before I spend double to get the Euro OEM mirror glass.

The field of view is significantly improved, especially driver side. Will post some image soon.

I've spent a few weekends messing with NCS Export and other software, installing cable and drivers on Windows 10 (not for the faint of heart with software written for win XP 32 bit). Cable then needed some soldering to make it the version for pre-2007 BMWs. I am starting to understand why so few R53 owners mess with this software. But I now have far too much time in to give up. Some success so far with reading my entire car settings to file for a backup, but am not ready to edit and write back to the ECU until I can verify my software is complete and working. Some R50/53 files for individual modules appear to be missing, or I just don't understand it enough. It's messy, and I don't want to brick my car's ECU just because I am impatient, all to get some flicker out of LEDs and maybe change a few other settings.

 

Taking this info to my car thread, since it applies more to what I am about to do than the headlight swap thread.

I think I have my NCS Expert software working. Still haven't coded anything on the car, but it all seems to work the same as many others show on youtube. I've read car settings and the module data for the BC1.C05 module that controls light checks, remote control modes, unlock settings, etc. but I want to start with the disabling of the bulb checks that make some of my lights flicker. This is not the kind of flicker while the bulb is lit, but flicker induced by bulb condition checks while NOT lit, causing LEDs to light up briefly like a strobe light.

Here's a video of a German guy with a BMW that has LEDs in the fog lights - the effect is clearly visible here on ignition turned on. The part I learned form this video is that you need to disable both, cold and warm monitoring. Warm does not mean the "bulb is warm" but "the engine is running" - basically, high beams and fog lights with LEDs will blink every few seconds like an ambulance unless you have them turned on. Since you don't want to drive with your high beams on all the time you either stick with halogens or you code out these bulb checks. My HID bulbs in the low beams do not blink, but they are useless in the high beam position.Go to minute 0:40 for the flicker demo in the video



After fixing the cable I bought to work with the older Mini ECU port (solder pins 7 and 8 together) and fighting windows 10 to install .Net 3.5 needed (for NCS Dummy I think), it was several complete installs and uninstalls before I finally got the software work . It was a matter of having the proper versions of R50 "Daten" files in all places where they are used, and that is several folders in three programs.

I am still learning what I can do with it and from here on it is baby steps to actually code parts of the ECU. First I'll change one tiny thing I can easily check, then one code change at a time until I get more comfortable, especially with rolling things back to what it was before. There's really not a hell of a lot one can change to improve the car from what it is, but there are a few annoying things I want to get rid of, such as the 2 minute auto lock after you unlock and then not open a door. I want all doors to unlock on the first key press on the remote, plus a few other changes. More on that when I actually do code them.

 

I am going to do the restoration of my headlights, but not just the outside, but also inside. The projector lens on the blue daily driver is hazy compared to the one on our Chili Red (1/3rd the miles). That requires opening up the lights, but we've done that for other lights before. If you are careful, nothing will happen to the precious OEM housings and they will go back together. I have the same hairline cracking going on in the plastic as seen in the top image. It's not bad, but I will get it all clear and crisp to match up with the new D2S bulbs in the cleaned up reflectors plus some bright LEDs in the high beam location..

Dave, which ceramic product do you use on plastic? I was thinking of putting clearbra on once refinished, but if the ceramic coat does its thing, I'd prefer that due to increased optical clarity.

 

Here is a summary of what is/can be coded on my electric blue Mini related to bulb monitoring. The car has HID factory low beams, which explains why there is no cold monitoring for those. Some things are a bit odd, like the existence of a coding slot for a second rear center brake light, but it's off anyway. I created an easy to read table in Excel to list the settings in one view. First image is what is current coded, the second is what I hope to be able to change it to. The first column is the type of language in the ECU code you have to locate and then modify the associated value (see last two columns for hot/cold monitoring and their settings. Meaning of each is obvious without translation, I assume)



the desired state I am shooting for to get rid of the flicker in high beam, front position lights, interior and license plate lights. Also for fogs to protect those HIDs.

 

I have a lot of Gyeon Prep left over from the Mohs I put on last year. I am doing at least one more car this year, but there's plenty left in the bottle for all that. Also still have Gyeon Cure and Gyoen Wet in the detailing box - probably no so useful as a first application, but they'll help once everything is coated.

The ceramic coat on the car has held up incredibly well over the winter. It was always amazing to see how the water in the car wash booth would shed off the car taking dirt with it. I never touched the paint with a brush or sponge since the last full hand wash in fall, and it still looks fantastic. I'm definitely doing this to the other cars as well, just need to wait for warmer weather...