1st Gen R53 Cooper S My 2005 R53 Daily Driver build thread

thanks for the pointers. Gonna be a few more days before I will get to the application. I'm one hood and half a door into the polishing, and with that gravel road history of the car, I think it'll take 3 or 4 more evenings before it's done. I keep getting side tracked by stuff like the rear number plate having scratched the paint below, faded hood stripes and then I polished off the black edges on the stripes and had to break out the sharpie to fix that.

What do you use on plastic (front A pillar) or vinyl like the stripes? I think the video I saw mentioned not to use Mohs on that. Also - does it go on glass? I so, why would I want to do that?

Got the car completely assembled first time in a month. Still on jack stands until I am done with the beltline polish.

 

time to summarize recent progress. Saturday, I finally got the car started to fill it with coolant. Checking for leaks all was ok - the new thermostat seemed to do its thing as well. When I bought the car, temps were going up and down by 25F for no reason. Perhaps that was because the belt was slipping and the water pump didn't run well at lower RPMs. Whatever that was, it's all be replaced and works well. Engine runs smooth, the only noise coming from the cracked resonator. I then drained the coolant again, given I had to flush out the remnants of a green anti freeze fill. What were they thinking? I will now drive it a few miles and then do another refill, sucking out what I can with a shop vac first. It'll be pretty close to a full replacement. I am starting to fill up a 5 gallon bucket with antifreeze. Need to find my recycling center stickers I got in the mail some months ago.

So now that the car was running again, I could have just put it back on its wheels, but the fog lights didn't arrive until Sunday, so while it was still on jackstands waiting for those, I started working on the paint. 4 hours with the clay bar on Saturday. Then Sunday the 105 Meguiars on the cutting pad, 205 on the finishing pad. I managed to do the hood and driver side door by end of day Sunday, and there are still scratches I could work on, but some are so deep, I'd have to chew away most of the clear to get them out. It's the "daily driver" I have to keep telling myself...

This car has never been detailed. My cutting pad needed to be washed after just a few square feet.

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There are areas that just won't get polished out - gravel roads left not only the fog lights sand blasted, the bumper is pretty messed up, too



Then Sunday afternoon a polishing interruption as the Depot brand replacement fog lights arrived. Nice glass, useless adjustment mechanism. Definitely not an OEM duplicate. They even had bulbs in them, but I swapped just the housing for my HID bulbs.

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the bumper went back on and it looked pretty good down there. My eyeball level adjustment based on the old housing is close. I may need to tweak it one more time next time the bumper comes off, but I first need to get it out on the road to really see where we are.



The white stripes on the hood had seen better days, even before I started with the paint correction. I managed to get a shine back into the vinyl, but on the edges my aggressive pad working the paint had chewed into the black lines. They were already a bit rough, but now there wasn't much left in some spots. So why not break out the Sharpie pen and fix it?



Result was quite impressive - guess you had to see the before and after to really tell the impact of those lines

 

Another detail - the previous owner had sharp sheet metal screws holding the rear license plate to the frame, and their sharp tips have left big holes in the paint under the plate. I sanded and repainted these spots to protect the tailgate from rust, then focused on how to keep that from happening again. First I added more padding to the back of the plate holder to keep any screws I may use from poking at my paint.



Then I went into the bicycle parts bin for some nice stainless steel M5 x 10mm screws as well as stainless steel washers. Those are the correct thread for the frame, but I had to re-cut the thread inserts in the frame which were rusty. Now it all fits together nicely, just waiting for the paint and sealant to get done



except for the paint, the broken resonator is the only major job left before I can take the car out on the road. There are a few minor things I still want to do before that, such as clean the HID projectors. They look all hazy compared to those in Chili Red. I am talking about the actual lens inside the housing, not the big glass covering the entire headlight unit. That, too, could use a good polish one of these days, but they really aren't that bad yet. The projectors, though, look like they have been dipped in milk.

 

more polishing last night, but slow progress after the cutting compound ran out and I had to do 5 passes with the finishing juice to get the scratches out. Focused on the rather good looking left rear quarter panel. 2 hours and I was happy with that corner.

More details - got me some "high end" single beam Trico Force aero wiper blades, and then the mirror flashed bulbs for the front turn signals. Bumper and wheel wells are installed, so those will have to wait until the next time I tear into that area (harmonic damper replacement probably





should get fresh cutting compound in the mail today, some aggressive foam pads and other stuff to complete the outside skin job more efficiently. I so want noise cancelling headphones for this job. If I did this more frequently I'd definitely get some.

 

I rub these pads ever other pass on a dedicated microfiber towel, but it only goes so far before they clog up faster and faster. I have 4 of these MF pads, but for backup I have a couple of foam pads as well. Just ordered another one from chemical guys, their most aggressive cutting pad, along with a bottle of 105 to have a more rapid initial cut. The car has never been buffed but has deep impacts from gravel wherever the oversized 215 tires could throw that stuff. The inside of the rims and the rear lower control arms appear almost sandblasted! Amazing the overall condition is so good, though. On the blue paint it's the bottom of the doors and the front bumper that seem to have taken the brunt of the abuse.

anyone ever take apart a Mini HID projector? I can find lots of youtube info on other cars, cleaning projector assembly and lenses, but not much for the R53 2005/6 HIDs

 

so you're saying you can't take the projector assembly out of the back of the housing? What a horrid design. I don't want to paint anything in there, just clean the little half ball HID projector lens surface and mirrors behind that. Guess I have to go medieval on it if that's the only way to get access

 

"lifetime"... I hear you. I am replacing all the life-timers it seems. That black fuel filter is the best example of what happens after a lifetime.

Not much new stuff to report. Spent the entire evening polishing the passenger door with fresh pad and polish. Three more such days and the surface should be ready for coating. Cold here. Have to heat the garage already. Only one or two weeks and the dark silver car will go into hibernation for 4+ months. That is when I need to be more or less road ready with this car.

 

well, at least there are drain and fill plugs for the manual transmission fluid. My Toyota Tundra's automatic did not have such convenient features. The only way to replace the fluid on that was to remove the transmission cooler and tap into those lines. Dealer-only service, because you need to have the transmission at operating temp and plug in a service computer while you do that service with a custom pump and recovery unit. What a bunch of BS and one of many reasons I stopped buying Toyota after that vehicle (and almost 30 years of owning their trucks). It was almost $300 to have that fluid changed/flushed and it took 5 gallons of fluid to accomplish.

Saw a Jay Leno's garage video on a 50 year old unmolested OEM Jaguar E type that was in perfect working condition because it had been serviced and taken care of by the first owner. I don't know if our cars will ever last that long, but I am hoping to get a few more decades out of the Mini before we're out of gas or are forced to ride in self-driving things controlled by the "cloud" because nobody will insure you any longer in a "real car"

 

but you really need an aftermarket dip stick. This car had a broken dipstick when I bought it (which hid the fact that the car was down 2 quarts on oil). On the the two other cars I have the $$ Cravenspeed dip sticks. On the "daily driver" I replaced it with a pretty stiff but usable metal RockAuto $10 unit. Maybe a future upgrade, but I didn't feel like shelling out that much cash for a freaking DIP STICK a third time. Maybe there is something to be said for sensors in modern designs

Yesterday I watched all sorts of R53 headlight removal and opening videos that I now feel like I can do this. Maybe Sunday, when I hope to be done with pain correction and the application of fancy sealants. One more night with the polisher, I think, maybe Friday as well. I was hoping to drive to the muffler shop, but the sealant needs time to cure. So the muffler fix has to wait until I can get away one day during the week maybe.

 

I like how I spelled paint correction wrong without the t... It's a slow process. Last night, 3 hours on the DA buffer, I managed to do the rear and front bumpers. Small pads because of the shapes, and 4 passes with the cutting compound on the front, 4 in back. Not much clearcoat left in front, but it's much nicer looking now. All the blue paint in it is done.

Tonight, before taking it off the jacks, I'll go underneath and do the Boeshield T9 treatment for the upcoming salt season. It hurts to think that I am going to drive it in that, but it's the daily driver I bought for that purpose.

Once of its wheels again, I'll buff the white top, which with the sunroof is a pretty quick 90 minute job, I'm guessing. Then it's cleanup time, vacuum the garage, and get ready for the sealant application. Hope to get two rounds of that in tomorrow night so that it can cure for a drive to the muffler shop on Saturday. It's going to rain all weekend here...

Once back home, depending on status of the muffler, I may dig into the headlights. Also, while researching the headlight opening, I more or less decided to build custom projector HIDs for the dark silver car. I've seen somebody selling modded Depo housings with Morimoto bi-xenon projectors that retain the "leveling motors" (for $900, ouch), which look like a real elegant solution saving you from hacking into your OEM housings, although I don't really care to retain those. I'm not sure what to think about that leveling motor part given the car has no leveling sensors. Anyone ever look into the details of how one would hook up such these aftermarket HIDs with leveling to a car that has never had HIDs?