Most liked posts in thread: Rally Mini Cooper

I think I've rebuilt/pulled out the gearbox about 6 or 7 times. it used to take me around 3 hours but now I'm down to under 2 hours to drop the gearbox. I can strip down the box in less than an hour. Just as an example a bag of concrete mix ways 10lbs more than the Midlands gearbox! Nope, the plate is toast as confirmed by Clutch net. I will get a new flywheel insert too. I don't do hard launches due to the fragile nature of the gearbox but I suppose all the brisk driving around CR,the constant traffic and the rallies using a 6 paddle completion clutch plate take its toll..LOL

 

There is another rally R50 Mini doing well in the US but this guy is a little above our pay grade! Super nice guy and an fabulous Mini. Started off as a R50 with a 6 speed conversion with hotbits suspension. Then a quiafe gearset, RMW 1.8L engine, full Rieger suspension. then the sequential gearbox from RMW and now a RMW super charged engine. Phew that adds up to a lot of spending but this Mini is doing well.

 

PS pipe arrived, flywheel plate is with Fedex and I hope they can have the clutch finished before I leave. Also a jolly nice mini man is building me some extended Uni-ball trailing arm mounts for a very large supply of coffee. Lol

 

Clutch is done and on the way, currently I'm fighting with FedEx to get my flywheel plate. Hopefully everything will arrive on Friday.

 

I'm back in MA after a frustrating 3 weeks in CR. The Mini developed a lot of issues this time. The power steering lines needed replacing, the front coolant pipe was leaking and the belt tension wheel was getting noisy. Plus a bunch of other little things that tested my patience. The clutch looked ok after the rebuild but the E8 torx bolts were bad, so dumb dumb me forgot to buy some. I had to get them from BMW CR which was painless but then I lost them! I found them after a frantic 3 hour search!

The gearbox got a check over and new synchro rings then I fitted the clutch with a old input shaft( I have about 5!) but the pressure plate looked odd as the fingers were straight and not bowed out. I took that bloody clutch off 3 times and then decided the clutch guys had screwed up. Lucky for me I photo everything so I checked an old photo and saw the plate was good! Back went on the clutch plate and the gearbox box took all of 4 minutes to hang onto the engine and 2 hours to hook everything up and I went for a clutch test. The pedal felt really light and I could not get any gears! I bleed the clutch but the pedal was the same.

I figured the slave cylinder is faulty again! This will be the 3rd slave cylinder since 2012! I suppose the heavy duty pressure plate just is too much for the cylinder so I'll have get another. No worries as now I know the cylinder lasts about a year and the clutch around 3 years.

So now I still have to swap the fuel tank and paint the cage plus several other little jobs to have the Mini ready for Mexico.

 

I think I'm becoming a Midlands junkie! I got another box to play with and woke up at 6:15am to strip it down but was disappointed to find nothing wrong with the box apart from it was worn. Also I got some nifty rear pick ups from onasled racing and some gearbox parts from Eminiparts.com

 

that's an interesting idea which for an MCS would work but for the weedy MC would rob some power.

 

Yeah you could say so lol. The weekend didn't go so well I fitted a new slave cylinder but I still couldn't disengage the clutch. Off came the box again, I did some checking to find the clutch plate 8 mm thick but the full clearance of the cover is 6 mm. So I fitted some 2mm spacers between the cover and flywheel. I put the box back on to find that if I wind in the clutch release arm with a threaded bar the clutch disengages hooo woooo

Then when I fitted the slave cylinder the arm does not go far enough to disengage the clutch. So I added a 1/2 spacer but the arm travels less but still does go far enough to disengage the clutch. It's like the slave cylinder is not strong enough to push the arm fully out. I thought with the spacer it would.

Looks like I have drop the box again and send the cutch back to CA. Damn another month lost

 

Woooo hoooo i talked to Chris Sneed who suggested the flexi hose was bad, I did a test and the hose expanded a good 2mm in diameter and stretched This is the reason why I can't Get the arm to fully extend

I'm going to get a braided line made.

 

One thing you may have noticed with rally builds is we get creative and budget is always an issue. Faced with having to take off the clutch pipe, take it to Crown Performance( Thanks Dave O) paying, waiting and losing more time.

I decided to look in my boxes of stuff collected over the past 40 years, there's stuff in there from Alfa's, Ford, Fiat, MG, Peugeot, Range Rover , Suzuki etc. So I found a Alfa Milano brake pipe nipple(I used to cut up Milano's and sell the parts on Ebay to fund my CA rallying), Suzuki Swift brake line and a bolt for some caliper. I bought this handy little brake pipe flaring tool in the 70's, so I drilled out the brake nipple to 1/4" then cut the clutch pipe close to the brake booster, flared the pipe and connected that to the brake line. Then I took apart the Mini slave cylinder pipe and found the inside was just enough to tap a thread for the banjo bolt. I took the parts to work and the guys turned down the fitting and tapped it in a few minutes. Back at with the Mini I bolted everything together, bled the clutch and bingo the clutch now disengages!

 

Maybe it's me, the Mini or just rallying! This rebuild has been frustrating, what should be straight forward stuff has turned out to be an epic. The clutch plate was to thick, I fixed that, then the flexi pipe was bad so I fixed that too, now the clutch is not working again! It was fine for about 3 or 4 pushes then again the clutch arm does not go far enough to disengage the clutch. I bleed the system about 6 times with zero bubbles. The pedal is firm, I've changed the slave cylinder but still the problem remains. I put spacers at the end of the slave cylinder arm but the arm does not go out any further. I replaced the MC in Feb 15 so I suppose that could be bad. I have another MC on the way but that arrives after I leave on Saturday! Looks like November for another attack. The roll cage is nearly sorted and the final painting will be done next month. Then I just have the fuel tank to replace. I believe this is the newest R50 on the planet!

International rallying has a 5 year rule. So 2016 is the end for my nice OMP Champ seats and G-Force 5 point belts! So I have to shell out for new items or no rally! Such a shame but rules are rules.

 

I have my slave cylinder compressed and up so the bleed nipple is at the top. I have to do the bleeding the manual way because I don't have a pressure bleed system. Maybe it is time to invest in one!

Regarding the seats I found a new set in Polland the same as I have to avoid bracket changes at $200 less than OMP USA are selling for. I have my old seats up for sale in CR so if all goes well I might ba able to cover most of the cost. The belts I will sell and get some more G-Force Pro belts. I just hope I can check in the seats as baggage on the plane!