i guess my decision to buy a second mini for parts was a smart decision after all. now i have a tiny scrap yard behind my house which doesn't make my wife too happy though. wish you speedy recovery from infection.
Yes, a wise decision indeed. ..not much chance of finding another cheap Mini for parts down here. thanks for the good wishes,
It was a busy weekend cutting the brackets and plates for the roll cage upgrade, I hope to have that welded up this week. So I will be back to hitching a ride to work for a while.
The Mini is back from the shop, all the welding is done and looks good, so now I can start to take out the gearbox and clutch before I leave on Saturday...... ooooh I forgot how to remove the gearbox! LOL The good thing is I now have the Mini under cover due to a lockable shed became available for a few months.
For Costa Rica you can get away with a basic cage but for the FIA I need to add a few gussets and a better center belt anchorage. Also my rear belt angle was wrong so I had the weld another cross bar in.
i can't believe you're using stock sliders for seat mounts though got to admit it was a smart solution =o) i bought aluminum mounts for my mini but my seats still not here even after two months of waiting and i can't start building rollcage without them =o( on a side note: last year my feet were freezing during winter rally so for this build i'm gonna be using plywood for carpeting lol. seriously! i got to make a thread about my build but just have no time for it =o(
I modified the stock sliders for 2 reasons, the OMP sliders were expensive and to make them fit would require more work. I just chopped up the stock sliders and welded heavy duty plates to the slider. Worked well and easy to remove the seats. Hahaha yes Dave I should show them but they might look closer for damage...LOL
Last Saturday I dropped the gearbox and removed the clutch to find out why all the selections crunch. The black powder is metal dust! The plate is close to the rivets and the pressure plate has about a 2 mm recess worn into it. The flywheel plate is a little better but will need replacing. The clutch I will ship back to Clutchnet for a rebuild. I was going to buy a SPEC clutch kit but have not heard good reviews. I've used Clutchnet since 2004 so better the devil you know. The clutch has done 8 rallies and about 6000 miles in total. That's stage and CR driving miles since 2012 so not too bad. Also I found a coolant leak from the metal pipe under the intake and the PS rubber pipe is leaking too. All in all the Mini was due for a rebuild.
jeez man i think You just enjoin doing that! just kidding. can't You resurface those...surfaces? i just installed stock clutch on my JCW. figured it'll last a few rallies because normally i don't abuse clutch and gearbox and don't do hard launches.
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
admit it Chris, You just like tearing gearbox apart lol and i'm still exercising the idea of installing power steering pump from another car in place of a/c. when i have time i'll look into mechanical p/s pumps. looks like the belt i used fits some Nissans and Fords. well pretty much any would do as long as belt fits or that pulley can be mated with the right pump. shouldn't be too hard hah?