1st Gen JCW Most liked posts in thread: Refreshing Rufus - 2005 MCS JCW

Holy crap that was a long day in the garage! Well... a long day for a guy who sits his fat ass at a desk all day during the week.

Rear coil overs, sway bar, adjustable drop links, adjustable lower control arms and the BBK (calipers, rotors, pads) bolted up. I'm still working on brake lines and the hand brake (I'm double checking the install instructions).

My new front brake lines are made and should ship tomorrow. Hopefully I can get the car on the road next weekend!

 

I found a shop in Charlotte that can do a corner balance and alignment and they are only 5 minutes from the house! I've got an appointment in a few weeks (gotta finish the mods and get the height set). It's amazing how many shops replied "Corner balance?" or balked at letting me specify my own alignment settings.

 

Sunday was a very productive day in the garage!

1. I got the new front brake lines attached. I'm so much happier with the fit. The original Wilwood units were 5" shorter and I didn't think they would survive a lock-to-lock turn of the wheel. Maybe I was supposed to run the line behind the strut, but that seemed to be running into lots of other mechanical pinchy things. I liked the OEM routing, so I needed a bit more slack.


2. I bled the clutch line, to flush out old fluid, and bled all of the new brakes twice. The old brake fluid was seriously nasty.

3. I got a few other minor clean-up things done

4. I put the wheels on and dropped the car to the ground, for the first time in 5-6 weeks! The test drive was great, but I still had a bit of a stumble 2 or 3 times, coming off of hard acceleration... the engine would rev up as I'm accelerating and when I go to change to the next gear it feels like the DSC would kick in (but no DSC light) for 3 seconds or so.

What do you guys think of the ride height? I dislike the slammed look... I want a functional, performance / functional look:



5. I've got nice new adjustable camber plates up front but, as is frequently the case w/ R53s, you can't reach the adjustment screws because the strut tower opening is too small. I got out the pneumatic grinder and got to work. I got one side done, but decided to give my poor air-compressor a rest. I'll work on enlarging a couple of these corners and doing the other side in the evenings this week.



6. When I put in the new fuel pump a while back (a high performance unit from Colin Greene), I found that both of the fuel gauge float systems had been mangled by a previous wrencher. They were almost impossible to get back into the car correctly and they only made it a test drive or two before failing. I bought new fuel units for each side (complete housing / float / pump / fliter units) and did the install. Maybe that will fix my stumble issue... perhaps it was a fuel starvation thing. If the new fuel units don't help, I'll have to break down and take Rufus in to the dealer. I did this work while working on my grinding project (while giving the air compressor a rest... an open fuel tank and sparks don't mix well), so I haven't been able to test it yet. I put a standard fuel pump in, in case the high flow fuel pump was my stumble issue. If the stumble is still there, maybe I'll go back to it at a later time.

7. I ran a power wire for my GPS so it's tucked out of the way and doesn't dangle / fly around in the twiesties. I usually run a hard line, but this looks pretty good for now. My old GPS was easier to deal with as it took a 12v input. The new one uses a micro USB port, so I'll have to run some sort of converter and I'm getting a bit tired of spending my weekends in the garage. I've got a good solution to get me through MOTD. Maybe I'll build in some dedicated USB ports next winter...

Once I finish my grinding project, MY work on the refresh project is done! I've got an appointment for a corner balance and alignment in a week and I might need to get him into the shop to see about the stumble (and a once-over by a trained tech wouldn't be a bad idea either, really).

 

I got the grinding done, painted both sides and got the car back on the ground. TEST DRIVE! Oh yes! The stumble went away!

I replaced the fuel filter a while back and put in an upgraded fuel pump. While doing that work, I found that the entire fuel assemblies (the 2 white plastic inserts that drop in from the top of the fuel tank) were screwy. The fuel level senders/floats were mangled to the point that they were very hard to get back in place (they ride on spring-loaded feet that reach down to the bottom of the tank and neither foot would stay upright while being inserted into the tank... The feet and float wouldn't stay attached to the casings while being dropped into the tank) and I barely got the filter screen to stay on the bottom of the pump-side assembly. After a test drive or two, both of the feet must have been knocked out of place as the fuel level gauge on the dash just read "Empty" all the time.

I broke down and bought 2 new fuel assemblies (one for the filter, one for the pump) and installed 'em last weekend. I figured that something w/ the fuel system was the likely cause of my issue (that or a vacuum leak somewhere from a hose I forgot to reconnect) and I needed to fix the fuel level sensor issue, so I just bought complete units. When I took the old units out I wasn't surprised to find the fuel level sensor units on their sides in the bottom of the tank, dangling by the electricals. Upon replacement: Voila! 2 problems are fixed... the fuel gauge now works and my stumble problem is gone! I always got the stumble after hard acceleration, so I'm guessing it was some sort of fuel starvation issue. Whatever... I've got a new filter, new fuel pump, the fuel level senders work and the engine is running very well! I'll pull the fuel pump from Colin out of the old unit and stick it on the shelf. For now, I'm not going to worry about it... the car is running well, so I'm going to call it good.

The car started out a bit weak... the engine wouldn't spin up very quickly and everything felt a bit slow, but I'm pretty sure it was the ECU just re-learning things. After 20 minutes or so of running the car through it's paces (and doing the brake pad bedding cycles), I couldn't stop myself from revving at stop lights, just to listen to the burble.

It was so nice to be reminded of why I love the R53 so much and, after the refresh, Rufus really does feel and look like a new R53. The suspension is tight and clean. The turn-in is a bit slower than I had hoped for, but the alignment is all out of whack, so I'm not making any judgments now.

It's all over now other than some PDR, a corner balance / alignment and a safety check... all scheduled for next week. I'm going to wash the car tonight (wife is out of town) to get rid of my greasy hand prints and grit from the past few months of wrenching and will probably play a bit with the ride height this weekend. Whew! A 7 month-long project is almost complete!

 

Well… I’m feeling a bit of closure on my restoration project for Rufus, so I thought I'd write a summary post. I bought him with an eye towards building a sporty, fun, dependable R53 and I think I’m there. I had targeted making it to MOTD 2018 and I got back from that event last week after a wonderful bit of driving.

In August, 2017, I found a 2005 MCS JCW on CarGurus w/ 83k miles and a fairly clean CarFax report. After a remote inspection service checked the car out (they found the normal issues I expected for an R53 of this age), I bought the car and flew out to Austin, TX to pick Rufus up. I let my wife choose the name and, when she saw the Chili Red body, roof and painted arches, her Latin courses from high school kicked in.

Here he is on delivery day:



The purchase went well and I started driving home to Charlotte, NC right after picking him up. I hit an auto parts shop for new wiper blades and a handful of emergency gear (compressor, slime, etc). I made it to the MS/LA border when the idler pulley seized and took out the serpentine belt. It took me until 2pm or so the next day to find the parts and make the repairs, but I made it back home, some 18 hours later than expected, but all in one piece.



I took week off to recover from the trip, but I had to get to work on Rufus fairly quickly

THE LEGAL STUFF

Rufus spent the first 5-6 years of his life in Canada and was then imported down to Austin. When I got him, he was still speaking French (the odometer read in KM, the temp in Celcius and the owners manual was in French). I had the ECU reprogrammed at the dealership, which wiped the memory and caused me some issues with emissions inspections here in NC (you need several hours of driving in the ECU to be sure that no emissions codes are thrown), but I took a 100 mile drive one Saturday morning and made it through that. Once some leaking PS lines were fixed, the title, license and registration happened smoothly. A new battery solved some ECU weirdness.

INTERIOR

I was still pondering the final style of the car, but I knew that the interior would need some help. The space cloth seats were nasty, as was the carpet, so I took all of the seats out and wet vacuumed them all several times. Several screws and the CD changer bracket got sanded and a fresh coat of black paint.

While going over everything, I discovered that the headliner was worse than I thought, so a new sueded liner was put in. New dark grey gauge faces and a Whalen hand brake handle (to match the gear knob that has the JCW engine # engraved on it from owner #1) were fitted. Several other little bits and pieces were replaced or repaired to get everything looking clean and complete.

As I moved on with styling the car, I decided to de-chrome almost everything. I bought some 3M DiNoc vinyl wrap in a medium-grey dry carbon fiber finish and went about learning how to apply vinyl. I did the 3-piece dash in this vinyl and I immediately loved losing all of the glare and reflections from the painted dash pieces. A new set of gauge faces in dark grey were sourced to replace the red/blue Union Jack faces that the previous owner had put on... they were nice, but not the vibe I was going for. The window tint was pretty well shot, so I had the old stuff removed and a fresh layer of ceramic tint applied in a nice dark grey.

As a treat for myself, I got a new GPS unit, a Garmin DriveSmart61NA LMT-S (their big new edge-to-edge model)











EXTERIOR

I went for the easy fix of the antenna base first. It was cracked when I bought it, so a new base and a stubby antenna were ordered. While back there, I installed a brake light pulsar circuit to draw a bit of extra attention to the little car when stopping.

All of the lights looked a bit dated on the car. All of the plastic was faded, hazed and yellowed… not a good look. I replaced the turn signal lenses, polished the fog light lenses (plus silvered bulbs to get rid of the egg-yolk effect) and replaced the side marker lenses w/ smoked plastic and LED lights. The headlights were sanded down and polished clear and I cracked them open and painted the interior housings, Joey mod style, leaving just a bit of chrome inside for sparkle. I tried to save the tail lights, but they were too far gone. I opened up the new tail light housings and painted any chrome in there black.

Just for fun, I got some JCW logo puddle lights… why not? About this time I did a chip repair on the windshield, just to make sure the heated windshield doesn’t crack (a Canadian option… it has to be pricy). I also found a club badge for my old crew, Metroplex MINI in Dallas, so I ordered one up for my new club, Tar Heel MINIs, here in the Carolinas.

I took the same vinyl from the interior and wrapped lots of bits on the outside: headlight rings, gas cap, door handle covers, side mirror caps and the cap over the rear license plate. I also got some matte black tape to black out the chrome beltline just under the windows.

A new set of Hella Twin Tone horns went in as well… one of the horns wasn’t working when I bought Rufus and they were pretty weak to start with.

I’m a Zaino guy, so once the exterior paintwork was done (below), I polished out everything and applied 3 coats of Zaino.













WHEELS AND TIRES

I went through several different false starts, but I finally settled on OZ Ultraleggeras in 17” with a matte graphite finish and Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R tires (very sticky summer tires) in 205/45R17. My thoughts here were that the Ultraleggeras were light and had a look of 18” wheels given their spokes that run all the way out to the rubber. Rufus is a fun only car for me (not my daily driver), so I figured I could get away with high wearing rubber. They were ordered up from Tire Rack and they showed up less than 48 hours later!




BODY WORK

There were several rust spots spread across the car, so I knew he was going to the body shop. About ½ of the body panels were repainted and those that weren’t got some PDR love. Both the bonnet and rear hatch were being painted, so I had them remove all of the badging and weld up the holes that were put there at the factory for badging (nose wipe and booty wipe).

I had picked up some used aero side sills in Dallas on my way home with the car, so these got a fresh coat of paint and were mounted up.

Anything in red color pencil was repainted!




ENGINE

My goal is to have a very dependable R53 (seems like an oxymoron at times), so I’m doing a lot of service in advance of it really being needed. I don’t like my fun time being impacted by maintenance or repairs, so it’s a trade I’m willing to make. It’s probably easier to show a bulleted list of jobs that were done:

• Crank pulley replaced w/ a SuperDamper unit
  
• Belt, belt tensioner and idler pulley were replaced (I had to put on a plastic idler pulley on the way home and I’d prefer a good quality metal unit
  
• Vibra-Technics engine damper (mount)
  
• Superchager oil service
  
• Water pump
  
• Thermostat and thermostat housing
  
• Redline MTL transmission oil replacement
  
• Oil and oil filter change
  
• New spark plug wires
  
• New spark plugs (1 degree colder)
  
• Fuel filter and fuel pump (both complete assemblies, fighting some gauge and fuel starvation issues)
  
• Timing chain guide rails and tensioner
  
• Coolant exchange w/ new brass bleeder screw
  
• New valve cover gasket and bolts
  
• New fuel injector seals and clamps
  
• Lots of seals, gaskets and clamps

SUSPENSION & BRAKES

The suspension work took me much longer than I expected. The first 5+ years of the car’s life was spent in Canada and so many parts were seized together that I did a lot of extra work. I broke a ball joint extractor, 2 pickle forks and the few pieces that did separate were damaged during the separation process. I got pretty good w/ penetrating oil and a torch, but to no avail. I also had the heads of both pinch bolts that hold the front struts to the wheel carrier snap off, necessitating 2-3 hours of drilling to extract the bolts.

• Greene coil overs (BC units w/ custom valves and Swift springs) w/ front camber plates – had to grind out the upper strut mount holes to be able to adjust camber.
  
• HR Rear Swaybar
  
• Inner and outer front ball joints
  
• New front lower control arms w/ Powerflex bushings
  
• adjustable end-links on all 4 corners
  
• new tie rods (inner and outer)
  
• strut tower brace
  
• lower rear control arms
  
• A BBK in red from Wilwood… the new 6-pot calipers up front and the hand brake capable calipers for the back. I didn’t like the length of the new front lines they sent me, so I had some new ones made up that were 5 inches longer. The rears came together nicely w/ the special kit from Todd at TCE Performance.
  
• Set the ride height, corner balance & alignment

WRAPPING IT UP AND MOTD 2018

I was trying to finish this project for MOTD 2018 and I got it done w/ just a week or so to spare. I ran out to Sal at Kintech to have everything I did looked over well and the report came back positive!






WHATS NEXT?

Is modding ever really finished? Probably not, but I’ve got a few projects on the notepad already. I’m in no hurry as I’m really looking forward to driving the car for a bit, but here’s the list of things that are up next… probably once the weather turns cold again in the winter.

• A new clutch… probably OEM style w/ a Quaif LSD while I’m in there
  
• re-apply the foam on the inside of the vents, just under the rear hatch… it’s falling apart
  
• Install a new cooling fan resistor to fix the low speed fan
  
• Fix the aux input jack (the install is bit dodgy looking)
  
• Have the steering wheel refurbished (it’s a bit hard and needs more padding)… a new gear shift gater and e-brake boot as well
  
• Engine bay cleanup and dressing
  
• Perhaps a new power steering pump… this one seems to be a bit slow for the first 20-30 seconds of the car running.
  
• ???

 

Well... it's time for the annual NC state inspection, so I can't ignore the codes that Rufus threw a month or so ago...

The first one was a fuel system evap leak (P0455 Evaporative Emission System Leak Detected - Large leak). The previous owner disclosed that a mechanic shop had mentioned a crack fuel filler neck, so that was a likely culprit. I drove the car until the fuel was down to 1/8 of a tank, ordered parts and bolted it up. It took all of an hour and required less than 10 fasteners to be removed. Jack up the rear left corner, remove the wheel, remove the wheel well liner, remove 2 bolts that attach the filler neck and one worm-drive clamp that attaches the filler to the gas tank. Open up the new parts and install in reverse order as removal. While I was in there, I replaced the gas cap as well... that's a usual likely culprit for a leak like this.

There's where the filler neck attaches to the gas tank (the worm drive clamp in the back, a bit fuzzy in this pic)



and a good overall pic of the filler neck, in the left rear wheel arch (liner removed).


Here's where the neck pokes through under the gas cap door, from the inside of the wheel well.



I also had a code P0138 O2 Sensor Circuit High Voltage Bank 1 Sensor 2, which a bit of research means that either the post-cat O2 sensor is bad (most likely) or the cat is having issues (less likely). I decided to try the simple fix first, so I orded a pair of NGK O2 sensors (I've read bad things about off-brand o2 sensors and wierd stuff about the Bosch sensor only working well in the post-cat position. They were $90 each on Amazon, so I got 2.

Last night I put the front left corner up on a jack stand (as high as it could go) and removed that wheel. The post-cat sensor is easy enough to get to with the offset O2 sensor socket (a $25 set from Amazon came with an assortment of shapes/sizes, which is good as I needed a different one for the other sensor) in the photo below. There was a 10mm nut holding some heat shielding in place that covered the wiring, but it was really a simple replacement job. I was amazed that the old sensor wasn't rusted on there... it came out smoothly and I was expecting a fight (I had my penetrating oil and torch under the car with me already). Unplug the cable, screw in the new O2 sensor finger tight, turn 3/4 revolution to tighten and plug it up. Replace the heat shield and you are done!

The pre-cat sensor was in a tricky location, just behind the engine, under the coolant tank. If you remove the rear plugs from the coil pack (and remove the strut tower bar in my case) you can just barely reach it once you bend some heat shielding out of the way. I was able to get the deep socket from my set on this one and it broke free nicely as well. I had to get creative w/ some zip-ties to make sure the wire didn't hit the header, but it all went back together again nicely.

I got the car put back together again and cleared the code. It started right up and ran smoothly in the garage, but I'll need to drive it a bit and go through several start/stop cycles to see if the code comes back or if I fixed it.
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EDIT: I made a 25 mile trip at lunch with 5-6 on/off cycles and no codes thrown! I need to get another 50 miles on the clock before having the inspection done, but this is good news!

 

Just got the call from my local guys.

The charcoal canister is cracked and leaking... probably the cause of the evap leak, but they see evidence that there is a leak on the top driver's side fuel tank. They are wondering if the car bottomed out on something, pushed the fuel tank up and cracked various bits on the top of the tank, along with the charcoal canister. Oh well... that's life w/ a 13+ year old MINI. New parts are on the way and they are going to drop the tank to investigate.

The guy did say that he usually cringes when he sees a modded up car come in, but was amazed that I had real, quality parts on there... the mechanics were having fun.

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EDIT: Second call back from the mechanic's shop. I had authorized the charcoal canister replacement and labor to investigate the fuel leak from the top of the tank. They found that the top of the tank was cracked and had a good-sized hole in it. They think they spotted a place where a piece of lumber (spot was shaped like a corner section of a 2x4) may have hit the fuel tank, lifting it and breaking the top of the tank... possibly the charcoal canister at the same time. $370 for a new OEM fuel tank, expedited (get it tomorrow instead of 3 days for $50 more). I've got a fun drive this Sunday and I want some safety margin to get the car back for that and time to test drive it, so I paid up.

 

The wheel and new boots arrived today! I can't wait to get out for the install, but I've got too many meetings on my calendar today. Maybe tonight!

I'm so happy I went with the smooth leather. Chico uses such a nicer grade of leather than the OEM stuff. It feels great!

I did run out and grab some parts so I could put everything together for a quick look!

 

He's been trapped in the garage by the potted plants we brought in to protect from the freeze... that and I've had the steering wheel airbag off of the car, so the batter was disconnected for a bit. I took him out for the first drive tonight to test out the new wheel! He goes off to the shop this weekend for clutch, LSD and a new PS pump. Yea!

I've done my time up in the frosty north... lived in Canada for several years when I was young, my family is from Michigan and I did 4 years or so in the Connecticut / NY area. You can have it! I'm staying down south where it's warmer!

Here's pics of the final install:

 

Well... I got a call from Kinetech Motorworks last week, the shop where Rufus has been staying for a while.

New Southbend Stage 2 'driver' clutch is going in with guide tube and throw-out bearing, of course.

New Quaife LSD is going in, with new bearings.

New Transmission seal, differential seal and oil cooler seals.

They discovered that the axle boots were decayed/torn and the axles needed replacement (went with OEM as I've heard dodgy things about the inexpensive aftermarket ones and I don't need crazy high power ones as I'm not intending to go crazy with engine mods... I'm very happy w/ my stock JCW power. Maybe I'll drop a 16% pulley on at some point (if it is convenient and I'm in there for another job), but I can't ever see going past that.

I'll give 'em a call later today to check in... Friday is my drop-dead day. I need Rufus back in time to do an oil change and install my VHF radio before MOTD.

 

I asked a friend of mine, Alycyn Drew, to take some photos this year while at MOTD. Here are a few of my favorites:









And one from 128Photos.com from when I was leading the Donut Run across the Dragon on Friday morning.

 

I finally got the garage cleaned up last weekend from the tiling project. Parts have been arriving, but the Airtec Intercooler is taking it's sweet time getting here. I wonder if they are drop-shipping from the UK.

The new Canton tanks are here and they are gorgeous. The new coolant hoses are much thicker and stiffer than the set I had on my first R53, so I'm really happy there.

I need to get started on my punch-list or I won't be done in time for MOTD.

 

Welp... apparently my front shock pinch-bolt drill-out fiasco from a few years back isn't holding. The coil overs were loose in the mount and they couldn't get it tight enough to hold well, which is probably what caused the front alignment to cord the tires.

New steering knuckles are on the way. Oh well! At least I'm saving a bunch of cash by not eating out during the Corona Virus stay-home order, so I can afford it!

On the good side, BMP Performance here in Charlotte has great communication. I've never worked with a shop that actually did the work when they said they would and called to keep you informed about what was going on.

They have a tune from ARP for my wife's new Audi A6 daily driver... it adds about a ton of hp (335 to 450). I might have to do it.

 

The part is back-ordered at the factory, but here's what's on the way for my spare tire hard-mount solution:



I'm also waiting for the folks at GMP Performance to call me back... Rufus has been away at 'summer camp' waiting for parts to arrive on the front suspension refresh, cornerbalance, tire mount and alignment . It has been nice having a bit of extra space in the garage while I'm wrapping up some projects around the house, but I'm looking forward to having him back and rolling right!

 

Interesting how you guys went to lingerie and condoms. It reminds me a bit of Borat's front-thong bathing suit (I am NOT going to post a pic).

I wanted something that was fitted. I could have gone for a baggier solution (the same company has one), but I didn't want movement with wind, etc. The car would only be covered while in the garage and recently cleaned, but over time even gentle movement can cause rubbing/wear with many repetitions.

 

In post #506 above, I put in a photo of a J-hook. That part arrived yesterday and I spent some time out in the back of the car, fiddling with that hook. I found that if I lay the rear seats down, I can hook the J through a baby-seat attachment point on the back side of the seat and tighten it down. This will give me a way to secure my full-sized spare for longer road trips (so it doesn't turn into a projectile in an accident). My original bungie-cord solution broke down on a run last year at MOTD, so I wanted to find a solution with a hard attachment mechanism. I've gotta get a 19mm wrench to keep in the car to remove the nut, but it looks like it will be a solid fix.

 

I took Rufus in for the annual inspection a few weeks back. The guy gave me a 'pass' but mentioned that both of my license plate lights were out and it should have been a fail. He said something like "It's obvious that you take care of the car. I gave you a pass, but do me a favor and take care of 'em, would ya?" I gave him a fist bump and said I would and that I appreciate the courtesy.

Promise made. Promise kept. 2 new Bosch bulbs were put in this morning. The plate is now well illuminated.

I also went to program my radio for a club drive in a few weeks and couldn't find the specialty cable that connects a laptop to the radio. I'm glad that I tried to do this a few weeks early as I couldn't find the damn cable and now I've got a new one on order. I HATE not being able to find my tools!

Also, in prep for the drive, I put my full-sized spare in the back and bolted it down. I'll grab a pic the next time I'm out in the garage. I never liked having that tire loose in the back as it would become a projectile in a hard accident and the bungies I was using to hold it in place would probably have all of the holding power of a wet noodle at those loads.

 

Work on the car has been delayed by some unexpected events in my life, but I got out in the garage the other day for some serious wrenching time. It was very good for my soul.

I got the top of the engine stripped down (intercooler, fuel rail, valve cover, several brackets) and the belt side prepped (belt off, belt tensioner off, motor mount off). I had a bit of a fight with the E12 bolt that threads up into the bottom of the motor mount, but some penetrating oil, time and an impact wrench finally got it free. I've got the bolt loose on the crank pulley and on the cam sprocket, so I'm about ready to start putting on the new parts.

Here's my list for tomorrow:
- belt tensioner
- crank seal
- crank pulley
- idler pulley
- engine mount
- serpentine belt
- plugs
- valve cover gasket
- timing chain guides
- timing chain tensioner

 

I spent yesterday evening assembling brake hats/rotors... Loctite & safety wire... fun!