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

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention it. The guy from ASAP Tire that did my mounting had 4 floor-jacks in the back of his van. No jack-stands for him! He would normally just whip out the 4 jacks and lift all 4 corners that way!

Probably not a way that I'd want to support a car that I was going to crawl under, but he doesn't go under the cars... he just pulls the tires out the side. It's all about speed and ease for him and it makes perfect sense (plus, his jacks were much nicer than the Amazon special that I use that are only a step or two above Harbor Freight quality).

 

Note: The adjustment extenders are brilliant! I dialed the suspension to a few clicks away from full soft for the 3-4 hour drive to the Dragon and then dialed them back to 5-6 clicks away from full stiff once I was there. It REALLY made that hightway ride much more pleasant.

One more successful trip to MOTD, making it home in one piece with no known damage!

 

And here's my favorite Killboy shot from the week:

 

The list of work for Rufus is getting shorter and shorter.

When I was at MOTD, I was having a problem with the driver's side floor mat (OEM carpet mats). I'm tall and have big feet. I'm also not as nimble as I once was and it takes a bit of shuffling to get in the car (especially when parked on an angle, as most cabins at Fontana require). The little velcro circles that anchor the driver's side floor mat to the carpet started peeling away and the mat was going crazy, shuffling around under my feet when on the twisty roads.

I ordered a new floor mat anchoring system from Amazon earlier this week... I'm looking forward to trying it. Photos and a review to come soon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WP39VBM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

I forgot to report an interesting swap I made at MOTD this year. A couple who was on one of my drives reached out a few days before asking if I had a CD changer in the back of Rufus. Amazingly (it was a low-pickup option) I did. Apparently they had an R53 w/ a CD changer and upgraded unexpectedly to a gen 3 a few years back... I'm assuming that the R53 was in an accident and was totaled. They pulled the CD changer out of the boot before the car disappeared, but couldn't get their old CDs out of the changer. The cartridge that carries the CDs needs power to be ejected and they didn't have the car anymore! They brought the whole changer with them to MOTD and, in return for a bit of disassembly of my unit and connecting their old one to the power line & returning their long-trapped CDs to them, they gave me the spare CD changer and CD carrier! How nice! Now I've got 2 carriers (so I can load up an extra set of CDs for a road trip) and a spare CD changer should I ever need one.

 

It was time for the annual state inspection, so I took Rufus in at lunch today. Everything was OK on my way there, but when they started the car at the inspection place, the CEL popped on. I've had a "Lean Bank 1" persistent issue when I don't get the car out on the highway for a good cruise every so often, but the CEL means an instant fail.

I hopped on the highway, drove 15 miles, turned around and drove back. When I was near the place, I turned off the car, restarted and the CEL went out! WIN! I drove carefully to the inspection station and passed! Woo!

Also... on the way home, the "Service Engine Soon" light came on! Thanks, Rufus, for not popping that light while at the inspection place!

I'll have to pull out the code reader and figure out the SES this weekend. Maybe the oil service timer just went off...

 

Not so much about Rufus, but the GPS that usually resides on his dash... I bought the latest/greatest Garmin unit about 3-4 years back and this thing is brilliant. I took it on a recent England/Wales adventure to use in the rental car (with the Garmin maps for the UK on a micro SD card) and it was spectacular! It was MUCH better than the nav system that came in the Peugeot 3008 rental car (a smaller SUV) we had and, by the end of the trip, I had transitioned to using only the Garmin to get us where we needed to go. I've got a soft-sided case for this with tons of adapters / power cords / mount options for when we travel (it did a great job on a Germany / Switzerland / Austria trip before COVID began).

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/720310/pn/010-02471-00
(I think that this is the largest of the Garmin Drive units... it was the largest when I bought it 3-4 years back)

As a person who leads group drives, the newer Garmins have a pre-programmable route system now. You can enter waypoints for a drive in advance and save the collection to memory. My regular MOTD drives are laid in and are easy to call up every year now.

My wife got sick and, unfortunately, we had to skip the MINI factory tour, but we did do a drive-by and waved to all of the workers and cars in assembly.

 

Rufus has been running like a top and passing annual inspections for the past few years... just being the perfect garage queen, fun-only car that he is. I did a couple of club drives this year and had some fun. It's hard to believe that I got him over 6 years ago and started the refresh documented here.

I did a 4-5 hour drive in early October and then left him in the garage for a few weeks. I went out to do an oil change and noticed a fat blob of fresh, black/green grease inside of the driver's side wheel. It was 2-3 tablespoons and looks like it ran right down the wheel carrier and splattered into the inside of the wheel. Ugh... Axle seal went (and the passenger side was apparently going). New axle on the driver's side and new seals/boots all around.

He's ready for a final wash of the year and then the cover goes on for the winter! I love the ultra-high-performance summer tires that I put on, but they turn to glass when the temps get too cool. I'll have to just have fun w/ my wife's Audi in the winter. Her A6 is just about at the end of the factory warranty... I think that an APR tune (yielding 50-ish HP and a bunch of torque) will be going into her car soon.

It looks like Rufus and I are going to miss MOTD again next year. I agreed to a big trip w/ my wife next spring without considering the IMPORTANT dates and we will be away that weekend!

 

It was a good weekend!

I got the last coat of Zaino buffed off and made it around the car a couple of times with detailing spray and Zaino's Ultimate Finish spray.





I also sorted through all of the parts that I've been accumulating, organized the garage and preped Rufus for the next step, a deep engine service!

I did get out for a nice 20 minute drive... really just to get the engine up to temp and running smoothly for a bit, cruise around the neighborhood, blast 2-3 exits down the highway, u-turn and head home. It's been mighty cold here and every start I've done lately was just 20-40 seconds of moving the car around the driveway.



I'm going to try and take this work in steps, so if something goes wrong I've got a limited number of things that might be the issue. I've got a whole day off in a week, so I think I'll get going with the timing chain guides and adjuster, along with new gaskets and seals as needed. I've still got some research to do, but it might be a good time to do the new belt tensioner, crank seal, crank pulley, idler pulley and engine mount. It depends on how much work I'll be re-doing to get the car reassembled and tested, then stripped back again.

 

I decided to spend the cash n the VibraTechnics mount... I hate the black ooze.

 

I got the old plugs out the other day... I LOVE this plug socket!

 

It's possible... I was playing along with the video as I had never removed the valve cover before. I've got a whole new set of valve cover bolts coming (rust caused one to break, causing a minor leak, so I'm replacing all of Em as they looked a bit shady), so I'll confirm and adjust when I get a second look under there with my new-found experience.

 

Just heard from Collin Greene on Facebook. He says that the 6-pot calipers can flex under hard use (serious track time). I'm not going there, but it's good to know for folks who might.

 

I had the BP-10 Wilwood pads on Jango for the street. I never noticed a lot of dust or it being particularly sticky. I just washed the wheels w/ wash water (regular car detergent) after finishing the body panels and any dust came off easily. This is the normal Wilwood street pad (what's going on when I mount the BBK). I had the stock pads on stock calipers for 5k miles and switched 'em because of the nasty dust. I added SS lines and upgraded aftermarket pads (not EBC greens, but they were similar... can't remember) along with the brass collar upgrade (requires regular maintenance, but I was in there regularly anyway) and it was a great, cost-effective approach to improved braking performance.

I got Jango's BBK second-hand and I think I had a set of 'E' compound pads from the previous owner that were fairly well spent. I used 'em on one track weekend and they were done. It was early in my track experiences and they were grippier than stock once you got some heat into 'em. I switched to the Polymatrix B as I was doing a few Auto-X events as well and the PolyB pads have a better cold-grip and nearly the same hot grip. You are right... they are hard on rotors and the dust is heavy and nasty, though that could be a function of use and temperature. I could even find brake dust plumes stuck to the front fender, behind the wheel. I did like the PolyB pads and, should I decide to do some track time, I'll probably order a set.

 

Ugh... I hate doing the fuel filter swap and, even worse is the fuel pump. If you are going with a stock pump, you should just buy the entire assembly and save yourself the pain. I went with Colin's uprated fuel pump, which fit nicely into the stock unit, but required a complete disassembly. It's got so many wires and floppy bits (the fuel level float) that it's one of those fussy jobs that I hate. I decided to try and 'save time' by not removing the passenger seat, but I really should have... it would have made this work so much more pleasant! With my height and size it would have been nice for that much work.

Everything is back together again, but I can't fire up the car to test it until my thermostat housing bracket arrives. Oh well... time to get some yard work done!

 

Yep, and yep. I always have a fire extinguisher handy when I'm working out in the garage... you never know what will happen!

Lots of work going on. The pile of engine parts is getting smaller and smaller (once I can button up the previous jobs, I'm down to the supercharger oil service (w/ associated gaskets & coolant flush), oil change and transmission oil change... all jobs that I've done before. I think I've got all of the parts assembled for the brakes and suspension work (I'm sure I'll find something else that needs to be replaced or has rusted through). It's starting to feel a bit more manageable and I've got a day off of work in a week w/ no wife in the house, so if I can get the car back to running state, I can start that next phase and hopefully be done w/ the engine stuff in the next few weeks (fingers crossed).