Most liked posts in thread: The Phoenix - The GP Roadster Project

Haz Railz.




So drunken glassware won't fall off.

 

Yeah, I know that.

It was a gift. So screw the law.

 

Told ya there'd be more Union Jacks. Blimey's new logo. Won't make him go any faster, and won't even be there when he's on the track... but fun when he's not.



Remember... this theme started a lonnnnnng time ago...

 

Step 12, continued

Received my 36" long piece of 1/4" wall 1.5" T6. This is a pretty beefy tube.


But needs to be if I have any illusion of maybe getting a little stiffness benefit from the refabricated OEM roll bar. It's going here...


So, to fit the crossbar, I had to resort to some old school die grinder work.

Covered everything in sheets first to minimize vacuum work later. Aluminum chips are a pain to get out of everything.

Very labor-intensive trial and error process. Grind a little, test fit, repeat. Stop every few minutes to pick the embedded aluminum out of my carbide cutter. You wouldn't want to pay what someone would probably charge to do this. Took a few hours.

But finally.... Done.




Tested... plenty of clearance for whatever is going to attach to this, and for the top to go up and down.



Now need to get it over to my TIG welding guy, sometime this week, hopefully. Tack it, pull it out, and weld it. Then will do more shaping and grinding to get the finished product like I want it.

 

Blimey 2.0's first track day, at CMP. My first time at this track. Great day! Only a handful of folks at the track, almost like a private track day.



Well, this happened



Video of one good lap and the date with the tire wall. If you're impatient, the exciting part is after 2:20

[ame=http://youtu.be/MXDgUdn1zII]Blimey CMP 20140810 - YouTube[/ame]

The good news... Not a ton of damage for what it was. Only cosmetic on the drivers side. Hey, it's a track car. It happens. Will beat out the dents and do it some more. :cornut:



It's what this car is all about, no tears shed. Re-seated the tire, drove it home, and will continue the transmogrification.

 

It happens. I'm actually kinda glad to get that out of the way. Because I knew it was inevitable - if you're gonna drive the car (and yourself) to the limit, you're going to do that sooner or later. I don't have to worry about it anymore, now I can just DRIVE IT.

I definitely found the limit of both me and the car on that particular day.

Video is priceless. I see EXACTLY what I did wrong, and know how to correct it. It's not at all what I thought before I analyzed the video.

In case you're curious, the car went into understeer coming out of that corner because I wasn't unwinding the steering early enough. When it understeered I failed to go ahead and straighten out and take the "off" on the right side, if that's what it meant... I instinctively fought it and tried to pull it back on... which doesn't work when you already have no front traction.

I have really good instincts to deal with oversteer, because that's what MINIs do in the mountains all the time. But I rarely push the car hard enough on the street to make it understeer, with sticky tires and lots of front camber. I don't have those instincts tuned in quite yet. I was practicing this on other corners earlier in the day and doing it right... but I failed on this one.

Learning is hard, sometimes.

 

Rolled the transmission out into the sun and cleaned it up good. Then put it on the bench and got started.

First things first:
You'd be a FOOL to crack an automatic transmission open, without the right one of these:


It's extremely detailed, with all schematics, electrical and hydraulic testing parameters, and step-by-step tear down, inspection, rebuild and reassembly instructions. This one is 124 pages long. Here's a typical level of detail:


About $30 on ebay and elsewhere. Or you can view it online here:
TF60-SN ATSG Manual

So after pulling off the pan, valve body, gear selector switch and heat exchanger, it's time to remove 21 bolts and crack open the case. Here's what you'll see:


The book makes tear-down easy. Really no big deal. After a couple of hours, you end up with a table that looks like this:


I took GREAT CARE to follow the directions in sequence, and lay out the parts in the sequence removed to aid in both identification and reassembly.

All the hard parts (gears, bearings, etc.) looked perfect. My suspicion was that one or more clutches were toast. Especially the K2 clutch, which is pretty much what always fails. I took apart all the clutch and brake assemblies and inspected them thoroughly.
They all looked pretty much like new, except for this one (the K2):


The first clue was the discoloration of the steel pressure plate on the top of the stack. That should be clean and shiny... not looking like it's been on fire...

Disassembled:


And, sure enough, most of the friction plates showed obvious wear, with some surfaces completely lacking any friction material... looks like it had been running metal-on-metal for a while. Here's the worst friction plate surface (should be a textured black surface... NOT shiny...):


And a typical steel plate looked like this:


So that's a good reason why my transmission pan magnets looked like this:

Lots of metal dust being created...

One common reason why this happens, is that a press-fit sleeve that the whole assembly rides on can spin on the case, and block some fluid ports, making the whole thing FUBAR. I haven't tested this sleeve yet, but I suspect that's the problem.


There's a better-then-new replacement part available that won't spin, I have one on order, along with all new seals and o-rings, new friction plates for all the clutches and brakes, and replacement steel plates for the K2 clutch. When all that gets here, we'll go in the reverse order.

 

Been a while since I did an update.

Took a weekend off last weekend. Today, worked on the engine.

Pulled the flywheel and timing cover. Replaced front and rear main seals, oil pump sealing rings, timing chain, chain guides, timing cover seal. Also replaced the leaky oil filter housing gasket.

Interesting that, after 151k miles, my chain guides looked like new with no visible wear. I've heard of other folks who have had them completely worn out at lower mileage. I replaced them anyway... already had new ones.

All the seals were like hard plastic... no wonder it had started seeping from various places. Should have a nice leak-free engine for a while when all this is done.

One of my intake rockers is missing its lash cap, so ordered a replacement rocker.

I also took the opportunity to perform the "flapectomy" on my JCW airbox. Since the car isn't a daily driver, I don't really care now if the throttle whistles a bit. More intake air is better. I also removed the circular plate blocking the lower rear inlet to the box, and removed all the various vacuum gear related to the flap. Saved a few ounces, and one less Rube-Goldberg thingy to break. Installed a new Amsoil filter in the box. Figured after 5 years on the old one, it was due. Should breathe better now.

 

Yep. Rocker replaced. Newer torque converter installed, tranny and engine bolted back together, and stuffed back into the car. Had my stomach stapled 10 days ago, so I can't push the car around the garage right now to finish it.... But soooooon.

Did replace all 4 driveshaft CV boots this weekend. Might get it all back together next weekend...

 

That's a very good question.
Because 4 days ago, I had no idea.

Most insurance salvage auctions in the US are handled by IAAI
They sell primarily to licensed automotive businesses (dealers, wreckers, reconstructors, brokers, etc.). In some states, members of the public can purchase from them directly. You pay them $200/yr to register, just to be able to bid. They make their money on auction fees paid by the buyer, based on the total value of the auction. Figure about 15%.

IAAI has over 150 auction centers throughout the US. You can search their auctions on their website. They typically have several auctions happening every day. You can search by make, model (at a high level), location, etc. They list cars that are ready for auction, as well as cars that have been reported to them by insurance but for which titling, etc. has not yet completed. So some cars have an auction date, others don't have a date set yet.

The search is not very sophisticated. They don't recognize anything more specific than "2006 MINI Cooper". From there, you have to browse all the cars to find what you're looking for. It can take some research time. For each car, you can see pics and some very vague descriptions of the damage. If you're local to a car, you can go see it in person. But generally, you're rolling the dice based on the damage you (think) you see in the photos.

For most people, the best option is to work with a broker. I worked with SalvageBid.com. For $250 per transaction, they will proxy bid on your behalf, and act as the middleman between you, IAAI, and transport companies. This enables you to bid on any car IAAI sells in the US, without any licensing issues.

You put down a security deposit with SalvageBid (on a credit card) for 10% of the maximum value you will bid (minimum $400). After 30 days of no bidding activity, if you're all paid up with them on any auctions, they automatically refund the security deposit.

The auction process is kinda weird. Once an auction date is set, they open up a period called "pre-bidding", that lasts until the day of the actual live auction. During this period, you can bid on the car, "eBay style". While it looks like this is happening on SalvageBid's site (and you're doing your bids through them), they are actually submitting your maximum bid to IAAI's system and this is where it's being tracked. All brokers and IAAI registered bidders can bid during the pre-bid period. The actual price goes up as folks make competing bids, to each bidder's maximum - just like eBay. You either win the pre-bid, or you get outbid.

At the end of the pre-bid, whatever the price is, becomes the opening bid of the live auction. Let's say you put in $5000 as your maximum, and you won the pre-bid at $2500. Then that's the opening bid. At the time of the auction, your car comes up and registered bidders on-site, at other iAAI sites, and online (not you... but the professionals and the IAAI direct registered bidders) can make competitive bids on the car, just like at a live auction. The proxy system will continue to bid on your behalf, up to your maximum bid. You can watch and hear this live auction on-line. They go very fast - about 30 seconds per car. They typically sell a hundred to several hundred cars at each auction site in each auction, over the course of 1-3 hours. It's pretty addictive to watch.

So that's how I won this car. Found it searching IAAI. I registered with SalvageBid and put down a security deposit sufficient for my maximum bid. I placed a bid during pre-bidding. Some other folks bid during pre-bidding, and ran the price up to a few thousand bucks. Then at the live auction, that was the starting price, and some other bidders ran the price up some more. But, ultimately, no one was willing to pay as much as I was. Win.

On top of the actual car price, you also pay IAAI's auction fee and a documentation fee, plus SalvageBid's $250 transaction fee. Plus shipping if the vehicle is not local. So it all adds up A LOT. The SalvageBid site has a calculator to help you anticipate the total "off the lot" price, as well as shipping costs, prior to you bidding.

After you win, you have until the end of the next business day to pay, by WIRE TRANSFER ONLY.

SalvageBid has been FANTASTIC to work with so far. Their systems and communication work very well. A live person has traded a bunch of emails with me today to handle payment and shipping.

There are other auction businesses out there (Copart is one), but most of the selection is available through IAAI and SalvageBid.

 

So, this happened

Stuff just got real.







It's pretty much everything I hoped for. :biggrin5:

On the outside, everything from the front wheels to the rear wheels is in nearly perfect condition. Skirts and underbody panels are intact. I can reuse all of the front bumper parts except the painted cover. Wing spoiler looks perfect. Wheels look perfect. Actually has a Milltek exhaust on it, bent just a little, but should be easily fixable.

Interior is dirty, but in good condition. Luckily someone figured out how to get the windows closed. Drivers seat is broken and both seats are worn, so Chris may get his seat sensor. We'll see. Everything I need from the interior should be fine, though it may be a few weeks before I start putting any energy into interior work.

Started the disassembly. Engine and transmission look fine so far, other than the normal front-of-engine leaks that haven't been fixed, and lots of broken plastic stuff that I wasn't counting on being intact (SC intake tube, JCW intake, snorkel, coil, etc.



So far, so good. Fingers remain crossed.:fingerscrossed: