2006 Cooper S. Toggle bank has all 6 switches. The entire set of switches has a bit of an up and down wobble to it now. The outer unti doesn't move, just the toggle switches move up and down a bit. It's this thing.... The outer case is fine, the U shaped dividers do not move. It is only when you go to flip a switch up or down that all the switches move up or down accordingly. From looking at the image above this a sealed unit. Any idea on how to take this apart and tighten it back up?
I doubt if this will help, but on the 2nd gen cars each switch clips into an actuator (for lack of a better word), a bank of which are mounted to the center stack. The cover simply goes over the entire thing. I guess all the switches could move a bit if the bank itself became lose. Looks like yours is a complete unit. Jim
Hey Nathan I had to fix this exact same thing on my 05. You are right it's a sealed unit but your problem is it has come unsealed. First you need to remove the side down tubes so you can get to the screws that hold the toggle switch panel in. Once you remove them you can pull out the whole panel and unplug the ribbon cable from the back. When you have panel out and in your hands you can see the bottom part has become unglued / unsealed from the front plate. You can squeeze it together and and run a little fine bead of epoxy and let it sit and dry. It's kind of hard to explain but once you have it out of the dash you will see what I am talking about. If you have any questions just let me know.
It's not a sealed unit. I've taken mine apart. Ian Cull has a writeup and a gallery of pictures: Ians GBMINI website » Inside the toggle switch panel
There are parts of the unit that are glued together and they have come loose. I know you can open them up and remove the board. I also have also done this. When the parts get loose and do not clip back together you have to add "a little" glue to keep everything tight again when you put it back together. If you dont it will just come apart again later and it is such a PITA to take out again.
Short Story - Fixed. Longer version. This is not as bad as I thought. The pain in the butt part is the downtube on the passenger side since the glove box door is in the way but the downtube can be finessed out of the way enough to remove the screw holding the toggle bank in place. The face of the toggle switch bank came right off in my hand once the screws were out. Pretty easy to tell that was where the problem was. As you can see in the image below along the top the far right tab was broken off. Along the bottom only 1 tab was still there out of 5. While apart might as well clean the switches...oh...shiny... Using some medium thickness Zap-A-Gap CA+ adhesive that fills small gaps I ran a bead where the face and body meet on the bottom. Since one of the tabs on the top broke off when I touched the darn thing I glued that back on and filled the gap there too. This puppy is not coming back apart. Used this time while all apart to clean up in the area even more then buttoned it all back up.
Nice job Nathan. It's an easy fix once you get it out of the dash. Yeah, that passenger side posts is a PITA.
The downtubes for 2005+ are really easy to deal with. Remove the screws and push the tubes DOWN (detaching their tops from where they stick into the dash). At this point, the tops of the tubes can be spread out far enough that the mounting screws for all of the center console components are exposed. Ians GBMINI website » ’06 MINI downtubes
The passenger side was a bit harder to move sideways even when it was pushed down and out of the slot in the dash, the glove box door is kinda in the way. There was just enough room to get to the screw on the toggles. The screws for the radio and HVAC controls were a lot easier to access. Mine is an 06 BTW.
I don't remember having any problem with the passengers side. I was going to run out to my car to check, but it wasn't there! (Gone with my wife -- I'll look later) I found this photo by Ian Cull: Maybe just pull the tube forward?
I looked at it in my car. My downtube won't pull forward as far as shown in Ian's photo, and I don't have completely open access to the screws like that. However, pulling the downtube forward together with its flexibility gives me a good amount of clearance and it hasn't caused any difficulty for me.
There is a difference between the 02-04 and 05-06. Notice how in the image above the lnee boldter on the drivers side is pulled down and out of the way too.
That photo is of Ian's GP (hence it is a 2006). He installed red toggle switch rings. Also note red stitching on the shift boot and red piping on the floor mat that came with the GP.