Still on the original 11 year old battery in NW Ohio. Although this winter will probably see an end to it.
multi tasking today - coolant refill and drain and another refill to get the green crap out the previous owner put in there. put the passenger seat back in and deleted airbag codes (Creator C310 scan tool - a great $40 investment, no dealer visit for me). Also working in the rear seat delete cover plate. Second one I am building, so it's a v. 2.0 of my original design. Inhaling 3M spray glue and all kinds of other good thing, so we're all smiles in the garage Even got two of the 4 wheels back on the car, the other two will follow when the coolant is swapped out one more time, which I when the bumper goes back on. Electric Blue daily driver getting close to a road test. Engine is humming fine, no leaks, fan working in two stages. I can't believe I didn't screw anything up...
Same brand and almost to the month identical batteries in red and dark silver car died this spring in the same week. I think they were AC Delco and about 5 years old. The cars are 12 years old, although one has 35k miles, the other has 100k on the clock. I do have that third Mini with a no-name battery that is pushing 5 years as well. Last person who installed it was a hack, ripped off vent tube and stuffed the new battery on top of that gray tube, even though the battery Does have the provisions for venting through the tube. So I fixed all that and used some heat shrink and Teflon tubing to replace the permanently flattened tubing. Anyway, battery so far works fine, but when it get really cold, that car will be out there in -10F and I am just going to swap one of the new batteries into that car before I learn the hard way that even this battery was on its way out.
Did some coding on the car using the bimmercode app. Works like a champ and easier than using a laptop and cable, at least for me.
Went shopping for a 2nd hand MINI for my daughter. I won't let her have mine. Hopeful to find something she can afford. MINI Advisor at our local MINI dealer found some very nice deals and told us not to worry about the price. He will arrange for her to get it at their cost (trade in value) +$500. Since she wants a manual transmission car, a deal should be doable. But she's in the middle of midterms, then projects, then final exams in her graduating year at University. Maybe they can squeeze in a graduation discount too. So probably won't actually buy a car until December.
Cleaned it up and polished the glass. Think I finally got the last of the bugs off. Heading out at 0630 for a couple of days driving through the mountains of western NC and VA.
I finally finished polishing my headlights on Sunday, just in time to park my MINI at the airport to fly to Seattle. I knew I was in Washington when I saw this sign in my hotel room. CD
Got my first ding in the windshield of the F car. The Back of the Dragon’s got some weird rocks. They’ll just jump up in the air and hover until you run into it. :mad2: Other than that it was a good day with beautiful weather. I’m headed home early tomorrow and taking the boring, but smooth roads home. Need to get there without the ding turning into a larger crack. Couldn’t get anyone to repair it this afternoon and the best they could do tomorrow was sometime between 8 and 5. Not sticking around the motel for that. :frown2:
They have some great roads down there. You can practically just go out and get lost and have a blast.
Woke up at 0300 yesterday and couldn't get back to sleep so decided to skip Econolodge's questionable free breakfast and head home. Uneventful trip except the interior lights were on the entire way. Seems I didn't close the boot hard enough and I was too damned tired and lazy to stop and correct it. It is actually solidly closed, but sometimes the switch needs the bump it gets when you close it a little harder. Picked my dog up from my Daughters house on the way, grabbed breakfast to go from Huddle House and finally made it home about 0800. Put almost 500 miles on the car and I didn't make any of the runs Thursday. SafeLite guy is supposed to be here this afternoon to repair the windshield. The ding grew about 1/4" on the trip home. Good trip over all. Didn't take a single picture so it might not have happened at all and this is just the ramblings of an old man. Guess I'll know for sure if the SafeLite guy shows up.
Finished paint polishing, vacuumed the garage, wiped down the car a few times, then one more thorough wipe down with Gyeon Prep. Tomorrow another one of those and then the Gyeon MOHS coating goes on the electric blue.
Remember with MOHS you only need to leave it on for a minute or so unless you are in a low humidity low temp area. The colder it is the longer it takes to Flash, but when it’s really warm like 80 F and above I wipe off in less than a minute. The great thing about MOHS is if it gets to dry / tacky you can add a little on top of the tacky area and wipe it down ASAP and not have to repolish that area. Have fun coating and make sure you use two towels for wiping off the coating one for the first wipe which removes most of the thick extra coating and the second towel catches the rest and allows you to polish the area to make sure all the extra coating is removed. Don’t mix the towels up, I have done that and it sucks. I try and use at least 4 pairs of MF towels for the entire car. Also make sure you pull you car outside if it’s not raining to make sure you done have any High / dark areas before the coating cures. Natural sunlight on a cloudy day is the best light for double checking your wipe down job. Then you can park your car inside for 5 days and let everything cute nice and hard. The longer it cures the better it will look. Have fun !
Yesterday I changed the earl of crankcase in the German bread-van. I used my usual M1 0w40 & a Mann filter. Mann is this car easy to change the oil on. Popped in a new air filter too while the hood was open. Now onto the MINI content of this post. Added a tankful of hydrocarbons & took a short drive.
Today I took my car out so I could get a new PA drivers license photo taken. 20 min in and out of the DMV. :cornut: Today is going to be a good day. Ran some back roads in the cool weather to Delaware to pick up smokes and drove back home. Going out to look at a snow blower later today. :snowblower: