MSSD is back on! Mmmmm, maybe one more Dragon trip this year! Minis Slay the Sleeping Dragon Oct 9-11. Fontana or whatever it’s called is open! https://m.facebook.com/HWY129MSSD/
Measured the timing chain slack and it’s 68 mm, right on the edge. Replaced the tensioner with the newer 82mm part, as I really don’t want to replace the whole works at only 43K miles. Should be good for another 40K, I hope. A 5 in-lb click and release tool* really does come in handy, since it’s hard to tell when you’re at the right tightness on the tool otherwise. I do have a 0-15 in-lb torque dial **, but it’s really hard to see the dial without a small mirror because of the position (pointing back almost against the firewall). A bore scope through the oil fill hole showed the top chain guide to look ok, as far as I could see. * https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07DGZRVPB/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ** https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B077NZRCLF/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Went to the detailer's today to see how things were going. The paint looks great not a flaw anywhere. Next they should start coating it.The only bad thing is all of ash cover it from all of the fires around here. ps/ glad to hear you are doing better Dave
The Helmet has been pressed into duty. My younger son came over today after he left I got a call from him. He had stoped for gas and his S2000 wouldn't start. I went and pushed him off. Looks like it is ether a starter or the start button. He took my truck and now I am using the Helmet. I offered him the Helmet but he was afraid some would happen to it.
Replaced defective LED head light bulbs today. Replaced high and low beams with Matrix LED-h7-4S and one was experiencing cutting out problems. Summit Racing Equipment replaced the set under warranty. Also adjusted the height of my headlight while under there. Need lots of light when making nighttime Dragon Runs! Lol
Got into some stuff over the weekend, and of course, it turned into a 5 hour affair. Finally got around to doing the vented rear bumper inserts I made up, got the Union Jack decal on the roof, new rear hatch bar (wrapped in carbon) with LED lights installed, new air intake hose and inter-cooler diverter installed....and NOW, I'm getting a damn pending code on the ultra gauge. P0171. Car is running just fine, nothing is disconnected, not sure what is going on. Wondering if some sucked in oil from the cleaned air-filter fouled a sensor or something.
Took delivery of a new Rupes LHR15 Bigfoot Mark III polisher today. It will be tested on a new Audi S4 this weekend.
Oh it will work great I have no doubt. My Rupes 12 will still be in use also. I don’t do videos, I will take a few pictures.
Not the MINI, but I thought it was worth sharing... Earlier this year I bought a Uniden R7 radar detector for the MINI. I hard-wired it using an add-a-circuit device and Uniden's hardwire kit. It went as usual and took an hour or two of puttering about in the garage as I like to fish and hide the wires carefully, I had to find a switched power circuit to piggy-back on and had to find a good ground... then make all of the connections securely and tape everything up so nothing I added rattles about behind the dash panels. We have some road trips coming up and we generally take my wife's car. She is the only one with a daily commute (well... we both WFH due to COVID now, but usually she goes into the office) and gets the shiny new car. I drive the shiny old ones. I wanted to set the radar detector up to work in her car, but it's less than a year old and I really didn't want to do any invasive wiring. In comes this gadget: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PMDWSVD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It's a 12 wiring connector for my detector (has the appropriate RJ45-looking end on it), but the bits that connect to the car for power are flat spade ends. They give you 2 options, a wider pair and a narrow pair. The spades are made to slide into the back end of wiring harness connectors (the wire-side) to piggy-back on to an existing power line that is already running in the car. I wanted to use the suction cup mount to put the detector high on the windscreen in my wife's car, so I popped the cover off that covers the base of the rear view mirror and upper toggle switch control. There were 2 or 3 different connectors up there, so I started with the larger one. I found a red/brown pair of wires that looked like they were heading towards the map lights (red/black and red/brown wires are frequently power/ground when run in pairs, so I took a chance), so I slid the spade connectors into the back side of that plug. Poof! I had 12 power! You cover up the unused spade connectors with included rubber bits, secure the new wire to the harness using some included zip ties and you are done! I used a bit of electrical tape to make sure things were good and solid and then put the cover on. 15 minutes later, I was DONE! Ideally it would have been a switched power line (turns off when the keys are off), but it was constant on (always 12 supply... even more evidence it was heading to the map lights). My detector has a battery saver feature (if it doesn't detect GPS movement for an hour, it turns itself off), so I enabled that feature and I was done!
Nice install, neat & tidy. I stopped using radar detectors when the local police started using lazer beams. Been pulled over twice in the last 20 years. Let go once even though I deserved that one & ticketed once in a BS speed trap set by the local deputy. For me situational awareness is more important that a squawking box.
Sorry. I haven't been on for awhile. Other than working extra long hours the last 4 months, I finally took a week off and headed for the logging roads in the Canadian Rockies. Ran up the Countryman timer. As it turns out, the Countryman handles extremely well. I lot better than I thought it would. The issue was getting used to the ride height. But it handles better than most cars I've driven.
Yep. For me in NC, they mostly use Ka band, so it provides some function. I was in the back of a 20 MINI car line up and was calling out radar hits for the guy in the front of the line. I'm not a speed demon, but the occasional chirp from the detector is appreciated if I'm not on cruise control or if the speed limit changes and I missed it. I got 2 speeding tickets back in 2006, right after I got my first MINI. One of them was a speed trap... an incredibly short off-ramp from the highway where you were expected to go from 65 to 35 in a handful of yards. If you met the speed limit, then the cop would have written you up for unsafe driving for braking too hard. The other time I was on a highway, matching speed with other cars. Honestly, I think the Cop just wanted to check out the MINI, so he picked me to pull over. I did get one speed warning in 2016 or so, but I was being very well behaved on a small state road that was bouncing from 35 to 55 MPH every few miles. I happened to be in an out-of-state plated car that was loaded heavily (moving across country) and I got a warning... I think he really just wanted to look in the windows to see if I was moving drugs. I realized it when he was walking up, so I rolled down all of the windows. When he saw houseplants and 2 dogs in crates in the backseat, he let me go quickly.
No Lidar around here yet, so I use a Bel Pro GX65 (similar time Escort 9500ix) on longer drives where I’m at more risk. It also has GPS and an updatable database of speed cameras, red light cameras, and speed traps.
No one but State Troopers can use radar in PA. All the PA locals use vascar, which are just timed speed traps. I only use my V1G2 on the Turnpikes (PA & NJ) and my yearly trip to the Dragon down 81 because Virgnia SUCKS. Oh an sometimes I take is to Southern Florida when I go on vacation. Thanks to COVID no MOTD or Key West vacation this year.
Here in the great state of Ohio the state troopers always have the latest & greatest so they can levy the speed tax. The trouble is they pass their old equipment to the smaller counties & communities. Didn't take long before everyone had those tax collecting machines. Not sure if anyone around these parts uses vascar. That one defeats all detectors. I have a friend who beat a vascar ticket. He convinced the judge the policeman was in error due to his bright halogen lights on his Porsche. Halogen, LOL it was long ago when sealed beams were standard equipment.