Everyone meet Nanner. Nanner, this is everyone. Nanner was purchased to be the transmission, wheel, floor and engine controls donor for Panhandler, my eventual $2000 Challenge "Best car brought by me this decade" award winner.
So Nanner was a bit of a necessary impulse purchase. I needed a R53 transmission, shafts, shifter, flywheel and clutch for my R50 donor, Blurberry.
Blurberry was bought with a bad Midlands transmission but a pretty good running NA 1.6L.
Nanner was bought for $600 because of an engine knock and Blurberry was $550 because of the aforementioned bad 5 speed.
Upon getting them home I have confirmed the bad transmission. The engine issue however, that may not be terminal! Apparently on the R53 there are quite a few things on the passenger side of the engine bay that can make a crap ton of noise while idling.
1: Timing chain "Death rattle"
2: Serpentine tensioner or idler failure
3: Supercharger failure
4: Harmonic balancer failure
Three of the four of these failure points can be repaired for a combined $300 at the exact same time.
I have ordered a timing chain set, serpentine belt set and replacement balancer. All of these items would be due at the current 195k mileage regardless so it is a good bet. IF any of those items repairs it I will be in to a running driving R53 for less than the cost to just buy a R53 transmission to swap into an R50.
More updates this week.
Does Mini use a clutch in the alternator? That went bad on my wife's Jetta and it made a good awful racket that had me convinced the engine was toasted. In my case it was easily diagnosed by popping off the serp belt and starting it up.
I was not able to take the time to pop the belt off this weekend because of the grand baby beaster egg challenge but I will be starting that process tonight
Is it true that the hardtop R53 is a unicorn?
Only on GRM can one meet a group of like-minded individuals that will happily throw money and shenanigans at a parts car until it is no longer a parts car.
I freakin' love this place.
In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :
Yasssss
In reply to Recon1342 :
It's a parts car that is getting a SFI balancer.
In reply to QuasiMofo (John Brown) :
I rest my case. So awesome!!!
So something was happening today that caused me to break the serpentine belt tool. So I marker tagged that mofo.
Got more "correct" tools in and was able to start picking away at Nanner.
Left it here last night:
Plus balancer, belt, idler, belt tensioner are all removed.
Are either of those HID? There's a OneLapper that might need a hood and driver's headlight.
In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :
Hood no problem. I'll have two, in S model in yellow and one Base model in blue. Both have minor wear (read 200k miles).
I never checked the S headlights out. Possibly HIDs, I know they are different appearing than the Base car.
wvumtnbkr said:
Moar!
Trying hard to be out there every day.
they hit a deer two days ago, although it looks like they might have picked up an additional "issue" this morning at VIR
My light is definitely not that light. But I've got a good cheap hood.
