My Very Cheap Mini One D Dooer Upper...
Discussion
Morning 
I thought I may as well track a bit of my progress with this as I've never had something so new as a project type car.
Let me start with how I ended up with a Mini. A few months ago my friends Mother in law called me asking if I could come and have a look at her Mini as the power steering had stopped working. I popped round and diagnosed the pump as having died (hydraulic pump on the D rather than the electric one on the petrol variants). I quoted her a price to replace it (circa £600 using a recon pump!) and she told me she would let me know. About a month passed before I heard anything more from her. She said they weren't going to bother fixing it as it wasn't worth it and that the might try and sell it instead. I registered my interest and told her to let me know once they had decided how much they wanted. A couple of days later and she came back to me with a figure of £150!!!! Now at this point I was a bit cheeky. I agreed to give her £150 for the Mini but I told her I wouldn't have anywhere to store it for another month. Surprisingly she agreed to hold on to it for me until I had the space for it (she lives on a farm so has plenty of space thankfully)
A month or so later I got my Brother to drive me over there and I drove it home. It was an interesting trip with the power steering bursting into life halfway around corners causing a bit of alarm haha! I also noticed a horrible knocking noise which would require some attention. However, I got it home and onto the driveway and then had to decide what to do with it.
For reference it's a 2004 Mini One D. For the first 8 years of its life it was used as a driving school car, so now sitting on my driveway it has 185,000 miles on it! About 5 years ago it had a second hand engine fitted as the original suffered a cracked cylinder head so the engine fitted hasn't done quite that mileage. The car still has the dual controls fitted (should be an interesting challenge to remove them!) and is just 1 owner from new!
I thought I may as well track a bit of my progress with this as I've never had something so new as a project type car.
Let me start with how I ended up with a Mini. A few months ago my friends Mother in law called me asking if I could come and have a look at her Mini as the power steering had stopped working. I popped round and diagnosed the pump as having died (hydraulic pump on the D rather than the electric one on the petrol variants). I quoted her a price to replace it (circa £600 using a recon pump!) and she told me she would let me know. About a month passed before I heard anything more from her. She said they weren't going to bother fixing it as it wasn't worth it and that the might try and sell it instead. I registered my interest and told her to let me know once they had decided how much they wanted. A couple of days later and she came back to me with a figure of £150!!!! Now at this point I was a bit cheeky. I agreed to give her £150 for the Mini but I told her I wouldn't have anywhere to store it for another month. Surprisingly she agreed to hold on to it for me until I had the space for it (she lives on a farm so has plenty of space thankfully)
A month or so later I got my Brother to drive me over there and I drove it home. It was an interesting trip with the power steering bursting into life halfway around corners causing a bit of alarm haha! I also noticed a horrible knocking noise which would require some attention. However, I got it home and onto the driveway and then had to decide what to do with it.
For reference it's a 2004 Mini One D. For the first 8 years of its life it was used as a driving school car, so now sitting on my driveway it has 185,000 miles on it! About 5 years ago it had a second hand engine fitted as the original suffered a cracked cylinder head so the engine fitted hasn't done quite that mileage. The car still has the dual controls fitted (should be an interesting challenge to remove them!) and is just 1 owner from new!
Edited by Sammo123 on Sunday 13th September 09:11
Edited by Sammo123 on Sunday 13th September 16:30
Ok, so the decision was made to get the car roadworthy again and then perhaps sell my 5 series (waaaay too big for what I need!) and use this instead.
However, the first thing I needed to do was give the car a clean. I hate cleaning cars but this hadn't been cleaned in at least 2 years and was absolutely disgusting! The picture doesn't show it but the car was almost green on the outside and unfortunately the car had been used as the "dogmobile" for the last few years so was rather furry inside along with that disgusting doggy stink! See the pictures below for what the seats looked like.
I opened the boot halfway through cleaning to see how hairy it was in there. Only to find that a rat had been living in there and had stolen half the boot carpet! Along with some of the wiring, and boot plastics (and I later found it had chewed a lot of the engine bay wiring too).
I spent about 2 hours hoovering the inside of the car and disenfecting the boot and surrounding areas. It still smells doggy (which I will sort later) but I don't feel dirty after sitting in there now!
However, the first thing I needed to do was give the car a clean. I hate cleaning cars but this hadn't been cleaned in at least 2 years and was absolutely disgusting! The picture doesn't show it but the car was almost green on the outside and unfortunately the car had been used as the "dogmobile" for the last few years so was rather furry inside along with that disgusting doggy stink! See the pictures below for what the seats looked like.
I opened the boot halfway through cleaning to see how hairy it was in there. Only to find that a rat had been living in there and had stolen half the boot carpet! Along with some of the wiring, and boot plastics (and I later found it had chewed a lot of the engine bay wiring too).
I spent about 2 hours hoovering the inside of the car and disenfecting the boot and surrounding areas. It still smells doggy (which I will sort later) but I don't feel dirty after sitting in there now!
Nigel_O said:
good grief - £150 
PS pumps on Ebay for £100 - £300 - sorted
Check the power steering pump cooling fan - they get lots of weather and can seize solid, which might be the cause of the pump failure - cheap and easy fix
No cooling fan on these as they're a hydraulic pump rather than an electric one. I will move on to that in a little bit though. PS pumps on Ebay for £100 - £300 - sorted
Check the power steering pump cooling fan - they get lots of weather and can seize solid, which might be the cause of the pump failure - cheap and easy fix
So I figured the first thing I should do is get the steering sorted out. In theory it is the main problem so should be done first. I managed to pick up a second hand pump from a breaker on eBay for around £35. They had the rack from the same car for £50 so I bought that too just in case.
I opened the bonnet to be greeted by this (with an engine mount still fitted I would like to add)
Annoyingly the power steering pump is at the back of the engine quite low down. I started unbolting the engine mount only for it to just fall apart in my hands. This is what I was left with (these bits have been sat in a bucket outside for a couple of weeks now)
I have managed to get one piece from eBay and I'm still keeping an eye out for the second part as they're ridiculously expensive from Mini. While I was in there I had a look at the rest of the engine and noticed that my ratty friend had chewed on quite a lot of the engine bay wiring too! I got back on eBay and managed to get a complete engine bay loom for £40 so I can just unplug this one and swap it for the replacement.
The power steering pump was an absolute pig to get out. It has no way of de-tensioning the belt so after messing around for about an hour I just lost my temper and cut through the belt with some side cutters and off the pump popped. Having been in/under the engine bay I came across lots of oil leaking from various places around the engine and turbo. I went and sat down for a bit and made the decision to remove the engine so I could clean everything up, replace some gaskets and strip the wiring out easily.
I opened the bonnet to be greeted by this (with an engine mount still fitted I would like to add)
Annoyingly the power steering pump is at the back of the engine quite low down. I started unbolting the engine mount only for it to just fall apart in my hands. This is what I was left with (these bits have been sat in a bucket outside for a couple of weeks now)
I have managed to get one piece from eBay and I'm still keeping an eye out for the second part as they're ridiculously expensive from Mini. While I was in there I had a look at the rest of the engine and noticed that my ratty friend had chewed on quite a lot of the engine bay wiring too! I got back on eBay and managed to get a complete engine bay loom for £40 so I can just unplug this one and swap it for the replacement.
The power steering pump was an absolute pig to get out. It has no way of de-tensioning the belt so after messing around for about an hour I just lost my temper and cut through the belt with some side cutters and off the pump popped. Having been in/under the engine bay I came across lots of oil leaking from various places around the engine and turbo. I went and sat down for a bit and made the decision to remove the engine so I could clean everything up, replace some gaskets and strip the wiring out easily.
Once that decision was made I wanted to get it all done ASAP otherwise I know it will just sit around for months! So I got out there one evening after work and started taking bits off ready for the engine to come out.
And that's where I hit my first issue! I thought I would get the driveshafts out as they're a bit of a pain in the arse. I pulled out my impact gun and buzzed the drivers hub nut off. Then I went round to the passenger side and it wouldn't come undone. I checked it wasn't a reverse thread (which it wasn't) so tried again with the gun and then pulled out the breaker bar. No luck with that either. I left it a couple of days and managed to get hold of a 4ft length of scaffold pole. With that over my breaker bar I was then working with about 5 1/2 foot of leverage. Still wouldn't come undone! So now I'm stuck! I have started using a hammer and chisel to break the hub nut in two. It's bloody tough!
And that's where I hit my first issue! I thought I would get the driveshafts out as they're a bit of a pain in the arse. I pulled out my impact gun and buzzed the drivers hub nut off. Then I went round to the passenger side and it wouldn't come undone. I checked it wasn't a reverse thread (which it wasn't) so tried again with the gun and then pulled out the breaker bar. No luck with that either. I left it a couple of days and managed to get hold of a 4ft length of scaffold pole. With that over my breaker bar I was then working with about 5 1/2 foot of leverage. Still wouldn't come undone! So now I'm stuck! I have started using a hammer and chisel to break the hub nut in two. It's bloody tough!
I managed to get a bit more done today. My Mum took my Daughter out for a couple of hours so I nipped down to B&Q and picked up some drill bits. When I got home it took me a whole 10 minutes to drill through the hub nut and get it off. I wish I'd done that the moment it started putting up a fight rather than messing around trying to find long bits of bar! I did damage the cv joint while drilling so will need to replace it but never mind. At least I can crack on now.
So with that out of the way and still a little bit of time before my Daughter got home I thought I would get the front stripped off. I got as far as taking the front bumper off before the heavens opened and I had to leg it indoors!
It looks like it's going to be raining most of the week so that stops any more progress for now
So with that out of the way and still a little bit of time before my Daughter got home I thought I would get the front stripped off. I got as far as taking the front bumper off before the heavens opened and I had to leg it indoors!
It looks like it's going to be raining most of the week so that stops any more progress for now
Edited by Sammo123 on Sunday 13th September 19:56
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