R50 Mini Park Lane
Discussion
It has been a while.
My last thread here was my Boxster, Jan 2023. I've been on dad duties since then and tbh the Boxster did me so dirty it more or less put me off toy cars for quite some time. 3 years, 4 months and 30 days to be exact at time of writing this.
So why the change of heart? Bit of a long story to a question no one was actually asking but I found myself missing something to have a play around with on weekends and faff about with through the summer. The MO was not to spend too much and to find something fun. This Mini ticks both of those boxes.
I've been looking for the past 2 weeks or so and there's loads of good examples out there, my limiting factor was distance. There seemed to be an invisible line drawn around South Wales / West and a Mini exclusion zone of about 150 miles between me and any Mini. This Park Lane came up in Monmouth, about on hour away from me in South Wales so a call was made.
Owned by an elderly chap (3rd owner, I'll be the 4th) and serviced by his son-in-law whom I dealt with the car is pretty honest it seems. Not show room condition but OK overall. It's apparently had a clutch in 2022, evidence of a new cat-back exhaust at the same time along with rear springs and some wheels speed sensors. It passed an MOT today with rear subframe rust and an oil leak being the 2 advisories.
A quick test drive confirmed it drives, stops and steers ok. Also confirmed was the air con isn't working, the seats look more comfortable than they actually are (although they're not uncomfortable) it revs really nicely and the stereo is pretty s
t. A deal was done for £2,200 (seems pretty cheap for what it is) and an enjoyable drive home was had.
This Park Lane is pretty well specced, it has:
seated heats
cruise control
lighting pack
It's missing:
harmon kardon
pan roof
maybe some other things I'm not aware of
But overall OK. It seems to not (at least obviously) be rusting around the base of the rear lights or above the number plate on the boot lid. It looks pretty solid underneath. I did a Car Vertical check on it prior to going to view it and it came back with a score of 73/100. Interestingly it has a record of some kind of damage to the rear in Jan 2014 amounting to an estimate of £500 ish. No idea what that was but it's so long in the past that at thing point it doesn't really matter. The car presents well with no evidence of damage that it's kind of a moot point 14 years on.
I took it over to a mates who (having a better ear for this sort of thing apparently) instantly diagnosed a noisy pulley / idler on the LHS of the engine, a large screw driver was employed to confirm that there's a few bearings that are rough as balls. I think those will be the first jobs to tackle but don't look too difficult to sort.
Encouragingly the Mini has 4 'new' (2721 date stamp) Pirelli Cinturatos on it. Somewhat disappointingly they're all-season NSF 2's with only very slightly less of an aggressive tread pattern than BF Goodrich all-terrains. I'm pretty sensitive to tyres so I may well change these out for something a bit sportier for the summer which will be a good excuse to get the Park Lane bridge spoke wheels refurbished. That's probably for later though.
Along with the grumbling aux bearings I notice that the front wheels are able to be moved front and back in the arches quite a bit, if I'm correct I think this points toward the front lower control arm bushes having execissive play (must have been a friendly MOT tester). A job that requires the front subframe to be dropped out I believe. Not the end of the world though.
I'll be getting on with the most pressing of the jobs in the next few weeks but for now the Mini will have a thorough clean inside and out, wheels off etc and just some use as and when I feel like taking it out. I am looking forward to spinning a few spanners and enjoying a fun little car again. It's so nice not to have the various bings / bongs of new cars and a breath of fresh air not to have to fight the steering wheel every time I change lanes with all the ADAS nonsense, it really is in the early 2000's sweet spot for modern / no nannies.
My last thread here was my Boxster, Jan 2023. I've been on dad duties since then and tbh the Boxster did me so dirty it more or less put me off toy cars for quite some time. 3 years, 4 months and 30 days to be exact at time of writing this.
So why the change of heart? Bit of a long story to a question no one was actually asking but I found myself missing something to have a play around with on weekends and faff about with through the summer. The MO was not to spend too much and to find something fun. This Mini ticks both of those boxes.
I've been looking for the past 2 weeks or so and there's loads of good examples out there, my limiting factor was distance. There seemed to be an invisible line drawn around South Wales / West and a Mini exclusion zone of about 150 miles between me and any Mini. This Park Lane came up in Monmouth, about on hour away from me in South Wales so a call was made.
Owned by an elderly chap (3rd owner, I'll be the 4th) and serviced by his son-in-law whom I dealt with the car is pretty honest it seems. Not show room condition but OK overall. It's apparently had a clutch in 2022, evidence of a new cat-back exhaust at the same time along with rear springs and some wheels speed sensors. It passed an MOT today with rear subframe rust and an oil leak being the 2 advisories.
A quick test drive confirmed it drives, stops and steers ok. Also confirmed was the air con isn't working, the seats look more comfortable than they actually are (although they're not uncomfortable) it revs really nicely and the stereo is pretty s
t. A deal was done for £2,200 (seems pretty cheap for what it is) and an enjoyable drive home was had.This Park Lane is pretty well specced, it has:
seated heats
cruise control
lighting pack
It's missing:
harmon kardon
pan roof
maybe some other things I'm not aware of
But overall OK. It seems to not (at least obviously) be rusting around the base of the rear lights or above the number plate on the boot lid. It looks pretty solid underneath. I did a Car Vertical check on it prior to going to view it and it came back with a score of 73/100. Interestingly it has a record of some kind of damage to the rear in Jan 2014 amounting to an estimate of £500 ish. No idea what that was but it's so long in the past that at thing point it doesn't really matter. The car presents well with no evidence of damage that it's kind of a moot point 14 years on.
I took it over to a mates who (having a better ear for this sort of thing apparently) instantly diagnosed a noisy pulley / idler on the LHS of the engine, a large screw driver was employed to confirm that there's a few bearings that are rough as balls. I think those will be the first jobs to tackle but don't look too difficult to sort.
Encouragingly the Mini has 4 'new' (2721 date stamp) Pirelli Cinturatos on it. Somewhat disappointingly they're all-season NSF 2's with only very slightly less of an aggressive tread pattern than BF Goodrich all-terrains. I'm pretty sensitive to tyres so I may well change these out for something a bit sportier for the summer which will be a good excuse to get the Park Lane bridge spoke wheels refurbished. That's probably for later though.
Along with the grumbling aux bearings I notice that the front wheels are able to be moved front and back in the arches quite a bit, if I'm correct I think this points toward the front lower control arm bushes having execissive play (must have been a friendly MOT tester). A job that requires the front subframe to be dropped out I believe. Not the end of the world though.
I'll be getting on with the most pressing of the jobs in the next few weeks but for now the Mini will have a thorough clean inside and out, wheels off etc and just some use as and when I feel like taking it out. I am looking forward to spinning a few spanners and enjoying a fun little car again. It's so nice not to have the various bings / bongs of new cars and a breath of fresh air not to have to fight the steering wheel every time I change lanes with all the ADAS nonsense, it really is in the early 2000's sweet spot for modern / no nannies.
Looks like a good car that, and with a good history. I've got a real soft spot for these R50s as my first car when I was 17 was an '03 One (faster than your Cooper though, because it was Chili Red and had racing stripes 
) which frankly was a bit of a dog and I could've/should've bought a better example, but we live and learn. I adored it nonetheless, even my ropey example was incredibly fun to drive and I still love the way they look, inside and out.
Sadly I think mine has gone to the scrapheap in the sky as it was last MOT'd in 2024. Glad to see yours looks to have a long and happy future ahead of it though. I reckon a nice one (as yours looks to be) is a definite future classic.
) which frankly was a bit of a dog and I could've/should've bought a better example, but we live and learn. I adored it nonetheless, even my ropey example was incredibly fun to drive and I still love the way they look, inside and out.Sadly I think mine has gone to the scrapheap in the sky as it was last MOT'd in 2024. Glad to see yours looks to have a long and happy future ahead of it though. I reckon a nice one (as yours looks to be) is a definite future classic.
Thank you all for the kind words. As they say, everything looks good in photos 
It's generally a good one but I'm itching to give it an initial deep clean, i'll be able to sleep then. I'm off cycling for a week in France on Friday so I wont be able to take advantage of this weekends weather unfortunately.
Few decades too late for an 850 andy
Looked lovely Sofa, and no doubt quicker than this one with that colour / options combo! Cracking first car mind. My first car was an actual B reg Mini 1000, awful car ha.
It's generally a good one but I'm itching to give it an initial deep clean, i'll be able to sleep then. I'm off cycling for a week in France on Friday so I wont be able to take advantage of this weekends weather unfortunately. Few decades too late for an 850 andy
Looked lovely Sofa, and no doubt quicker than this one with that colour / options combo! Cracking first car mind. My first car was an actual B reg Mini 1000, awful car ha.
I had an hour or less after getting home after work before I had "dad dad dad dad can we play football.." when the boy got home from school so I thought I'd do a little investigative work on a 'ching ching ching ching' (we know the sound) I heard on fast right hand turns from the from near side last night. I suspected a loose dust shield but after pulling the wheel off everything look fine, nothing touching the disc so the investigation will continue when I have more time.
While I was down there I thought I'd have a quick poke around and just see what sort of shape the underside is in
So what can we see straight away? The dampers (or at least this one) is original to the car. Dust boot is split but top mount isn't completely disintegrated. I'm pretty confident that as part of the front end refresh I'll now be putting on fresh springs, dampers, top mounts all around, possibly OE Bilsteins but we'll see, might go B6 (if that's a thing on these, might a different number, I don't know yet). There's evidence of replacement brake lines which seem to have been done well.
As there's only a few clips holding the arch liner in I went one step further and pulled that out
Lack of care here with the wheel speed sensor and brake pad wear cables, the blue plug out of its holder and the cable loose. Also, the speed sensor cable was going up over the flexi brake line which was stressing it slightly. The retainer tab on the shock body wasn't being employed correctly either.
Slight tidy up and the cables are now run a little more pragmatically
While the arch liner was out I gave it a wash and wipe over with AG Vinyl & Rubber care
and compared to the other side from the engine bay with the bonnet up
I'll be doing a thousand of these little jobs over the coming weeks and months as well as the bigger suspension related items. It's surprising when someone (the seller of the Mini in this case) refers to a car as "really clean" but when you start to look you can see that it's pretty filthy / covered in mud and cobwebs we all have different definitions of clean of course, no hate.
I cleaned the wheel with ValetPro wheels cleaner which came up OK too, no pictures of that though.
Amazing how I can make doing barely anything into a pretty long thread post
While I was down there I thought I'd have a quick poke around and just see what sort of shape the underside is in
So what can we see straight away? The dampers (or at least this one) is original to the car. Dust boot is split but top mount isn't completely disintegrated. I'm pretty confident that as part of the front end refresh I'll now be putting on fresh springs, dampers, top mounts all around, possibly OE Bilsteins but we'll see, might go B6 (if that's a thing on these, might a different number, I don't know yet). There's evidence of replacement brake lines which seem to have been done well.
As there's only a few clips holding the arch liner in I went one step further and pulled that out
Lack of care here with the wheel speed sensor and brake pad wear cables, the blue plug out of its holder and the cable loose. Also, the speed sensor cable was going up over the flexi brake line which was stressing it slightly. The retainer tab on the shock body wasn't being employed correctly either.
Slight tidy up and the cables are now run a little more pragmatically
While the arch liner was out I gave it a wash and wipe over with AG Vinyl & Rubber care
and compared to the other side from the engine bay with the bonnet up
I'll be doing a thousand of these little jobs over the coming weeks and months as well as the bigger suspension related items. It's surprising when someone (the seller of the Mini in this case) refers to a car as "really clean" but when you start to look you can see that it's pretty filthy / covered in mud and cobwebs
we all have different definitions of clean of course, no hate. I cleaned the wheel with ValetPro wheels cleaner which came up OK too, no pictures of that though.
Amazing how I can make doing barely anything into a pretty long thread post
21TonyK said:
Nice looking car. You've picked up on a few jobs and yes, subframe off to do the bushes really. It can be done without but you may as well drop it, replace everything thats perished and if you are inclined clean up the subframe itself. Then do the rear... might as well.
Why not 
Yea I'll drop it off, might preemptively get some more suspension parts as I can see me wrecking them quite possibly in the removal process. From a quick look around the suspension though there's not a single torn or perished boot on anything.
I was just sat in the house and thought - hmm I fancy checking the air filter, as you do..
Y tho
Full service kit on order then yea..
This looks very smart.
I think the design of the R50-3 is timeless.
Aircon is most likely the condenser.
The W11 is a solid engine but does like to burn oil due to the valve stem oil seals.
There are a handful of common areas for oil leaks, oil cooler / rocker cover and there is an o-ring on the front, it’s all well documented.
The great thing is that there are stacks of parts easily available, but they are needy cars, especially now due to their age.
Good luck with, following with interest :-)
I think the design of the R50-3 is timeless.
Aircon is most likely the condenser.
The W11 is a solid engine but does like to burn oil due to the valve stem oil seals.
There are a handful of common areas for oil leaks, oil cooler / rocker cover and there is an o-ring on the front, it’s all well documented.
The great thing is that there are stacks of parts easily available, but they are needy cars, especially now due to their age.
Good luck with, following with interest :-)
tallpaul26 said:
You should have subjected yourself to a standard set of R50 seats for a while, then you d realise that Park Lane seats are the height of comfort for this generation of MINI.
Nice car. Good luck with the fettling!
I'll shut up then I guess Nice car. Good luck with the fettling!
They're ok, they just looked much more comfy! venster70 said:
This looks very smart.
I think the design of the R50-3 is timeless.
Aircon is most likely the condenser.
The W11 is a solid engine but does like to burn oil due to the valve stem oil seals.
There are a handful of common areas for oil leaks, oil cooler / rocker cover and there is an o-ring on the front, it s all well documented.
The great thing is that there are stacks of parts easily available, but they are needy cars, especially now due to their age.
Good luck with, following with interest :-)
Agreed, they've aged very well and sit in the sweet spot between modern classic and useable daily. I still depress the clutch when I go to start it out of habit from using the Ranger, then remember there's no rubbish like that whatsoever, it's definitely an antidote to modern driving. I think the design of the R50-3 is timeless.
Aircon is most likely the condenser.
The W11 is a solid engine but does like to burn oil due to the valve stem oil seals.
There are a handful of common areas for oil leaks, oil cooler / rocker cover and there is an o-ring on the front, it s all well documented.
The great thing is that there are stacks of parts easily available, but they are needy cars, especially now due to their age.
Good luck with, following with interest :-)
Good to hear, I'll be getting around to the oil leak(s) in time. as long as it doesn't start tarnishing to drive way its somewhere on the important-but-not-urgent list for now.
YAY another MINI thread!!
I like the Park Lane, nice spec on them, you're better off without the Harmon Kardon, at this age the system rarely works properly and if you want to replace the head unit, you need an enabler for it to work with the amp.
For bushes, check out PSB, polyurethane but a more OEM feel than the likes of Powerflex, much, much cheaper too.
I like the Park Lane, nice spec on them, you're better off without the Harmon Kardon, at this age the system rarely works properly and if you want to replace the head unit, you need an enabler for it to work with the amp.
For bushes, check out PSB, polyurethane but a more OEM feel than the likes of Powerflex, much, much cheaper too.
venster70 said:
The W11 is a solid engine but does like to burn oil due to the valve stem oil seals.
W10 in the R50, but very similar engine.Yea I heard the pan roof could be an issue. I'd love one for the summer but not a leaky / broken one.
Interesting info BORN. Will look into PSB.
Well I think this is one of the only restorations being done 11 minutes at a time. Family commitments means I'm not getting much spanner spinning time at the moment. I am however keen to get done whatever little jobs I can.
I never really liked the WIPAC spots since first seeing the car in the ad photos. They don't actually work either so I thought I'd get rid. The fuse was ok so I'm guessing either the relay went bad or both bulbs were blown. I know it's the done thing to have the little spots but I prefer the 'clean' front end.
So stripped out the small amount of wiring and lights off
A cleaner front end as a result
Also arrived this afternoon a set of seat covers. I've always liked a seat cover, just fitted the one for now
Who knows, I might change a bulb or wipe part of the dash over tomorrow, stay tuned!
Interesting info BORN. Will look into PSB.
Well I think this is one of the only restorations being done 11 minutes at a time. Family commitments means I'm not getting much spanner spinning time at the moment. I am however keen to get done whatever little jobs I can.
I never really liked the WIPAC spots since first seeing the car in the ad photos. They don't actually work either so I thought I'd get rid. The fuse was ok so I'm guessing either the relay went bad or both bulbs were blown. I know it's the done thing to have the little spots but I prefer the 'clean' front end.
So stripped out the small amount of wiring and lights off
A cleaner front end as a result
Also arrived this afternoon a set of seat covers. I've always liked a seat cover, just fitted the one for now
Who knows, I might change a bulb or wipe part of the dash over tomorrow, stay tuned!
That really is a pretty little car,.looks much better without the spots, they were fitted a bit close together and didn't look right in my opinion.
You aren't the only one doing the odd bit here and there, my restoration has stalled somewhat, a mixture of crappy weather, low funds and a Vauxhall (dis)Astra that refuses to stay fixed!
You aren't the only one doing the odd bit here and there, my restoration has stalled somewhat, a mixture of crappy weather, low funds and a Vauxhall (dis)Astra that refuses to stay fixed!
BORN - Yes they weren't quite symetrical and agree that they were too close to the centre of the bonnet. & yes I hear you ha. Pricing up the suspension is looking to be around £300, I need to exercise restraint and not blow the budget like I normally do.
Mr T - No accounting for (my) taste eh
If Mrs T still wants a set of slightly rusty / non-working spots I know for a set
Well I'm off to France for a weeks cycling holiday tomorrow so you'll all have to wait a week for the lightbulb update.
Mr T - No accounting for (my) taste eh
If Mrs T still wants a set of slightly rusty / non-working spots I know for a set Well I'm off to France for a weeks cycling holiday tomorrow so you'll all have to wait a week for the lightbulb update.
Message Board | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff