Just found your channel since I'm about to upgrade my brakes and rear trailing arms (on my daily). So far i'm loving your content and how you explain everything. I just wanted to add those screws holding the rotors on are basically to hold them from falling off on the assembly line before the calipers get put on. I Never put them back in unless it's giving me a hard time setting the pads, sometimes the rotors are heavy and keep pushing them out, but 9 out of 10 times I throw them out.
3 years ago a 1999 Volkswagen Passat was purchased and at the time of purchase it had a dual mass flywheel and a clutch disc with springs. When I replaced the clutch a few weeks ago, I finally figured out why the car tended to jump like a frog when accelerating hard and immediately after suddenly releasing the gas pedal. I changed to a regular disc without springs and the jumping frog problem disappeared, the start and gear changes are also much smoother now.
Heads up those rear calipers need to be twisted in as theyre compressed, the tool looks correct but maybe they twist the opposite direction? I tapped mine with a hammer and that broke it loose, probably something tight in the ebrake mechanism
Appreciate the feedback! The kit I got has compressors to spin both ways but this bad boy was just not moving. I ended up replacing the calliper and it went a lot smoother. I guess that’s what happens when you let a car sit for months/years :)
Yes, I still have to fix my driver side tail light rust on 2005 R53 so I have taken notes. Overall, I find these BMW bodies are super strong underneath and came with a ten year rust warranty. I had my two doors and hatch replaced under warranty in 2011. Its been 13 years and not a speck of rust in 2024.
Well, right after this video I took the car to the track and blew the engine. It took me four years to figure out how to pull an engine apart and get the car running again. So after all that, I am still running the same pads. Hope to put a lot more use on them this summer.
Been watching your channel for ova a year and truly helped me 2 understand how 2 get around things and 2 buy the right parts, I own a 2006 R52 JCW, gotta admit is a luv n hate relationship with this cars. Wanna ask, You did replace the radiator right? Did u get the stock one or the aluminium double row, if it was the second, which brand did u go 4? cheers mate
I did replace the radiator but just with an oem replacement off rock auto, nothing fancy. Thanks for watching. The love hate relationship is real! This year will be the first time the car is running for the whole summer so fingers crossed nothing else goes wrong.
I have the cheap plastic harbor freight ultrasonic cleaner that I use for pistons and whatever engine parts I can fit in. The best cleaner I found as far as cheap goes is “Awesome Cleaner” from the dollar store it’s not corrosive. I can put a piston in for 8 minute cycle and it looks like new. If I used just soap and water would take idk an hour. The worst cheap cleaners are the purple power type ones not only do they not work that great they are corrosive. Literally didn’t clean pistons any faster than soap and water. They don’t even work good for cleaning the floor any my repair shop I use zep brand it’s far better. Plus all those degreasers are corrosive they are terrible for aluminum, they will accelerate rust and corrosion on other metals if not washed off very well soon as ur done. The funny thing is people talk about how great these degreasers are but have to scrub them too. Can you tell I hate these products? lol!!
THANK YOU. Many times during all the work and filming, you probably said “will this truly help anyone or am I wasting my time?”. Having a ton of wrenching experience but being completely new to the R53 platform, your channel is a godsend. I’m gonna binge the fire out of it. You rock man!
This is a great series. I love the emotional highs and lows that you share with the viewers. Well done. I landed here, looking at potentially jumping into a rusty tail light R53 purchase. How was the frame and undercarriage on yours? Amy structural issues? Any issues removing/replacing any components u der there do to locked up rusty bolts, etc... or your your rust issues mainly only body panel related? Again, thanks for putting this together, its very helpful for the handy but non-mechanic DIYers out here in the world.
Glad you like the videos! I live in Canada and the previous owner daily drove the car through winters. Almost every bolt on the car was rusty and hard to loosen but the only major rust I’ve found so far was around the tail lights and hatch that I fixed in the video. Frame was good and the rest of the body panels seem okay. Subframes both had surface rust that I had blasted off and refinished.
Just found your vids today. Great job and thank you for the motivation. I‘ve got a r53 waiting for restauration as well. And i‘m starting by learning from your vids ;-).
This is after replacing them? One moves forward and back, one moves side to side. If you can’t hit 5th or reverse it’s likely an issue with the side to side. Also check out episode 30, I talk about a tiny plastic piece in transmission side of the shift linkage that can wear out and cause problems.
Dmf cuts the gear rattle. What if we use light flywheel with single plate and use sprung clutch? Can we reduce or remove gear noise this way? What is your opinion?
Speed out! (My Amazon Affiliate Link: amzn.to/40aLaKG ) It worked because they are banjo bolts. I would have been royally screwed if if was a solid bolt.
@RegardingAutomobiles I have some of these. No you would have been OK. Just drill a small hole in the broken bolt shaft and put the appropriate size in. ( if there was one. That would have fit.) Thanks for the info.
Glad you figured it out.. I’ve been watching your videos out of order, so I already knew you dialed it in.. maybe I’ll see you out on the track once I’m done with mine. Cheers 🍻
Real Mechanics always get a bad rap for tiny things but those little things that can lead to high costly mistakes. What kind of break in oil did you use? synthetic, blend, mineral oil blend? etc?
For the first few drives I used a cheap Quaker State 5w-30 synthetic and then switched to Liquimoly 5W-30 Special Tec LL SAE. Changed it again after the 500 mile break in and that is what I run full time now. amzn.to/3rETUMx
so on the initial start up did you raise and lower the rpms aggressively up to 3k and back to seat the rings? or was that not needed? I heard that was a good way to get the rings to seal better initially@@RegardingAutomobiles
Heya! Sorry just saw I never replied to this. I drove the 500 mile break in by keeping it under 50% throttle and under 4K rpm. @engineeringexplained convinced me that all the other break in ideas of running it super hard are not right.
Why would a company make dual disc unsprung clutches with single mass flywheel to be used on the street? Like the McLeod RST which has many reports of floater plate chatter under 2000 rpm.
My guess is that they tried to reduce the harshness of the singlemass FW and un-sprung clutch plates by using the twin plates. They market the RST as street-able but able to handle up to 800 HP so I am guessing the chatter at low RPM is just the tradeoff they had to make to get those two features to work.
I found this video recently and am hooked. I am working my way through all the videos from the start. It’s fantastic. It’s great to see a normal person working on his car with limited space and not a mechanic. Just like I would be.
You could have tried hand-polishing the journal. It is easy to in the car/block, it just takes time. After doing that you can measure to see if the crank journal is in spec. If so, put it together and you are done. If not, then you were going to pull the crank and have it turned anyway.
Wow, simply amazing to finally see you on the track........ almost every part of this Mini has been removed then cleaned or replaced.... From a man without any mechanical knowledge at first, this is so cool..... My bet is 90% of people would have burned or throught away this car after 6-12 months...... but 4 years later you're on a racetrack, even with all the problems you encountered..... Patience and determination, you'll have to go to give seminars in school to talk about it !!
Hey mate, i have a blown oil cooler causing the steel pipes to be full of the same gunk you pulled out, no coolant flowing through it, did u have this problem? Did u clean it or something?
My metal coolant lines ended up being so corroded that there were holes in them. I ended up making new ones. E29 - Fixing a Coolant Leak with Custom Braided Lines ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MDoCvDHhAAM.html
The hard pipes are bolted on and then attach in two places on both ends. I don’t know for sure but my guess is you’d have to take the air box out to get at the one of them closest to the reservoir. Wish I could help more but I had my engine out when I worked on them.
@@RegardingAutomobiles i ended up giving up on it and just chucked laundry detergent into my expansion tank 20 mins idling and 3000 rpm sometimes, i unhooked the heat exchanger lines off the heat exchanger and off the gunk went on the inlet side, now ive chucked them both back onto the heat exchanger and hoping the outlet side will clear up. Fingers crossed
They are not the same. One has a “mass absorber” on it. 25117547371 and 25117548431 are the two oem part numbers. I got the Dorman 905621 instead of the oem 25117547372.
@@RegardingAutomobiles Thnx i can find them now in the webshop. I have the problem that the second gear pops out or not engaging enough so i hope it is the cables
I know you said small projects, but I would suggest the shocks on all four corners with adjustable camber plates on the front and then a full alignment/set up. I am lucky enough to have a shop near me (Mountain View, CA) with a former MINI Racing mechanic. With the rear trailing arm conversion you did and the wheels you have (I think you said they were 16s in a previous video), you should have no clearance issues getting a full GP2 Camber/Toe/Caster set up on your car (I was able to fit it on my R53 and I have the JCW 19" Wheels). The cornering is so much improved vs the factory R53 settings.
Technically that is fairly small compared to some things I’ve done. :) I was thinking about camber plates. For shocks I wasn’t sure if coilovers are the way to go or as even a bigger stretch there is the Tein EDFC system. I am not even sure if they make one for the mini.
What small fun projects....? Maybe one video could be, if you are looking for content ideas - walk us through the changes you made to the R53 while referencing the episode the mod happened in. Just a thought.
