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2004 Mini Cooper S JCW - For Free

316K views 458 replies 170 participants last post by  percymon 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi all,

I spent a lot of time following various people's projects in this part of Detailing World. So it only seemed fitting that I would begin my own! This will be a rather wordy and picture heavy project blog of my slightly crusty, non-running 2004 MINI Cooper S Works which I have fondly named "Stouffer" after Harry Hill's blue cat puppet (Seen here)

Background

It's worth making clear that i'm a big MINI fan, although I have never owned one. My Mum has had a 2004 Cooper S for over 9 years which i've always been very fond of - however she is also very fond of it, so i'm rarely lucky enough to drive it! I usually need an excuse - such as "I've just changed the coolant, but I need to test drive it to make sure everything is ok ... BYE". I love the way they drive - a real hoot at (relatively) legal speeds.
In the past when i've looked to change car, the MINI has never been quite suitable as I used to do a lot more miles (mainly motorway) which dictated a slightly larger and less bone-shaking car with an auto box (Golf GTI DSG and BMW M135i). However, as i'm looking to work close to home - a MINI makes a lot more sense now.
After selling my M135i, I have used my Land Rover Discovery 300TDI as my 'daily' since last year - it's comfy(ish) and relaxed, but you simply cannot have any fun behind the wheel - it takes at least 18 seconds to get to 60mph.

I was recently helping a family friend to resurrect her Audi TT which had a flat battery. Coversation turned to her MINI which had suffered head gasket failure in September 2016. She had not had the time to get it repaired, and so it had sat there ever since - gradually turning green under some large trees.
We had talked about putting it up for sale as spares/repairs - but I think the look of genuine horror in my face lead her to say "Why don't you have it?" I was quick to explain that I couldn't really afford to buy a car at the moment as I don't have a permanent job, so I would have to 'pass' on it. However, what she actually meant was that I could have the car for free if I wanted it. Like a kid at christmas, I jumped in my Land Rover and began to formulate the plans in my head!
Here are a few pictures of the car as it stood:




I think we need to address the elephant in the room - yes, that Audi TT is pink.


Picture taken through the window due to missing key (more on that later). Note the mouldy seat!






The car

To the best of my knowledge, the car is as follows (and i'm happy to be corrected here):
2004 R53 MINI Cooper S with the John Cooper Works pack.
It is a 1.6 supercharged inline-4 with 6 speed manual gearbox.
The colour is Hyper Blue, with white roof, mirror caps and bonnet stripes.
From what I understand, the cars left the factory as a standard Cooper S and would have the JCW kit fitted at the dealer which raises power to roughly 200-210bhp as opposed to the standard 170bhp. It comprises of:
  • Ported head
  • Uprated injectors
  • 11% Supercharger reduction pulley
  • Different ECU map
  • Different airbox and filter
  • Larger diameter cat back exhaust

In addition to this, I believe my car has the Chili Pack (including full leather) and ****pit Chrono Pack (extra dials).
It also has some sort of dealer fit sat nav (although the head unit has since been changed) which scared me half to death. There is a button (pictured above) which rings through to something like "MINI SmartNav", you tell them where you want to go and they send the directions to your car! I was very surprised when I pressed it at 11:30 last night and it started calling somebody! I'll stick to using google maps on my phone!

The button for the obscure sat nav. Don't worry, i've cleaned it since.


As you can probably tell, it has been fitted with Works GP type wheels (I'm not sure if they're genuine or replicas) but I really like the look of them so they will be staying.

Getting it home

The first issue was the key (or lack thereof!). In the time the car had been sitting - the only key had gone missing. After a bit of hunting, the V5 document was unearthed. I went with the current owner and ordered a new non-remote key from the BMW/MINI dealer for the surprisingly reasonable sum of £42! This arrived a couple of days later. It does the job, although I should mention that it is the single most cheap feeling, hollow piece of plastic I have ever come across!


I next needed to work out how to get the car home. I was reluctant to tow it with a rope as the journey is around 30 minutes on B-roads with a lot of stopping and starting - and I knew that the MINI would have little to no brakes as the engine obviously wouldn't be running. I found that Screwfix sell a fixed tow bar with spring damper for under £20. It's pretty good, although (as per all the reviews) the cotter pins which hold the 3 pieces of the bar together are rubbish, I could visualize them coming loose very quickly - so I substituted them for some split pins.


I started by removing all of the previous owner's stuff and wiping down the mould from the passenger seat to make things a little less of a health hazard on the way home. The handbrake had been firmly applied all the time it was laid up, so predictably the car did not want to budge. Luckily a couple of quick yanks with my Discovery and it rolled freely.The battery was totally dead (no surprise really!) but no matter how hard I tried, wouldn't accept a charge. As I wanted to be able to have the hazard lights on during the journey home, I popped to Halfords on the way home and picked up a suitable battery for £55 on my trade card.

My Disco and the MINI after getting the brakes freed off


My Dad had agreed to tow me back with his Defender whilst I sat in the MINI, so that evening we went over to collect it. I'm pleased to report that this went without a hitch! (That was a towing joke, by the way...)
The fixed bar attached easily to the MINI's front towing eye, having anticipated that the Defender doesn't have a towing eye on the back - but does have a tow ball, we found a suitable shackle to attach it with. I hooked up the new battery on the MINI and all the electrics came to life.






Part 2 coming shortly :car:
 
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#93 ·
Well, I've just read this from start to finish this morning (work can wait). What a great thread and what a cheeky little mini. Well specced, good colour too! Too good to just sit there rotting away.

Well done for rescuing it and reviving it. I am always in awe of people that are mechanically minded and can take things apart and put them back together in working order. I wish my brain was wired like that.

I will continue to read this thread with interest! good work!
 
#94 ·
Hi all,

Thanks once again for the comments.

I've just noticed that Photobucket has taken down all the pictures as they no longer support their images being shared on 3rd party sites. I'm going to have to re-upload ALL of the pictures to Imgur and replace all the links :(

Also, I will have a small update for you in the near future - I have been over the whole car with the DA now.

I haven't been able to get much else done with the car lately due to various things taking up ALL of my time. This won't be permanent and I do have a bit of cash to go towards getting the car back on the road, so i'm waiting on my mechanic chap to come and have a look.

So - sorry for the lack of updates - I haven't forgotten you guys!
 
#104 ·
Part 5 - DA Time

Hi all,

As I said in a previous post, progress has been slowed recently by some obligations which had to take priority.

On the plus side - I will be doing a bit of temporary work now that I've got some free time again, which should refill the coffers for the time being.

Also, I've just heard from the previous owner that she has found the original remote key for the car! So, soon I will have a working remote key and the non-remote key I bought as a spare.

This update comes from around a week ago where I took an afternoon out with the DA to crack on with the rest of the paintwork.

I can't remember whether I had already mentioned - but I have gradually clayed the rest of the car with Bilt Hamber regular clay building up to this. There was a lot of sap on the paintwork, presumably from the trees it had sat under. Apart from the sap, there wasn't actually that much in the way of tar or general fallout.

The paintwork really is in surprisingly good condition with very few scratches etc. I think the black plastic around the arches etc helps fend off most things.

I think it has been repainted on the offside rear quarter, as you'll notice - the reflections aren't quite as sharp, although the actual paint job is better than many I have seen on much more valuable cars! The paint depth was much higher (around 250) compared to 125 on most areas of the car. But let's be clear - I'm not complaining!

Here are a few 'before' shots - I need to warn you, I had the DSLR out again and my skills haven't improved much...









As you can see - the state of the paint was nothing to write home about, the usual swirls but nothing dreadful really.

Anyway, that doesn't mean we can't still get excited over the inevitable shine that's on the way!

I moved between green and yellow Shinemate Black Diamond pads which i'm a big fan of - they seem to stand up to the abuse pretty well, I think they cool themselves quite well - as I get a bit excited and on a couple of occasions I have had pads separate from their own velcro back and go flying over next door's fence. :lol:

The polish I used was Sonus SFX-2 which I used chiefly because I had it lying around. I don't think it's really 'coarse' enough for the hard paint on the MINI as it took quite a lot of work. :buffer:

After I had polished all the panels, I applied a layer of FK1000P for longevity and later washed the car off, as there was quite a lot of dust around from the polishing process.

I need to dress the plastics again, as there seem to be water drip marks on a lot of the trim now.

Anyhow, here are the 'afters'























I think you'll agree - it's quite a looker, particularly given the state in which we found it!

My 'car fixing man' is aware of it, and said "I hear the scrap price is good at the moment" :lol: Which (I think) means he'll come and have a look at it in the near future!!

It's hard not to start buying cosmetic bits for it, but i'm fighting temptation as I want to be sure the mechanical side can be sorted before I start frittering money on it. Although we'll see how long I manage...
 
#106 ·
Well that was a satisfying update!! Such a good looking car now it's clean! Hard to believe it's the same car we saw at the start of this thread. Well done.
I love the wheels personally, so much so that if you ever fancy getting rid please give me first refusal. They'd look perfect on my electric blue r53. Just wish mine had half the shine of yours! :(
 
#108 ·
Thank you. I'm a big fan of the wheels too, they set it apart from most others. If for any reason I decide to get rid of them - you most certainly have first dibs!

I've just been out to charge up the battery and it's looking decidedly less shiny than it previously was - a lot of dust and general garage detritus :rolleyes:

Looking so much better! New registration plates and it will look a completely different car, I'm super jealous I've really fancied one of these for a while now.
Agreed. I actually have a private plate on retainer which was previously on my BMW which I will be transferring once I'm sure the car is definitely going back on the road (don't want to tempt fate!). I still have the plates with the BMW/MINI dealer name on them which is ideal.

I've put a chaser in with my car chap, so I hope to see him soon to decide what the next step is. I really want it on the road when the weather is like this :driver:
 
#109 ·
Part 6 - Under the bonnet

Hi all,

I've finally started to make progress under the bonnet! :doublesho

Having read about the low speed fan issue which plagues so many R53's (as mentioned by a user a few pages back) I found some forum posts and a video on how to check it. The issue is usually that the resistor on the low speed part of the fan will burn out, meaning that only the high speed fan will run - so the engine is routinely getting quite hot before the fan kicks in. This may well be coupled with another issue, such as the expansion tank cap not keeping pressure (as also mentioned a few pages ago) which causes the coolant to gradually boil away, meaning you have a recipe for head gasket failure.

I got the multi-meter out and found the fan connector. There are 3 wires:

Ground (brown)
High speed (fat red)
Low speed (less fat red)



I selected the resistance setting on the multimeter and poked away at the pins. Sure enough, there was a figure showing on the high speed wire, but it was showing infinite on the low speed - meaning the resistor has burnt out.

High speed:


Low speed:


I also tried the other method which is to get a piece of wire directly on the positive terminal of the battery and one going to ground, then touch them on the pins. The high speed fired straight up but the low speed did nothing.



The fix is relatively simple - a big 100w 330ohm resistor, thermal pasted to the inside of the engine bay, wired between the low and high speed side which will replicate the usual operation of the radiator fan. This also should last a lot longer than the original! I will be ordering those bits in the near future.

A question for any MINI bods: This is the inside of my airbox with the filter removed. The JCW box seems to have an actuator with a vacuum line attached to it. In addition to this, it seems to have this cylinder inside it with two vacuum lines - neither of mine are connected to anything. Should they be?!



Later on, I got a text from the mechanic chap who I wanted to cast his eye over the car and advise me on what I should do.

He said to strip down the engine and remove the head myself if I wanted to keep costs down, and to give him a ring once it's off so that we can see what the situation is. His point of view was that if the car was still running (the previous owner drove it home) then any other damage mustn't be that severe.

So once he'd gone - I got straight on with it, trying to be as methodical as possible - taking pictures at every stage, labeling bolts and keeping parts from each 'area' in the same box.



I had already removed some of the air box parts and intake tubes, which improve access. Next was the intercooler which sits right on top at the front. This was removed by undoing bolts on 4 clamps (2 each side). I think I might clean the intercooler out with some petrol when I get round to it, as there was some oily residue in there.



After this, I removed the fuel rail and injectors which were all fairly simple - although quite a lot of petrol was spilt!

The intercooler brackets next have to be removed (seen in the above picture) which turned into a massive pain in my backside and took most of the afternoon!
There are 3 8mm bolts on each bracket - 5 of which were easily removed (save for some scuffed knuckles and not having the correct socket extensions) but the final bolt on the near-side bracket was already rounded off. I tried every trick in the book - hammering on a smaller socket, mole grips, pliers, heat, spanners etc but it was hopeless.

Once the smell of petrol had died down, i got the angle grinder out - though I couldn't grind the whole head off as the shape of the bracket doesn't allow it (you'll see what I mean in the picture).
After a lot of head scratching, swearing, throwing tools and contemplating how best to set the car alight and move to Marbella because I hate cars, hate bolts, hate spanners etc. I decided to say f*** it and order a new bracket off eBay for £15 and just angle grind the hell out of it.
This made me feel much more positive and got immediate results!



Now I was able to remove the valve cover - this is held on by (I think) 8x8mm bolts and 4x weird studs. Typically - one of said weird studs was already totally rounded off, however I was able to undo it with mole grips. I then removed the exhaust heat shield and sprayed both the intake and exhaust manifold nuts with WD40 and went inside.





There is no evidence of the usual HGF mayo around the rocker arms, although there is a little in the top of the valve cover gasket though. I would imagine it has separated as it's been sat so long.

I'm going to buy some tipp-ex today so that I can mark the timing chain and sprocket. I'm hoping to manage without the specialised timing tool, as it's really only used for getting the nut off the sprocket and supporting the engine while the engine mount is removed - I think I'll just stick some wood under there!
 
#113 ·
Bit of a hint - if you take any bolts out that are going to be re-used -> get a piece of cardboard, mark flywheel end and push the bolts through the cardboard in the order / position you removed them, they then go back in the right place, as if there has been any wear to them, it won't effect anything :)

Keep up the good work, it's looking well
 
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