My Little Mini Cooper Project

It all starts with an oil change…

I never needed to do much work with my Prius, which has been trouble free for ten years and 160,000 miles. But all the DIY maintenance I did improved my mechanical skills, so when a friend offered to give me her old 2004 Mini Cooper with a blown clutch, I agreed to take it on. I’m going to give it to my son, who’s in college.

It needed a LOT more work than a clutch. It was leaking oil badly, so I bought every single oil gasket there is, except for the head gasket. All four shocks were leaking. It needed new brakes. The serpentine belt was shot.

First thing I did was remove the engine and transmission. The clutch was bad; shredded. This was a major cleaning effort, then I put on the new clutch and flywheel. While I had the suspension apart, I decided to replace all the ball joints and suspension bushings. Last Sunday, I turned the key. No start. After some troubleshooting, discovered that I’d removed a bolt from the starter. Difficult to access, but I managed to get a bolt on and it fired right up.


Here's the car with the engine/transmission removed. I kept the AC condenser and compressor attached to the car.


This is the completely shot clutch disc.


Inside the transmission bell housing. Now we've found the clutch material!




Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning...




New transmission seal, throw out bearing and sleeves installed in my nice clean bell housing. Then I'll bolt it together and it will never be seen again.




Clutch bolted back on. Needed the whole slam, of course: Pressure plate, throw out bearing, and fly wheel.


The supercharger, well cleaned, new gaskets, its oil changed, and a new water pump fitted.



Engine hoisted and ready for reinstallation. At this point, I removed the oil pan and replaced its gasket.


With the engine mounted, I began engine reassembly: Put the supercharger, alternator and AC Compressor back. Then I re-attached the electrical connections. I pulled the timing cover off and replaced all the gaskets inside there as well.





Now the radiator and AC Condenser are re-attached and I'm able to turn the key.

 

Well… after twelve years here, it’s more like family.

 

If you’ve done all the Prius maintenance stuff, including an EGR/EGR cooler replacement, you can do this. It takes more tools and it’s more steps, but it’s pretty much the same thing on a larger scale. There are some new tools, like a big breaker bar and a big torque wrench and the special jacks… but if we look at any particular step, the skill level is no higher. The part cost is higher, though. And it was a learning experience compressing springs to install the shocks and installing ball joints and taking the suspension apart and putting it back together… but there are good guides available on YouTube that made it clear enough.