Racing Green 89 Mini

[MiniDave]

Long day today.....spent most of it working on Dave Long's Sprite racecar.....but before we could do that I had to move the Innocenti off the rack, and before I could do that I had to move the hot rod out from in front of the garage door, and before I could do THAT I had to jump start my blue Mini that had sat all week with the code reader plugged in and killed the battery.

Plus the battery on the Inno was dead too!

So we jockeyed cars all around and got the race car on the rack at last.....we got a ton of work done on it including rebuilding the exhaust, fixing a bad lever shock, lubing the suspension bushings (you have to take them out and schmear some silicone lube on them), fixing some electrical connections, drilling a new bonnet for pin latches, setting the front toe in and a bunch of other small stuff.

After having both the Inno and my blue MINI on battery chargers most of the day, the good news - both cars started like normal! Yay!

So all my cars now start and run (except the hot rod of course, and it sorta does  ) the race car started and drove well too and he's pretty confident that it will be ready for his first race of the season at Eagles Canyon, TX in late April.

Long day, and my back is done!

Tomorrow I'm going to drive the green car to breakfast with the Age and Treachery Racing boys, then Sunday Don and I are doing a pretty good run out into the country to see if our cars are ready for the 300 mile trip next Sunday.

Spring driving season is here at last!

[MiniDave]

I can confirm the EL12 flasher unit works with the later style turn signals when using LED bulbs, it flashes slower than the regular unit does, but not so slow as to not be functional.

So, I now have all LED lights - head, brake, reverse and turn signals. I need to see if I can find some LED dash bulbs that fit these later style sockets, that would help a bunch I bet. Again, it's not that big of a deal as I don't drive at night that much.

It's going to rain tomorrow and Monday, so we cancelled our country drive on sunday.....might try and do it on Tues if it dries out enough

[MiniDave]

Our weather cleared up so I took the green Mini for about a 40 mile run to make sure it's ready for this weekend's 300 mile run to Springfield and home. Before I took off I added a bottle of Heet and filled the tank with fresh non-alcohol premium gas. It ran well so I'm looking forward to our run Sunday.....

[MiniDave]

Yesterday was our semi-whenever Tour de donut", where we drive all over the state hitting various mom and pop owned donut shops and tour the back roads, usually in Missouri cause the roads aren't a grid pattern like Kansas! The weather was sunny and high 60's to low 70's - perfect for a classic. There were three of us , Seth in his Mini-Sport themed '91, Don in his "69" Pup and me in my Racing Green, plus about 20-23 new MINIs. The only negative to the weather was it was fucking windy! I don't know what the numbers were but it was blowing us little cars all over the roads, both on the trip down and back! I was exhausted - the combination of having to wrestle the steering wheel constantly, the wind noise (windows were down, as it was warm) and the roar from the engine was tiring, even with good ear plugs in. Plus being on the throttle all the way killed my knee.

Our final destination was the new Buc-EEs in Springfield.....I had never been to one of these and it def lived up to it's reputation - not only is it huge and crammed full of all sorts of ....well, crap!....and it was super busy - think of Costco on opening day or something. Since there are about 150 pumps it wasn't too hard to get to one to fill up, and bonus! they had a couple of pumps that sold ethanol free gas. One of the local Springfield Mini members (you can just see his silver MPI in some of the pics) said it's interesting how they price their gas.....during the day when the local Costco and Sams are open they match their price, when those stores close at 8 pm, they raise the prices!

My trip was close to 400 miles total and the Racing Green ran perfectly as did Don's pup. Seth's car was not quite so lucky - it would cut out suddenly and he'd pull over only to have it fire back up. He decided it was loose connections at the coil so we cleaned and tightened the wire connectors, after that he said it only quit one more time before he made it home. I'm thinking a new coil might be a good spare for him to carry on long trips. His engine is like mine in that it runs a points-less distributor.

Some pics from along the way, the mouse is the mascot for the Osceola Cheese factory shops.

[94touring]

I remember his car ran like crap when he had it here.  A timing issue or something back then.

[MPlayle]

I thought MPIs used a coil-pack arrangement and no distributor of any kind.  I know the SPI used the "pointless" distributor.

One of my more recent SPI Minis had an issue of dying occasionally and it turned out to be the vacuum elbow at the ECU was split - causing the ECU to misread and stall out.  I replaced all the elbows and the car ran fine thereafter.

[MiniDave]

Yes, you have it right - Seth's car is '91, carbureted.

[BruceK]

Wait. You visited a Buc-ees and you didn't mention the gigantic clean restrooms? Or the barbecue station? Or the 75 linear feet of soda fountains?  :)

You do get some points for acknowledging the 100+ gas pumps though...  :)

I had no idea the pump prices changed throughout the day. The thing that frustrates me is there are no squeegees at the gas pumps to clean your windshield. I guess they want you to not waste that time on your windshield when you could be in the store buying merchandise!

[MiniDave]

I was overwhelmed!

The place was newly opened and absolutely crammed with people dying to spend their money in there. Don tried the BBQ sandwich and pronounced it "cafeteria" quality. I didn't get into the bathrooms to see how many stalls I could hit.

I did gas up (ethanol free!) but I had stuff to clean my own windshield, so I didn't look for the squeegee.

No question.......it was an "experience"!

[MiniDave]

I don't know if I posted this yet, but I got a new tow vehicle just in time for the trip to South Dakota in 3 weeks or so! It's a 2018 Allroad, similar to the wife's 2014 version but this one only has 14,800 miles on it.

To get it ready to flat tow the green Mini, I ordered a hitch which came in today, so tonight I drove up to Prather's shop and installed it. The instructions claimed a first time installer DIY would take 90 min and that was about right. It's a very easy install tho, I think if I did another I could do it in 30 min or so!

Next I need to wire in the PWM box so I can have the trailer lights working.

I also need to get it registered as the temp plate will expire while I'm on the road - waiting for the dealer to come up with the title.

Silver one is mine, black one is hers..

On the green car I went to a car show across town, about a 50-60 mile round trip and when I got home the radiator was low on water again. I'm hoping for a leak somewhere, like from a hose clamp or something, but I'm not seeing any drips on the ground - I do smell coolant on the left side of the car so I'm going to give it a good going over - I hope I don't have a bad head gasket, but I have all I need to fix it in stock if that's the case.

It's always sumthin......

[MiniDave]

Oops, I knew something was up......

[MiniDave]

Got the new Audi Plated, taxed, titled and ready to go, I still need to wire it for trailer lights.

[94touring]

Do you remember when it first showed signs of coolant loss?  I feel like we had to fill it up in Arkansas a year ago.

[MiniDave]

Nah, I just noticed it on my trip to Springfield, that it was running slightly warmer than usual, then the next time I drove it to a show I had to add water.....I think it could have been doing it for a while tho.

No idea why it blew the gasket - I used the best one I could find, the head was retorqued several times and so on.....when I rebuilt the engine about 3K ago I had the block decked and the head skimmed, so both surfaces were smooth and flat.

I'll get it all cleaned up and ready to go back on today.....

[MiniDave]

So far today has been spent getting the block ready - I pull all the studs out for a couple of reasons, it makes it easier to clean the surface and I run a tap down thru all the threaded holes to make sure they're clean. I also blow some brake clean down into the holes and blow them out. Then once the block, tops of pistons and everything is clean I lock tite in the studs after I've wire brushed and cleaned the threads. I also clean the studs, one of them is always a little corroded from water coming up around the hole - that's why I lock tite them in, it stops anything from coming up thru the threads.

On my old Jag, the studs go all the way down to the bottom of the crankcase, thru the water jacket. To seal those I had to put a dollop of silicone sealer under the washer below the nuts, that seemed to do the trick, otherwise they leaked water like crazy.

So, the block is cleaned, prepped, studs are in and I put the new gasket on.....these gaskets have a sticky surface to help glue it down once it gets up to temp. I guess that's supposed to help with sealing it up, but it didn't seem to work with this one!

Next I'll need to get the head all cleaned up, once that's done I can drop it on and torque it down. I expect to have it running tomorrow - that will give me time to do some longer runs and make sure it's fixed again. Now that the weather is HOT Don wants to do some runs in his Pup and make sure it doesn't overheat too.

[MiniDave]

I wonder if I have a new heater cable in stock, that one's looking pretty ratty.....

I don't know if you guys know this, but the center stud hole in the front of the head is slightly smaller in diameter than the rest - something to do with locating the head properly I guess. Just another curious thing about these tiny little cars. And for some reason that's the one that corrodes the worst. I usually have to remove that stud before I can get the head off.

I also remove all the intake and exhaust studs as there just isn't room to push the exhaust manifold back far enough for the head to clear and come off. As long as the threads are clean and the studs aren't rusted badly they come out OK, I do have to double nut them, but once broke loose they come out easily enough.

[94touring]

Wonder if you'll notice a bump in power since it's probably been blown for a bit.

[MiniDave]

I doubt it, but who knows? It would be a fairly small increment I would think, but it might run a little smoother, idle better etc.

I thought it ran pretty well already! 

[94touring]

I remember your instructions for starting it while at my shop was it usually takes 2 attempts and acts like it's running on 3 cylinders at first. Turns out it was till the coolant got pushed out of the chamber!

[MiniDave]

That's my theory anyway. Buzz always started on the second try too......but I don't think he ever had a blown head gasket.

Got the cylinder head all cleaned up and back on and torqued, should be making good noises tomorrow.