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Bini Mandela: What’s broken now?


mk2_craig

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Yeah, so the message I'd been waiting for turned up:

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A few more anxious days followed but eventually this reappeared:

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I R EXCITED. Straight back to the footwell:

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And plugged back in:

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Negative lead back on the RENNER-SUPPLIED battery:

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And....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We got windows

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We got turn signals

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We got power roof.  This is going well!

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Quick test run.  We also got a symbol I've never seen before, so that's another free* fix (OK, there was a spend of over £200 to get the damn indicators etc working again)

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And it even seems as if the blower is back to proper strength.  I wonder if the state of the old battery had latterly caused this to be limited.

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Anyway, I'm tentatively declaring this FIXT.  And that brings us pretty much up to date.  So Bini Mandela gets a reprieve from an unceremonious torching for the time being. 
 

Next disaster?  PRACE BETS NOW!!

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  • mk2_craig changed the title to Bini Mandela: Car still described as pile of sh*te
On 4/27/2021 at 6:55 AM, hairnet said:

bad man - do you hate them too?

 

I actually love them.  I have had three of them, two fault riddled and the one good one written off by a dopey twat nearly killing me in the process.

The fault fixing bit was actually fine as TADTS and as a result the forums are full of decent advice and recommendations on how to fix.  

Would I have one tomorrow with a misbehaving CVT gearbox, a mismatched interior, and body damage?  Of course I would.  If I was living in the UK that is.

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I'm not sure if was these or the earlier mini floppy tops but there was an option you could specify, which told you how long you'd driven with the roof down.

Other than ironing a crease in your jeans there's nothing as cool* as a gauge to show everyone how much fun you've been having.

Here it is

Obligatory... MINI Openmeter. Huh?

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7 hours ago, cort16 said:

there was an option you could specify, which told you how long you'd driven with the roof down

Obligatory... MINI Openmeter. Huh?

Ah yes.  The OPEN-O-METER!!!!  Sakes man.  

The merest thought of retrofitting one of those conjures up chilling visions of yet another electrical freak-out episode, in which the horn is sounded whenever the wipers are operated and the boot flies open each time the brake pedal is touched.

Mrs_Craig: "Ooooh.  Are there any on eBay?"

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7 hours ago, cort16 said:

I'm not sure if was these or the earlier mini floppy tops but there was an option you could specify, which told you how long you'd driven with the roof down.

Other than ironing a crease in your jeans there's nothing as cool* as a gauge to show everyone how much fun you've been having.

Here it is

Obligatory... MINI Openmeter. Huh?

It has been driven for over an hour with the roof down but only covered 3km? Who was driving it?

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On 4/28/2021 at 8:40 AM, cort16 said:

I'm not sure if was these or the earlier mini floppy tops but there was an option you could specify, which told you how long you'd driven with the roof down.

Other than ironing a crease in your jeans there's nothing as cool* as a gauge to show everyone how much fun you've been having.

Here it is

Obligatory... MINI Openmeter. Huh?

Is this a real thing? It sounds a lot like one of those April Fool ads that BMW used to do...some of them were quite plausible. 

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10 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

Is this a real thing? It sounds a lot like one of those April Fool ads

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I gotta say, that’s one hell of a gimmick. Presumably intended to divert attention away from the rest of the car’s shortcomings! It’s right up there with curry hooks, briefcases in the dashboard and integrated shopping trolleys in the boot. 

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11 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

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I gotta say, that’s one hell of a gimmick. Presumably intended to divert attention away from the rest of the car’s shortcomings! It’s right up there with curry hooks, briefcases in the dashboard and integrated shopping trolleys in the boot. 

Their must have been a fair dose of the columbian marking powder on the go on  what ever brain storming retreat they were on when whey came up with this.

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  • 2 months later...

So, having done the roof repair, renewed the brakes, replaced the timing chain and resolved all the battery-related shenanigans, you'd expect this thing to have been 100% reliable, right?

Actually yes.  I even felt brave enough to take it out in hours of darkness, which revealed it has that customisable "mood lighting" (customisable in five steps from blue to red via purple at least).

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Not really getting the full effect in these photos but anyway.  The car is gradually clocking up the miles without major issue.

Time then to start sorting out some of the more minor niggles.  For some reason it was missing the COOPER S letters from the bootlid:

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Note the adhesive from one of the letters serving as a reference point for reinstating them.  My wife found these on eBay for a few quid:

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Unfortunately the seller made a half-arsed job of applying some fresh double sided sticky foam.

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Ripped all that lot off and had another go:

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To be fair that's not a whole load better, but it'll do.  Lined up the letters by eye:

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Ran it around like that for a few days, then finished the job when it stopped raining:

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Much better, little by little this thing is starting to look a bit less shite.

Next job was to tackle the rear indicator bulbs.  Now with no annual vehicle testing, there's no MoT to tell you that they're flashing the wrong colour.  

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Doesn't look too bad here, but in reality these were practically white.  Dug out a box of bulbs I'd bought a while back (I think these were £2.99 posted for 10 or something, so should be TOP QUALITY):

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Whipped out the driver side:

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Yeah, that's seen better days.  What about the other one?

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More or less the same script.  I bet these are original to the car.

Getting at these was pretty damn tricky - if I positioned myself where I could see the bulbholders, I couldn't reach them, and if I positioned myself where I could reach the bulbholders, I couldn't see them.  The whole endeavour being conducted while kneeling on top of the folded-forward rear seat backrests with my arm tucked under the inner sides of the raised soft-top and hand pushed through a tiny access panel in the tops of the boot trim.  This resulted in unintentionally removing sidelamp bulbs about three times before successfully extracting the orange ones, fortunately I somehow managed to get them all back in without dropping any into some inaccessible part of the bodyshell.  End result:

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You'll have to believe me when I say that this was in fact a decent improvement, even though it looks only marginally less yellow than the "before" picture.

There are plenty of other small tasks to cross off the list, but we're approaching the point now where I think a trip to the bodyshop can be justified, to sort out at least some evidence of the previous owner's years of neglect.  Pondering whether to repair and colour-code the existing arches and valances, rather than replace the damaged ones - but this doesn't seem to be a common thing to do, and anxious that it might look a bit strange.  Thoughts, anyone?

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  • mk2_craig changed the title to Bini Mandela: Slowly becoming less sh*te
9 minutes ago, mk2_craig said:

Pondering whether to repair and colour-code the existing arches and valances, rather than replace the damaged ones - but this doesn't seem to be a common thing to do, and anxious that it might look a bit strange.  Thoughts, anyone?

You don't see many colour coded Coopers, but I think they look smart. 

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  • 2 months later...

Summer 2021. Gradually been building some trust in BINI MANDELA here, mainly on roof-down beach shuttle duties but no fresh issues to report (there, I’ve jinxed it). Mrs_Craig therefore felt confident enough to treat it to a few days holiday in the bodyshop:

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Better. Didn’t get everything done - nearside door was not deemed worthy of extending the respray  budget, so retains its impressive collection of shopper car park dings - but the main thing is the elimination of that crater in the drivers side, plus those bumpers getting tidied up makes a big difference. 

Plenty of stuff still to get stuck into though. The radio in this is (1) wank and (2) works when it feels like it, which is a pain in the sphincter because other stuff is linked to it and stops functioning simultaneously (eg. Rear parking sensors) so I’m needing to research a suitable solution. Options boil down to a centre console conversion to accommodate a generic double DIN head unit, or some form of Android Auto device that involves changing the entire speedometer. Either method seems to require half the dash to be pulled apart and miles of extra wiring to be procured/plumbed in. So procrastination is rife on this one, however it seems more appealing than dealing with the rapidly disintegrating rubber seals above the boot lid/below the windscreen. 

Might look into replacing the floor mats instead. 

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  • 1 year later...

More BINI-ing from Sunny Jersey. 
 

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This things been getting on ok actually, needed a turbo oil feed pipe expensively replacing to stop the oil stains on the drive from increasing in size, but otherwise reasonably dependable. 
 

I did notice some fraying at the edge of the roof above the drivers window:

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So decided to bust out some sewing equipment and have a go at repairing it,

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All right! Let’s see how this goes. 
 

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Pretty happy with that. 
 

I congratulated myself on a job well done, lowered the hood to make sure it would hold, then raised it again and just as it latched onto the windscreen this fucking thing fell onto my head:

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Motor cover “trim tray”. That’ll be yet another problem to deal with then.

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Ungrateful heap!!

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  • 8 months later...

Right then, where did we get to with this thing?

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Ah yes, the "trim tray".  It's held securely* in place by four of these white plastic push fit clips that were probably ok on early 1980s cars for helping to hold door trim panels in place before grab handles and storage bins were screwed on.  They're completely useless for ensuring that Mini plastics have got any long-term chance against gravity.

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I took the clips off, safely launched them into the nearest refuse container, then caringly drilled through their locating mounts from behind.  I did tidy up these holes a little after this photo, courtesy of a countersink bit.

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And the reverse side again.  These screws came from a big old butter tub full of bits and pieces that I placed there when I was regularly pulling old Fords to bits a couple of decades or more ago, as did these:

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The circular white things I mean.  Screw receivers that were persuaded into the holes where the original trim clip things in the first photo previously fitted.  This being a metal section of the convertible top frame which is the width of the car and holds the motor for the "sunroof" section:

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With that done the cover could be fixed back into place, I had something of a battle getting all four screws to line up perfectly but eventually managed it.  Great success!!

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And no longer falls off when the roof is operated.  The holes in the plastic are barely noticeable - I could probably find some plugs to disguise them but it hardly seems worth bothering.

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To celebrate, we went to the beach, on arrival the only space left in the car park was next to this special edition job which looked to be in much better condition.  Apparently it's some sort of Bini owners rule that you have to photograph them parked together.

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Further improvements to come!

 

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We're now three years on and the Bini is still with us, which has probably more to do with having insufficient disposable income to replace it than anything else.  Mrs_Craig has only put about 6000 miles on it during that period, however it hasn't done anything REALLY stupid (other than what's already been documented earlier in this thread, which seems to be Bini Bingo standard expected faults and issues).  With the car set to continue with us for some time yet, and having invested in the bodywork it was time to do something about the wheels, which really let it down appearance-wise. 

Forcing the issue was the rear tyres which had gone horribly hard and cracked, creating an awful din anywhere above 20mph and making me think the rear hub bearings were shagged.  The front tyres, although new shortly before buying the car, were showing signs of going the same way.  I'd been avoiding doing anything about fresh rubber because the original alloys, "Black Star Bullet" 5-spokes with a polished or diamond-cut face were mega-kerbed and I couldn't find anybody locally who wanted to get involved with refurbishing them.  I figured the better option was to try and find some usable second-hand ones.  I looked at quite a few potential replacements but they were all a bit grotty and not much of an improvement, however a cheap set of older Bullets came up so I bought them with the intention of sanding down/repainting them myself, then getting fresh rubber fitted.  These had been badly-sprayed:

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Dreadful stickers included at no extra cost.  The tyres were ok, and as a stop gap I sent the best two down to the tyre fitters to replace the worst two on Bini Mandela, this would buy a bit of time to get the rims back to original silver and defer the cost of new rubber into the future a bit.  It meant temporarily fitting the other two acquired rims to the car:

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The plan fell apart when the tyre place gave me the good* news that one of the original wheels had a flat spot on the inside edge:

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Which wasn't the end of the world, but they also noticed that the rim was KRAKD:

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Game over for that one, then.  To keep the car mobile while still allowing four wheels to be stripped and painted, I briefly considered whether getting another one of the same style was viable, but I was fast going off the idea of overhauling a set of rims myself and the costs of getting a professional job done were looking a bit out of reach once new tyres were factored into the equation.  Time to search for yet another set then, but nothing suitable seemed to be available locally.  @Aston Martin had the bright idea of asking Guernsey Facebook, and within a very short space of time a decent option had presented itself:

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"R98" web-spokes refinished in satin dark grey.  Featuring tyres all with actual tread.  Mrs_Craig liked them so was tasked with agreeing a price and working out a way to get them between the islands.  They turned up on Friday:

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Got them straight on the car, that's made a big difference.  This thing is starting to look quite respectable now.

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Even if the new brake discs that were fitted after a few months are now looking very not-new!

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We're now well overstocked on old wheels and tyres though.  Clearout imminently!

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I've found it cheaper to just buy 4x wheels and good tyres in similar circumstances before (ex cracked a 'penta' alloy on her zafira, which are mega ££. Add in all the tyres had cracks in various places... 

4x vectra alloys with really good tyres that saw the car out were far cheaper a fix, and had a nicer/cheaper/thicker tyre size too which made the car much nicer

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...
  • mk2_craig changed the title to Bini Mandela: What’s broken now?

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