[big jim]

quick question about the DPF/EGR, i would hazard a guess looking at the bottom of the DPF on the car that its been tampered with as it has been welded, possibly now has no inners, i do have a replacement which im hoping that carsorbikes will fit for me at some point as its currently an MOT failure as it shows evidence of being tampered with

however im wondering will it have had to have been remapped by the previous owner to allow for the possible lack of DPF, im getting no lights on the dash to say there is an issue with the DPF or that the attitive bag is empty, which makes me think it MAY have been mapped out, however when im driving along on a longish trip and the car is hot enough i get a fair bit of black smoke out of it under power for about 20 seconds while in 4th gear which looking at other forums etc is pretty much where the car ‘regenerates’ itself by burning off the excess soot therefore im wondering if its possibly regenerating as it should be has it been deleted?

my main question is if it turns out it has been ‘deleted’, once i fit the new DPF can it be un-deleted as it were, ie put back to standard with the additive bag be reactivated if i find thats empty and i get a new one for it?

if its not been deleted then im hoping the new DPF and additive bag will sort it out

obviously the car is also running the tdi tuning box map too and i dont know if that is effected by the possible lack of DPF, certainly doesnt feel like it power wise, the only other thing ive noticed is the outside of the turbo has gone sooty, other than that, running like a dream hence why i want to get it running correctly emissions wise

 

[big jim]

Did 170 miles in it today back home from the caravan without a puff of black smoke out of it!

I suspect yesterday’s bat mobile smoke screen was the accumulation of a lot of months worth of soot exiting the car

 

[big jim]

Driven over to north Wales (just) to see if the tracking can be done on it, my local place wouldn’t do it as the track rod ends are seized but carsorbikes told me to bring it here as they don’t mind using a bit of heat to see if they will free, if they will fantastic, if not then CoB can change the track rods for me at some point!

of course if they do succeed then I’ll bring the red car over for the tracking as it’s in the same boat with the seized track rod endsand I’ve not had it done since I fitted the Teins, however I’ve got the silver works adjustable top mounts to fit to that too

 

[big jim]

Well they have managed to free the drivers side and align that so far, he’s just started on the passenger side

 

[big jim]

All sorted, freed both side and tracked up, steering wheel is straight and it doesn’t tramline so happy with that!

called at carsorbikes house, ran the diagnostics on it, lots of historic faults mainly relating to when I swapped the lights etc by the look of it but nothing horrendous otherwise, she was a smoky old bus again today on the way there though every so often

Sean identified it will probably need it’s rocker cover gasket changing as what I thought was diesel around the injectors is in fact oil, it looks a simpleish job that I’ll have a go at myself when I get the gasket, also the soot on the turbo looks to be coming from the opposite side to the air intake, I’ll have to get the heatshield off to see where exactly but Sean says it may just be a clip that’s not tight

 

[big jim]

Got home and the roof rack has arrived so I have fitted that, bit fiddly and useless instructions but a good video on YouTube helped

first job, only for the first time you fit it is cut the roof rubber on some perforations, I couldn’t see them on my car very well but I could on carsorbikes R56s so knew where to look once I got home, you can just about see them in this pic, 2 upright lines

And snipped off

when it’s not in use you fit these cover caps

you then place the rack on the roof and undo the nut, then using a special tool push down on the bracket

tighten the nut and the gap in the bracket will get smaller and the rack will lock into place

once all 4 are tight you then flip down the covers and lock them in place

at that point you realise you need to undo one side of the flip down covers to slide the bike rack on!

you also have to trim the rubber on the roof rack cross bar to fit the bike rack, it’s in place and secure, has locks to secure it to the rack as well as to lock the bike to the rack

and with the bike in place

looking forward to having some adventures on it now!

 

[big jim]

I’m gonna have to put a sticker on the dash saying “BIKE ON ROOF” when it’s on there coz I’m bound to forget!

 

[big jim]

Oh the joys of buying off eBay, one of the boden cables on the seats is broken so I can’t tip it forward to access the back seats so I’ve been looking out for a cheap set of black leather or 1/2 leather seats to replace the whole lot, anyway a set came up the other night that looked today enough, put an offer in and got them for a decent price

collected them this morning from high Wycombe (tied in nicely with finishing work down there) and they are in a right state, not bad enough to not use but I’ve got to give them a bloody good clean “I listed them ages ago and they have been in my shed for months but I didn’t realise my cats had been sleeping on them, I don’t know whether to clean them or stroke them!

as for the rear bench that’s going to need a bloody good jet wash and shampoo to get it useable, as I say it’s not a huge job but annoying that I’ve got to now spend a load of time refreshing them

Any recommendations for a good shampoo, I’m actually probably going to jet wash the front seats

how the listing showed them

How they really are

 

[big jim]

Not so now, in all fairness they came up ok, anyone who follows my other thread will know i re-dyed a set of blue back seats black to match the sparco fronts so I adopted the same method and tidied up the leather bits on these ones, really pleased with how they cleaned up, will try and fit them soon

















Couldn’t have managed it without a bit of child labour!

 

[big jim]

Gave it a clean earlier and also swapped the badges for black ones as well as blacking out the chrome ring round the fog light and putting the perforated film over the lens





I may pop it back out and give the white of the bumper a touch of black paint as you can see it behind the bezel at the bottom


also put a black badge on the front so now I’m thinking it’s time to black out the grille surround except all the clips are snapped on it along the top so I will have to get a replacement before I do that (or use the broken one just to see how it looks)


Debating whether to swap the seats over in a bit

 

[big jim]

Swapped the seats this morning, can finally get into the back from the drivers side

 

[big jim]

Little bit of cosmetics today, first up I repaired the clips on the upper bonnet grille to save me having to buy a new one, gorilla epoxied them in place and they appear to be pretty solid

I then used some cheap vinyl wrap I got off Amazon and had a go at wrapping the piece, for a £10 piece of wrap it went on surprisingly well, not fantastic but that’s more down to me but more than passable

And the bottom bar to match

as I was happy with that I also wrapped the headlight rings so they would be gloss to match the grille as opposed to the Matt black plastic dip paint that was currently on them (before the headlight ring wrap)

And after, The final piece was the perforated vinyl over the spotlight lenses

really pleased with how they have turned out for a couple of hours work and £10!

 

[big jim]

Bit better picture of the whole car

come a long way since I got it in March

 

[big jim]

Juat spent a few days at the caravan in cumbria, went up in the diesel, 160 mile each way on the motorway and used it as a run about so another 50 or so miles on top without missing a beat, all for £30 diesel, averaged 62mpg

I think I might look at getting the DPF back on it soon and seeing if the additive bag is empty or even active as I’ve had no warning lights to say it’s empty and it’s done 155k miles so it should be at the end of its 2nd bag at least

the only other issue I have is a pipe that I snapped and reglued when I was taking the old air box off back when I got the car came off again the other day while I was fiddling with the airbox again to stop it rattling on the strut brace, it’s the vacuum pipe for the brake servo that runs off the end of the engine, when it snapped I lost all brake assistance and the pedal went rock hard, luckily it was before I set off to cumbria so I managed to reglue it again and put some cable ties around it to double secure it but it’s something I need to swap pretty urgently incase it goes again on the road, I’m struggling to find it in the mini parts catalog on line as I don’t know if it’s a no engine part, brake part etc so I don’t know where to look for it, I’ve not found anything obvious in either parts lists

 

[big jim]

Found one on eBay, this is the part that’s broke, hoping I dont have to buy a whole pump but at less than £30 it’s not a bank breaker if I have to, could swap it at the same time I do the rocker gasket (and maybe injector seals)

 

[big jim]

found just the connector on ebay

BRAKE SYSTEM VACUUM PUMP PIPE FOR CITROEN FIAT FORD MINI PEUGEOT VOLVO | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for BRAKE SYSTEM VACUUM PUMP PIPE FOR CITROEN FIAT FORD MINI PEUGEOT VOLVO at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

my only other concern is now is if the broken piece of connector pipe has glued itself to the inside of the vacuum pipe, if so ill need to replace that too!

 

[big jim]

Coming along really nicely this for a car that’s been kept completely standard 😜 😂😂👍

It all went downhill when my workmate told me he had a garage full of styling parts for it

one thing I have done with this one is keep all the original parts so if it does die on me and I have to scrap it at some point I can bolt them back on and flog the performance bits separately, normally they are straight up on eBay and gone within minutes of swapping them out!

 

[big jim]

The vacuum pipe adapter finally gave up the ghost earlier so I’ve had to park the car up until the bit arrives from eBay on hopefully Thursday so I can change it

luckily I’ve got a hire car tomorrow for work and the bike on the other days

 

[big jim]

Swapped the broken pipe earlier today, couldn’t get the old one out so took the vacuum pump off and discovered a torx screw underneath

Broken pipe

off with the pump

clogged up little filter, any idea what it doe

all cleaned up

and back on the car with the new pipe in place

The airbox had been loose and rattling about for a while too as the mounting lugs and rubbers were missing or perished, I managed to improve with a bolt screwed up from below the broken lug so hopefully now it won’t rattle about (which is what caused the pipe to snap originally

I was going to have a look at the joints on the turbo to see where it was loose due to the spot on the heatshield but I couldn’t get the shield off so gave up, that can be a job for carsorbikes when he does the DPF for me

 

[big jim]

Been roof rack whoring again today, got a Thule bike rack off eBay, brand new, unopened for £40, couldn’t find a UK version of it but could find American info so after a quick google I could see it was an older carrier that would fit the square bars that I had off greasemonkey for the R53

anyway it arrived today and out of curiosity I thought I’d see if it would go on the R56 and low and behold it fitted perfectly on the OEM mini roof rack, this one clamps under the bars and the front fork pin locks the bike rack to the crossbars, it’s not the most secure looking Thule rack I’ve seen security wise but I’ve got a set of locks on the way which should help for about 10 seconds, let’s be honest if someone wants the bike a tiny lock won’t make an ounce of difference no matter what carrier you have!

Really pleased with it though for a fraction of the cost of a newer OEM fork carrier, I can now carry my lads bike safely as his needs the wheel removed to be carried as the crossbar is too big for the clamp on the other carrier, I’ll most likely use it for my own bike too on trips where I don’t need to leave the car unattended for any length of time!