Service Saturday

During a business trip last week, I caught a cold and due to this I did not really do anything besides dropping off the spare engine earlier this week. It was the first day in two weeks that I could spent some hours in the garage. And there was no shortage of tasks. First off was a cleaning Miffi, Maggi & Moggi. As I had a complete clutch fail on the Morgan last week – I just rolled it out and just used Meguiar’s Quik Detailer with a fresh Microfiber drying towel. This only took about 20 min and the result is incredibly good.

Maggi had a bi-yearly TÜV (MOT) inspection yesterday. As I did a full service just 2-month ago – I did not expect any problems. But there was one complaint – the indicator and brake lights. All my cars have LED indicator & brake bulbs. Both the Morgan and the Mini passed the inspection without a problem. So did the MGB two years ago. But this is Germany. The original bulbs fitted into the Lucas “Prince of Electric Darkness” indicators, brake and reserve lights are the only ones officially allowed. Especially at daylight – LED bulbs give superior visibility for others. Oh well – the old bulbs are always in the car as spares and changing them back and forth is a good opportunity to clean the plastic.

On overdue task on the MGB is rust removal on the lower part of the front wing and rear fender dog leg panels. While I still wait that Mildred will go to the body shop – the date for Maggi is confirmed in two weeks. There are plenty of other dents and small scratches that would need attention – but for now it it will be just these areas. It would be ideal to not have the wire wheels while this gets done. And I still have Mildred’s old and crusty wheels. But when checking the I noticed that two are completely broken. And the splines are in a bad shape – they don’t fit right away.

Now it was Miffi’s turn. As she is my daily driver, and it is time to get the trusty Polarbear winter tires back on. When changing the tires, I always use the opportunity to check all suspension parts and to apply new grease. The rubber of one of the track rod ends was not held in place anymore – but this was quite easy to fix. All poly bushes still look incredibly good and four years after the restoration only some minor surface rust spots are visible on the upper control arms. The exhaust however had two small rust holes, which I already noticed a few weeks ago. A RC40 replacement from MiniSpares was one of the items I got during my last trip to the UK. It had hangers for the later MPI Minis, which I had to cut off and use the brackets from my old exhaust.

The last oil change was just 3300km ago and Castrol 20W/50 still had a golden color to it. But quite a bit of oil was missing. Under the car I noticed a tiny amount of oil around the oil pump. This is annoying as I just had the gearbox rebuild in Summer 2021. Well, this is a job for next summer. Rear brakes needed one turn on the adjuster – front brake pads and disks still look great after 15000km. The Air filter will get replaced with a K&N next spring – the HIF44 needed a tiny bit of oil. Ignition timing was spot on. Spark plus have a light brown color. Overall, I think that Miffi is certainly one of the better 1991 Mini Cooper carburettor models on the road. A small rust spot on the rear quarter window will be addressed shortly.

Last job for the day was to insert the bearing races of the new Timken wheel bearings for the bolt-on wheel hubs. Having old races at hand helps inserting the new ones. Even if I have all parts ready now to switch Maggi’s rear-axle and suspension – I might move this job to January. My focus now shifts to the most exciting adventure of the year: The Lejog 2023 – and I will be Navigator on a Mini Cooper