Short Mini update

On Monday I had to change travel plans for a business trip to Hamburg on short notice. As my appointment was early on Tuesday morning – taking a train or a plane did not really work out for me from a timing point of view. I shortly considered a rental car – but then decided to take either Saabeth (my son’s Saab 900 Turbo) or Miffi. After I opted for the Mini. The LeJog trip just strengthend my love to old Minis. And since I did the full restoration back in 2019 – she is by far the best maintained car I have.

A quick check of the fluids (oil, coolant, brake and clutch as well as the washer bottle), increasing the pressure of the Winter tires for a long Autobahn drive to 2.2bar and cleaning all windows again maybe took 10 min. A huge benefit of driving at night is that there is less traffic. I left Bonn at 8pmand got to the hotel in Hamburg by 0:20am – not bad for a 465km trip. Even it the stock 1.3l engine with approx 60 horsepower might reach just over 155km/h top speed – I kept the rpm between 4000 and 4500 whenever I could – which is right between 120 and 130 km/h. On the way back I visited family up North and got back yesterday night – 455km in exactly 4:01hours.

Overall it was a great trip. Miffi’s engine runs well. I track my fuel consumption off all my cars with an app called Spritmonitor since 2020. Average fuel comsumption is 7.62l /100km and this trip was no different. Spark plugs have a light brown colour – all good here. But for the first time in a while, I had to top up the oil after the trip. I total I used 0.7l oil on 1200km – not horrible but as the engine was bone dry before and I never needed oil. There was a bit of oil on the lower part today – I need to check where this is coming from. All three engine steadies will also be checked – when braking I had the issue that the engine it tilting a bit. You can feel and hear this.

Demisting the screen in the rainy weather was an issue. The rear heated window stopped working – and the heater (which I overhauled) is not working that well. A bit of coolant was also missing and the valve in the engine bay right next to the carb as signs of a small leak. What really annoyed my is that lack of an intermittend wiper setting. So much so, that I immediately ordered a Smart-Screen module. On my way I also bought a bottle of RainX anti fog – mainly because Martin had this in this Mini as well. And it works wonders. On my way back I did not have any issues with misted screens.

Tonight I throughly cleaned the Mini and brought it back into the garage. I will work through all task items shortly.