Happy to have my Mini One back in good shape after the accident

Everything works again and the car drives really well. Except there is one occasional whining noise from the gearbox.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Finally, at long last I have the Mini back again! Yeah!

It has taken a very long time. Caused primarily by problems in sourcing the correct parts. For some reason getting the correct parts proved to be very complicated. Unusual here in the Netherlands, and I would not have expected this from BMW. Mini parts are a nightmare to source. Well, to get the correct ones. Normally a VIN is all you need, but that won't suffice for a Mini. Gilbert had to replace many parts ordered again and again. I think he got 4-5 different steering wheel airbags before getting the correct one.

I took the Mini home and gave it a good wash:

It also needed a few small jobs done. Some of the internal trim was not completely aligned properly so I redid it. Most time was spent on fixing the arm on which the very special Garmin-Mini GPS unit sits.

This arm is supposed to be able to swivel around the tachometer and stay put in different positions. It would still swivel, but it would not stay in different positions. So I took off the tachometer and opened up the swivel arm.

The mechanism that keeps it in place is very simple. There is a tiny ball bearing with a spring that locks in place in openings in the swivel arm. I thought the ball bearing was lost, but when I opened it up I found it hidden in there. Just not on the spring.

The swivel arm is fitted to the rear of the tachometer with three long screws and three spacer. When I tried to re-install it all, I lost all three spacers. They disappeared inside the dashboard. The one thing I did not want to do was to remove the complete dashboard. So I banged it a bit and after a while, two of the spacers dropped out. I made a third one out of a bit of aluminium tubing.

We are good to go:

Everything works again. It drives really well. Except there is one occasional whining noise from the gearbox. Did not notice it before. I know that Gilbert had to replace one of the gearbox mounts as well. I will need to check that one more time. I will probably refresh the gearbox oil for good measure and take it from there.

I have driven about 175 km already. On Monday I am driving all the way up to my boat Sirion Old Marina as I need to test a GPS unit at the Raymarine Service centre there. Let's see how that goes. For now, I am very happy to have my Mini back into service!

One thing I have already noticed is that the right front brake is still a bit sticky!! That is an old problem, nothing to do with the crash. I will find a way to fix that one way or another. It is not that bad, I can still drive safely.

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