Cooper Road Mini’s latest project

Lets introduce you to our latest project! Our new Friend Mike looked me up after he bought a beautifully restored 1967 Mini Cooper S that turned out to have one of my engines from about eight years ago! As many of these powerful engines do, 2nd gear was getting hard to engage without a crunch, indicating the synchro or baulk ring is likely worn out, keeping it from synchronizing 2nd gear to the main-shaft, resulting in that crunch we all know!
Ride along with us as we test drive the car up Red Dog Road near the Cooper Road Mini Compound. I show a way of shifting by “cheating” a little to work around the bad synchro, to “save” the gearbox from continuing the destruction until you have the time to take it apart.

Setting up the Mini Cooper Differential

Here are a couple of short videos of me setting up the mysterious side thrust on the differential that applies to all styles of the Classic Mini Cooper transmission.  Once you understand the goal of having no side PLAY in the diff without any side LOAD on the bearings, correct set up just depends on attention to detail and having a reasonable assortment of shims, about two gearboxes worth….

This first video is the conventional way to set them up, pretty much the way the manuals tell you to do it:

This next clip is a different way of looking at doing the math, with the idea being to reduce the amount of “stuff” to assemble to simplify and reduce the chance of making a mistake.  Or, simply another way of looking at arriving at the correct shim may help you understand what’s important, and you’ll find a way to do it that makes sense to you!

CooperRoadMini’s MAZDA??

A happy Mini owner usually has another vehicle or six in or around the garage. Our 66 Cooper S Resto-mod is more proof-of-concept than practical transportation, so our collection of Classic Survivors together add up to meet my needs for getting around our local area. Half a dozen relics that are only good for certain conditions. As up to half of these are not close to “usable” at any given time, The ones we rely on require attention from time to time. For me, that usually means UPGRADES!   Our 1974 Mazda Rotary Engine Pick-up is one such survivor and it has a heater! …And an interior that can be closed off to rain and cold, and we want our cool truck running again.  It’s been on the back-burner and the pile of  “I’ll get to that when the truck is fixed…” has grown.