I REALLY hope the one ball works out for you, and more importantly for your wife!

Remember I made no guarantees having never tried it. But I guarantee the welds are good! Wink, wink, nod, nod.. And as I recall the price was right.


rob

 

It can't be worse than the broken baffles in the mufflers that are on it now. And from following your build thread I anticipate it will fit well. Not sure if I'll get to bbn it this week, or not.

 

No exhaust update, yet, but I did find the snoked LED side markers robj gave me with the exhaust, so I decided the throw them on quick. Glad I did as the first clear light literally fell apart as I took it off. The second one almost did, and is all cloudy from being super glued back together previously. The smoked lights plugged into the stock bulb holder and snapped into place just dandy and work 100%. Thanks again, Rob!

Old, crappy lights

Smoked light off

Smoked light on

 

Looking good! I ordered a set earlier today. I didn't like the look of the original lenses now that I blacked out the scuttle.

Do you know why Rob got rid of these?

 

 

Yj,
So glad you could us them. I didn't as I thought they may have been contributing to my hyper flash issue. Probably not but didn't know that then and ordered the smoked ones.

Glad that worked out. They look good.
rob

 

A few small updates to the Grumpster. I have all the parts needed to install the "new" exhaust, and was happy to find the bolts in the holes under the car to mount the support plate. That I sourced from the guys @ AllMag, and have spent too much time looking at what other bits they may have that we could use! Unfortunately one bolt, while present, was broken off, and another broke taking it out. I got those drilled out and retapped and found some suitable replacements, so we're good to go.

My wife also sent a picture of a cupholder she had seen for sale to a friend and had him 3D print her one for pennies on the dollar to buying it. I'll probably end up drilling a hole and using the screw in the original cupholder to help hold it in place. I need to get a pic of this.

Got the replacement rain gutter corner trim installed and ordered 2 tires for the summer wheels, too.

This was the windshield guy's solution to closing up the gap created by the missing gutter trim corner. Kept the crud out, and improved the look a bit.

And with the new trim piece installed. This one cost me $20, so she damned sure wasn't going to trow it out!

 

It took me a minute to tell what the pictures were of. That is a great reflection on your roof. What is it, the ceiling of the shop you work in?

Thanks for posting. It is uplifting to see people still having fun with their cars...

Are you still working? An “essential” business?

By the looks and sounds of thing on our R50, Blue, I will be needing to do the exhaust on that car. A few years back I put a slightly used MINI JCW upgrade exhaust on it, but it didn’t last long in the salted winters we have here. Just to note - there were all sorts of “JCW” upgrade options you could get for the R50. The 2 I remember were the exhaust and a modified head for the engine (I saw one up on the NAM market place not too long ago). The exhaust was a direct replacement for the base R50 exhaust, had deeper and slightly louder tone, and a 3” chrome tip. Cool! Those days of having a plethora of options for these cars is long gone, but it was neat they had them at that time.

 

Lol! Yeah, that's the ceiling in the shop. I am still working as an "essential" auto tech. Work is slow, however, so they've split the shop into two teams that work opposite weeks. I'm collecting partial unemployment for those weeks that I don't work, and hoping I can sell a few jobs to make the weeks I do work worth while. This coming week is an off week for me, so I hope to get the exhaust on. I will be watching my daughter Monday and Friday, so I only have three days to get things done, and I have plenty to do! Fortunately my wife is able to work from home, and has been.

I took a bunch of measurements while I had Grumpy up on the lift fixing the broken bolts. My hope is to be able to use the piping from the cheap exhaust that is on him currently and replace the mufflers and resonator with some better quality pieces to cut down on the drone and eliminate the rattling from the broken baffles. I'll probably cut open at least one of the old mufflers to check out how they're constructed, just for sh*ts and giggles. I've read about people making their own mufflers, maybe I'll give it a shot!

 

Just take care around other people. To simplify my life I have created clean and not-clean places and I wear loose fitting leather gloves when I am in any place that is anything but “clean”. For example, the inside of my cars is “clean” as well as all of the door handles. I can take the gloves off to open any of the car doors. Then I put the gloves back on and then can put packages, groceries, etc (which are not-clean) in the boot. To get into the driver’s seat, I take the gloves off, open the door, set the “not-clean” gloves on the passenger’s seat. This way I can keep my hands clean and not use a bunch of rubber gloves, which are hard to take off and put back on. I also have a pair of “clean” gloves that I carry in my pockets and use them in “clean” areas (eg the inside of the car when it is cold). I do this going in and out of the house, when I am dealing with “not clean” stuff. I never touch the fingers or sides of the not-clean gloves, but I assume the cuffs are clean. This is not perfect; I am just trying to minimize probabilities of bring this into my house.

Sorry to be preachy; just suggestions. I have a few other ideas that I can share if you want.

 

I carry hand sanitizer in the car and when I go into "not clean" places I take it with me in my pocket. That way I can sanitize my hands before touching clean things, like my car keys or car door, etc. I also clean my debit card with it after anyone other than me has had contact with it.

 

True.
And very good...
Just something to think about if hand sanitizers become scarce again...

 

New tires came Thursday. I should get those mounted up this coming week at work.

I got around to the exhaust swap today. Fortunately the old exhaust came off without any issue. Unfortunately "new" exhaust didn't go on as easily because the idiot who installed the last exhaust actually heated and bent the inner muffler hangers that are welded to the body instead of rewelding the hangers on the mufflers (which were already cut off) to match the body side. I'll let the pics do more talking.

Old exhaust off and next to the replacement.

Here you can see where the hanger on the body was altered.

I don't have a torch, so I ended up modifying the muffler bracket. Fortunately I bought a 10 pack of weld on stainless hangers for an exhaust project a couple years ago and had left overs. I cut off the original, bent the new one (a little wrong to start, but I saved it so as not to waste any,) and welded it onto the bracket.

The exhaust all assembled with the hangers and brackets

All installed. I did have to take the hanger bracket back out and adjust the modified hanger a bit to get it to hang the best.

It's not perfect on the alignment in the bumper opening, but it's not too bad. I haven't driven it, yet, only a start and rev. Definitely seems quieter in the car and a mellower tone out the back. Still makes some decent noise, though, it seems.

 

Glad it worked out in the end. I'm hoping it sounds decent.

rob

 

So a few updates to be made. The single ball is a huge improvement, but the muffler definitely has a leak and it hangs a bit crooked. Still totally worth what we paid for it and makes the car much more comfortable to drive.

I also got the rain gutter corner installed, looks much better. Now the pass side front flare has come loose on the sude scuttle. I have to check the extra piece I have in the basement and see if it's the right one. If not I'll have to pop tgis one off and fix it.

I've also been working on removing plastidip from the original wheels and clean8ng them up. Got one pretty well stripped and scrubbed up. Another is mostly stripped, but still needs more work.

Paint is faded and there's pleanty of curb rash, but it's still so much better than ratty, dirty plastidip.

Back side isn't perfect, but it's so much better than it was. Only 3 more to go!

Ah...complete windshield trim!

 

"Worth what we paid for it",
HaHaHa...

I have seen some "One Ball" installations where a plain rod is welded to the pipe and goes to a hanger on the unused side to correct the hanging crooked situation. I was contemplating that when I decided to go with the Borla.

Not much progress on mine, still occupied with barn cleaning. I was supposed to get it on a dyno last Thursday but the shop had to cancel. Probably will reschedule for one day next week. Just curious about getting a baseline reading.
robj

 

How long did the payment last? 😜🍻

I'll be honest, if I got the tips in the right spot the pipe that installed for the one ball would hit the body of the car. I loved your jig, and the messed with hanger on the car doesn't help the angle, but it does reinforce why I always like to build/modify an exhaust on the car. I think I may just build a system for it the next time. With a couple of Magnaflows, some stainless pipes, and a tip I think I can come in just over $300 for something similar to your Borla.

When all this quarantine crap blows over maybe we can go sailing.

 

When I had it on for the last "test fit" it seemed to hang evenly. Now this was when the car was on jack stands and I never tried it sitting on 4 wheels. After I painted it and reinstalled it, it looked OK, but I do recall a very slight tilt [less than what you are showing but my OCD eye could detect some]. I think that's why I was thinking about adding the second rod as some others had done. Seems strange that you had to modify the hanging bracket when it went right on mine? Some minor difference in the cars maybe?

Glad it sounds better though.
rj

P.S. Never-mind, I just read the part where the dreaded P.O. modified the brackets on the car itself to make the original system fit. Those darn "P.O.'s"...

 

👍

 

Got an aftermarket replacement key off ebay. Rather than mess with blade cutting and EWS programming through the dealership I swapped the orginal key blade and EWS chip over to the new key. Wasn't as straight forward as I had hoped, but it still only took about 30 min. You can see the details here:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4536360


Newly assembled key, tested in the car, and ready to have the fob programmed.

 

So the other day I ordered up a BimmerGeeks Pro K+DCAN cable so I can start doing some coding and hopefully program the new fob to the car. Can't wait to turn off the damned auto locking over 10 mph!

Yesterday I spent a little time with the Grumpster and checked the spark plugs, which all look nice and healthy. I had also noticed the lower rear section of the RF wheel arch trim had come loose and was making some noise as you were driving. I knew I had a new piece in the basement, but it was for the left side, dangit! Then the plan came together....

Damage to the wheel arch where the clips go in. It had been repaired once before but had come apart again. I ended up breaking all the gray clips trying to get them out of the car.

Dirtiness behind the flare got cleaned up a bit, but that edge was nasty from the flare moving around and from the PO's plastidip adventures.

A little WD40 on a rag followed by some rubbing compound and things are looking much better.

New clips scavenged from the other piece of trim I had in the basement. While grabbing these I realized I had glued the top clip into the holder and it was technically backwards. "No big deal," I thought...until I installed it on the car and it was much too close to the hood. I didn't want to break the new clips so I tried to slide it down and actually broke the little piece that top clip goes into. Oh, well...at least it's on the car much more securely thannit was before.

I also finally found some jacking pads in my stash of e46 parts. I thought I had some saved but hadn't found them until yesterday. Grumpy is back to having four jacking pads again.

 

Im excited to see how your K/DCAN adventures turn out. I briefly looked into one, and I also would be trying to key my own fob. My car only came with one fob that was chewed to hell by the POs pup.

By the way, terrific thread! I’ve read the start and the end so far haha, but I’ll get to the middle when the coffee is done brewing. Very enjoyable read.

 

Thanks for the kind words! There always times with every project that you may become frustrated and want to throw in the towel, but overall this has been a fun one and I enjoy the challenge of rescuing what someone else may have given up on. I also try to be real about the project and keep it light hearted. Since Grumpy is my wife's daily, I can't really afford to tear it all apart at once, which is how these projects are for many of us.

I've been driving e46 BMWs for 6 years, so I'm not sure why it's taken me this long to dive into the coding aspect of things. Knowing that the Mini uses the same software it's definitely time to dive in. I'll be sure to keep up with my progress in here.

 

Haven't done much to Grumpy, lately. I did drive him to work yesterday and it's been a bit since I got some quality seat time. These cars are just grin inducing! And I can't say enough about how good the Valeo single mass clutch setup feels and works. Definitely one of the best things we've done to the car.

Next up will be an oil change and pan replacement with some close inspection of the state of the bottom end. He still runs strong and doesn't make any ugly noises, so I'm feeling pretty good about what I'll find or not find. Currently sitting just shy of 185k miles.

 

Ok, update today, indeed! Score at the junkyard, they have an R53! There's still an item or two I'd like to try to snag off it, but today was a good start. Derek86 beat me to the short shifter, but there was a lot I vould still use for Grumpy. Things like the driver's seat base for the functioning height adjustment, both door cards becayse the anthracite sections are in good shape, the aftermarket header, the vertical anthracite trims for the center stack, and a pass side rain gutter corner. I also grabbed some bits for my Jeep ZJ, but only minor things. Total cost was $53 including yard admission and wagon rental.