With decent N14 motors being essentially unobtanium, I decided to build one from a core so I have a replacement for ours next spring. Ours suffers from oil consumption and has high miles so it's due and we are nursing it along for now. Therefore I went to the bone yard and yanked a motor out of a 2009. It was cheap and as it turns out, really not worth investing time or money into but what a story it tells.

The head is ruined as the cams have machined away the journals and are pretty groovy if you know what I mean. No bent valves though which was interesting because two pistons have valve damage from a previous timing failure. Pistons are very loose in the bores. I didn't bother to measure the clearance but it was huge..like 15 thou huge. The blow by must have been epic!
Pulling the oil filter it was evident by all the aluminum (heads) that the engine had suffered a serious melt down. The bottom end revealed a spun rod bearing and not so happy mains. The pan was full of debris and the oil pump inlet was plugged with crap, including plastic from a previous timing system failure that was never cleaned out. I'm sure this debris constricted the oil pump inlet and that led to the cam and rod failures.

So always pull the pan and clean out any plastic that may have come off the timing chain guides!!

I don't expect to find a great engine at the bone yard. After all, most Minis end up here because of motor failure in the first place. This 2009 was near mint, which is so sad. That said, I want to find one with a decent head and crank. I'm sure I will need to have it bored out with new pistons and rings. That's a given. Then with new bearings and seals it should last a while.

This guy is going back to the bone yard and I'll be looking for a better example to start my build. Thankfully they have a great return policy.

Crank journal

Rod journal where bearing spun



All of this came out of the filter housing and much more.

This was in the pan and oil pump inlet..

 

Holy crap!!

Change your oil REGULARLY, guys and gals!!

 

Jeez, that's some bad stuff. Looks like gravel. I bet it was making an awful noise.

 

this site has good parts

https://www.allmagautoparts.com/collections/mini-cooper

 

Yes I would imagine that it was hammering pretty bad when they finally stopped driving it. The issues it had were astounding.
Intake cam timing was way off
Cams were worn
Cam chain tensioner fell apart in my hands when I removed it
Guides were broken (of course)
2 Pistons had exhaust valve damage
All pistons were loose in bore
Cylinders were scored
Turbo radial play was unreal
Crank bearings beat
Rod bearing spun so bad the bearing welded to the rod!

It's like they just held the throttle wide open to see if it would throw a rod through the side.