I've an 02 mini cooper s... just hit 80k on it. the car has had a rough idle since I got it but I kept putting it off till now, I put it on the road again last week after a long winter and Im getting ready to tackle all the issues it has to get ready for autox season. I noticed a almost hissing kind of noise coming from teh front of the car behind the radiator. long story short I smoke tested it and noticed 2 things: the supercharger has a vacuum leak on the intake side where it meets up with the throttle body - is this a common problem ? It looks like I have to spend some time tearing everything apart just to even get a real good look at whats going on here, from what I can see it looks like there is a seal and a clamp holding the two together. The second thing I noticed is that the SC was covered in oil. I checked the level and sure enough it was low. with all that said - I havent looked up the labor times on removing the supercharger but from the looks of it, I dont think I want to tear everything apart just to see whats wrong with the damn thing if I cant even fix it, im wondering if I should order a new supercharger before I even bother taking the thing apart. I would appreciate any comments from anyone with experience with this or a link - I couldnt find anything useful when I tried searching for it... thanks - Mark

 

If the s/c is covered with oil, first things to check would be valve cover gasket, the bellows either side of the intercooler, and the o-ring for the crank position sensor.

 

I agree with the above. Could be alot cheaper than just replacing an entire SC which is 1000$ =/. The hissing would be just from a vacuum leak do you have a boost gauge? if so what is it reading.

 

no boost gauge, the vacuum leak is comming from the intake side of the supercharger. from what I can see from the bottom theres like a green seal is partially mushed out of the sc and thats where the smoke is coming out. it wouldnt normally effect the car but the leak after the air is meterd so its causing a rough idle. I was just checking if there was common issues with this... I think I am just gonna have to tear it apart this weekend and find out exactly whats going on here. I assumed the oil was from the sc since the level is low and the only place there is oil is on the bottom of the sc.

 

How did you check the oil level on the SC while it was still in the car?

 

unscrewed the plug for the fill hole and stuck my pinky in it.. you can get to it with a torx bit and some extensions/swivel sockets. if it was completely full the fluid should run out once the plug is out, in my case I had no fluid untill I got my finger in there pretty good.. I think I read somewhere that there is 2 different spots that oil goes but you cant get to the other one with out taking the sc off the car.

 

Marikle: Would you take a pic of the wrench setup you used to reach the supercharger oil plug? If a socket can get there, one could get a bit of tubing there as well and with a syringe-type setup, top up the oil without doing a full removal.

 

I think you remove the filler screw on the snout (front-end) of the SC. The rear one is difficult.

 

cadenza is right. its like a T25 torx bit you just use a small extension and 1/4 inch ratchet. I could just top it off, but I plan on keeping this thing a while and auto cross starts next month so I wanna make sure its tip top. im ripping it apart tomarrow to find out how bad its leaking oil and if theres any seals I can replace. I'll update once I figure out whats goin on so if anyone else encounters this problem they can have an idea of what they are in for.

 

Sounds like the green seal is bad between the SC and intake, not expensive part, but hard to get to. If there is oil in the thing, it isn't leaking. One side has 2 oz, the other 6 oz, so a bad leak empties it fast and it wouldn't last long once dry.

 

Yeah the green seal is in fact broken. i tore it all apart today and looks like im gonna be doing a lot more work than I thought (since I have it all apart). I found the other fill screw behind the water pump. I dont see anything really leaking oil im assuming it just slowly leaked out into the intake and maybe leaked out where the green seal was broke. I tried loading some pics of the seal and some pics i took while everything was coming apart - but the file's were too big and i dont have a progra, to resize them. one of them should load just to show you how far you have to go to get to the seal and water pump if you ever need to do them.

 

Also, I took the time to degrease n clean the engine while I had access to everything. I am also replacing the water pump, putting fresh fluid in the SC, replacing tensioner assembly, idler pully, and fresh manual tranny fluid. car should be done within a week as long as I can muster up parts, most of my parts places have to order everything for my car since theres not a lot of mini's in my area but its worth it I get everything for wholesale.

 

That should keep things good for a long time. Don't forget the gaskets when you order (or check if they are included) for the WP.

 

question did it feel like you lost pressure when your AC was on and you had to go up a slight hill at a light that you had to almost floor it and float the clutch to get it to move?

 

Sorry if I missed anything, didnt read the whole thread lol but REPLACE THE GREEN SEAL ONLY. This IS a VERY common issue with the supercharged MINI Coopers and we see it all the time. However it is pretty labor intensive, especially for your first time. Good luck, hope this helps.

Edit: Lol I gotta stop doing this. Reading the first couple posts, then answering and reading the rest later. Hahaha glad to see you got the issue taken care of, and yes its a very good idea you replace the water pump while you are in there.