I am looking to replace this being I took it out of storage and half way home, it developed a coolant leak.. I have deemed it must be from the thermostat housting.

what is a good brand to get away with? rock auto has a few under $100 and a transfer pipe, I was going to get a kit that comes with the updated wiring from 1 into 2, I just dont want a crap brand that is known to fail

I watched some vids on it, seems relatively easy except that xfer tube clip under the intake.
any other things I should know before I invent new cuss words working on this thing, again?

 

As a former n14 owner best piece of advice I can give you is use oem thermostat and crossover pipe, and yes replace both at the same time. It’s also cheaper to pick up a gallon of mini coolant and gallon of distilled water and mix yourself, you will need almost the full 2 gallons. I replaced my crossover pipe, first time, with a rein that leaked a year later, so the second time I replaced water pump, cross over, and thermostat all oem and everything was leak free.

 

Oh you'll develop some new cuss words for sure.

There are 5 hoses that connect to the thermostat. They were quite hard to get off using vice grips on my 2011 since I presume this was its first rodeo. I did get some fancy hose pliers along the way. Beware the line that feeds to the turbo, we managed to snap it at the T junction.

The cursed crossover pipe. Some remove the inlet manifold for access but with long arms and a stout back you can reach underneath the inlet. Old pipe broke coming out of the water pump so be sure to find all debris. Some Vaseline on the O-ring and a very firm push got the replacement in. The magic clip, it went on quite easily for my kid who was helping - I'll hire him out for a modest fee since he has the 'touch" 8).

Now you'll find much debate about the pipe on here - some have had no problems with non-MINI branded and others less so. But this part has always perplexed me. ECS's price for MINI is $90 - for a plastic pipe. There are 7(!) aftermarket parts ranging in price from $14 to $26. I do not believe there are 8 factories churning out these brands. So who makes the MINI branded one? If you go to RockAuto you'll find 2 additional brand names. The one I put in was made in Turkey - after 18 months and 2000 miles I have a slight leak at the thermostat connection - maybe it's the thermostat at fault here - I haven't been able to see clearly enough who is the culprit. Still procrastinating about what to do.

Some lads in Italy make a metal pipe. It will cost about $220 to get it to the USA depending on Euro to $US exchange rate.

Good luck! Let us know what new words you come up with.

cheers
MacMini34

 

thank you for the replies, I was thinking the same thing about makers. who really makes the OEM? rock auto has some Tstat housings that come with the adaptor plug, ECS wants $125 for the housing and $45 for the adaptor, x pipe is a toss up, I have it down to I am ready to pull the hoses, the many vids helped. I am going to attempt to leave the intake on, it may make a brief exit if it gets difficult to put on.