Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick

About a mile from home on my way to work Tuesday, out of the blue, there came a ticking sound from the passenger side of the CTBNL. It was a high frequency sound tick, loud, but not enough to drown out every other normal driving noise and occurring at about 2 or 3 times a second. The steering felt fine and I had no warning lights. I put my hand on the seat, the dashboard, the transmission and nothing was vibrating, As I slowed for the next cross street to pull over, the sound didn’t change, so not speed dependent. When I pushed in the clutch in, the sound once again remained constant, so no engine or transmission. Hmmm.

I stopped, left the car running and stepped outside. I could still hear the ticking, it was less loud and coming from the area around the windshield / hood on the passenger side. A long inactive synapse tingled, I was now pretty sure I knew what it was. I got back in the car and turned the HVAC fan from 1 to 0. The ticking stopped.

I just left the fan off for the rest of the commute. When I got home I pulled the car into the garage (baby, it was cold outside) where I removed the glove box and laid on my back in passenger side with my feet out the door to take out the three screws that hold the motor up. Somehow a tenacious live oak leaf had found its way into the cowl area, under a plastic cover, then up and over a 1-1/2″ metal dam and through a loose mesh screen to fall into the fan motor. That 3″ long intact leaf wasn’t the only thing in the fan either, but it was the noise maker. I also pulled out a couple of small acorn pieces, a couple of small broken leaf pieces, several strands of pine straw and a lot of dust that through centripetal force and the design of fan had been wedged into the very bottom.

Man Flu

Big news today is that there is such a thing as “Man Flu.” The term was coined for men who present with mild flu-like symptoms but who complain of feeling much worse than they appear. A Canadian researcher found that men are actually more susceptible to complications from many respiratory diseases and our immune systems may be naturally weaker towards them than women.

I don’t know about respiratory, but my version of the Man Flu is more like I can’t leave a car alone in stock form. I have a compulsion to add, subtract and modify them until I think they are just right. Donna puts up with it with the Miata, but she has told me in no uncertain terms to leave the Mini alone.

Because the online forums are a great place to learn about the car I joined the North American Motoring one. I’ve used it, so far, to figure what battery to buy, what the heck the Sport Button really does, how come the windshield wiper blades are so different and other stuff. The problem with the forums are they are chock full of men like me who have modified their Minis and I can’t help be exposed to them. There are some that I see and think, “Oooh, that’s cool,” and then think about it for a minute more, visualize it, then think, “Naaah.”

Here is an example. In the center of the black bottom grill of Ladybug is chrome horizontal bar. There I guess to somewhat echo the chrome grill above. I think it looks weird and some folks have painted it black or covered it in black tape. In the same thread someone else posted a picture of where they had painted theirs red. So I thought, let’s go to Paint Shop Pro and do some mock ups. First is how it looks stock, then blacked out, then red. I even tried blue and green, but in the end, the way it came from the factory is best.

Reunited: Part 2


Alternate Post Title: Now He’s Just Trolling Me

Last year, a couple months after I bought the CTBNL, the previous owner, when cruising by the Valve Store, pulled in and snapped a photo of his “old” car with the old car that he was driving that day.

Well a little more than a year later, he did it again, this time with his 1987 911 G50 Carrera.

He is not really trolling me though, he has actually offered me the chance to take that car for a drive. Back when I needed a car from the 80’s for the Motoring Challenge, he said I could come over and snap a photo and then drive a sample of old school P-car magic. The car was having some work done in Charleston, which took longer than anticipated, then Donna and I went on a driving vacation. He’s a caregiver for an ailing father. I stumbled on a mid-eighties Fiero so the need went away. Etc., etc., so we just haven’t had the chance to get it together…yet.

2 Months In

We’ve owned the Mini for two months now and have driven it a little over a thousand miles, bought 2 tanks of gas and a new battery.

I found a local shop here in Aiken that does BMW/Mini work, Newton’s Automotive, to register that new battery to the car instead of a dealer. I called them and the fellow who answered said if I brought it in before 4 PM he could do it in a few minutes and it would be $20. So, today, in the cold and rain, Donna and I dropped in on them. They did the battery registering for free. Probably for a couple of reasons, 1) it took all of three minutes to do and 2) it was a shrewd business move, it created a guarantee that if we ever needed something done on the Mini, they would be our first call.

Afterwards he compounded the good feelings by chatting with us for another 10 minutes or so about the meaning of the cryptic service messages and how they relate to real world experience and wear. I asked about oil changes and doing them myself because that is what I’m used to doing with the Miata. He told me that if that was what I wanted to do, it was certainly doable by me, no special tools. But they only charge $25 plus the cost of the parts, so why would I. Sounds tempting.

Good News/Bad News

Good
Somehow, through no fault of my own, the Angry Ladybugs have slipped into the EZEFFL Playoffs. I won the last game of the season by beating the only team in the conference with a worse record than me1 and was helped out by having the only combination of two teams, who I held the tie-breaker over, losing.

Bad
Another “I Really Am Old” milestone was passed today when I signed up for a Wheel of Fortune Spin ID number. Most nights at 7:00 PM we’ve finished eating and are parked comfortably on the couch, so after watching the network news, watching Pat & Vanna are the perfect mental pallet cleanser and blood pressure lowering tool. If you happen to be tuned in and see the Spin Id Number of BB6861302, let me know, I’ll split it with you.

Shades of Lucas Electric?

Sure these new Minis are a BMW product, but their design was inspired by the original British Motor Company’s icon, but I wonder if it has gone too far with the homage, by leaving just a few random electrical gremlins. For the past couple of weeks we have had the little symbol on the left show up in the center of the tach on start up.

There were no other warning lights, it would go off after a couple of seconds and the car ran fine, so we have been ignoring it. From the owners manual:

Lights up in yellow:
> Control of the brake lamps failed
or
> fuel supply malfunctioning

You can continue your journey, but
moderate your speed and exercise
due caution. Have the system in
question checked without delay.

> Drive malfunctioning
You can continue your journey, but
moderate your speed and exercise
due caution. Transmission limp-home
program active with restricted range
of gears. Have the system checked
immediately.

It took me several times to work my why through the odd procedure to set up my key to unlock both doors with one click without the car stopping me mid key press by shutting off (you have to have the ignition on, but engine not running.) And I never have gotten to the next step after that to activating the daytime running lights. Once or twice since we’ve had it the car seemed slow to crank, but it would always start, so we took it to the local parts store and had them check the battery. It was a little low. We chalked it up Donna only using it to go back and forth to the gym, only about a one mile trip one way, so we’ve been taking it for occasional long drives.

Today, when Donna quickly ran into a store to settle a mis-rung up purchase, I decided to wait in the car with the radio on. After about two minutes I heard a “bong”, the radio shut off and in the place where the car on lift symbol has been showing up a battery one did. This time we took the hint, I read a little on the Mini Forum and headed off to the auto parts store and bought a battery.

Now here is where we stop thinking old Lucas Electric and start thinking new Bosch Electric as the Mini has something called an Intelligent Battery System and you are supposed to register your new battery with your car. If you don’t the car will possibly over-charge the battery because it thinks it is an old and needs more juice, thereby shortening the battery’s life span.

And guess what? It is not something you can do easily yourself. A Mini Dealer (Charleston – 130 miles away) or a BMW Dealer (Augusta – 30 miles away) could do it, for a fee, and I bet it wouldn’t be a small one either. There is an app you can buy called iCarly for nearly $60, so you can do it yourself, but from what I read on the web it will only work with their version of an OBDII adapter which is another $60 or $70. A third option is something called NCS Expert/INPA software which looks cheap (~$15, unless I’m missing something), but it will only run on 32-bit Windows XP, which means buying an old laptop of some kind and a USB- OBDII cable. Plus the coding doesn’t look easy to understand and I’d hate to totally screw something like that up. Time to see if there is a shop in Aiken that can do it.

New Leather Seating

New Couch


Not for the Miata, but for the living room, our new couch arrived 17 days and a half an hour later after we bought it. The 17 days was because that was the first available day that worked for both them and us. The half hour was because they called and left a message on my phone at work that they were 30 minutes away and it took them a touch over 60 to pull up in front of the house. Technically they were still 15 minutes early though. I was originally given a delivery window of 11:30 to 2:30 and they arrived at quarter after eleven.

It is two shades darker, 10 inches wider and about 2″ higher off the ground, but it is remarkably similar to our old one. The old couch left last night in the back of a pickup truck, to be given to someone who needed one (even one covered in tape.)

Old Couch