Josh Wardell’s MINI Cooper S

I must be in the mood to work on my car this week!
My new Isotta shift knob came this week…I had always wanted one after experiencing their nice Italian leather I had on my Focus steering wheel.

I also always thought MINI’s stick was way too high. I considered getting a real short shifter, but the combined high cost and the unreasonably difficult install of dropping the exhaust and installing from underneath has kept me away.

So I figured what could I loose by simply shortening the stock stick? (Yes yes I know I’m not shortening the throw, but that’s not what I’m going after–I want reduced height.) So I spent a few hours after work last night with a hacksaw and the good ol’ Dremel.

The metal was surprisingly hard to get through, I thought the Dremel would do it easily but I had to resort to a hack saw. The dremel was much more useful for getting rid of that wider plastic part. Of course, I was covered with metal and plastic dust.

By the time I finished I was working by flashlight so sorry to tease but there are no completed photos yet. The drive to work this morning I could instantly feel a difference, I was no longer grabbing the shifter around its neck and shifting felt more accurate.

Yesterday was a holiday for some of us, a Mass state holiday called Patriot’s Day. Events held include the Boston Marathon and the battle of Lexington reenactment and parade.

I took advantage of the beautiful 70+-degree weather and took care of something I had been putting off for a while in the MINI. I’ve had the AUX input since I bought the car, but rarely use it due to satellite radio, and basically the wire has been hanging near my feet. Additionally the wires to my laser jammer controller were also in plain view in the same area. Once in a while my feet would hit them, but more importantly, it didn’t look very nice.

So I took apart the downtubes and center stack. I routed the laser wires inside the plastic housing. I then mounted the AUX jack inside my left downtube, allowing for easy use. This wasn’t the easiest of tasks; after some drilling for the holes, it was very hard to get my fingers in there to guide the wire 90 degrees into the hole, but I got it and it looks great. Here’s a pic of everything taken apart. Also note Ian’s auto window up circuit attached to the removed toggles (which I also too the opportunity to wrap in electrical tape).

I got a cool new fisheye camera yesterday and quickly went out to take some pics:

Checks:

Smile! 😀

Including some updates to my main MINI page, I’ve added a new Car Care page which details the many cleaning products I use.

I could care less about myself, but my MINI, oh it must have the best cleaing products and filtered water! 😀