Sometimes I hate working on cars.

[greatbear]

Well, my Sunday evening idea of finishing up some of the mods and installs on the Mini Cooper ran into snags again. I received a front/rear foglight retrofit kit with no instructions, a handfull of wiring and connectors, lights, relays, switched and hardware. Ordinarily this is a cakewalk for me, but getting no instructions at all, conflicting and questionable parts had me searching for instructions. Lo and behold, I find an official BMW/MINI instruction as a PDF. w00t for the intarweb! Problem is, the thing was so full of errors and conflicts that I got nowhere with it. This sint the first time either. Mini Coopers are some of the coolest little cars, but they sure seem bereft of that German attention to detail when it comes to information of just about any kind. So now the car is sitting with the dash torn apart and it's brains literally on the floor as I try to get some info that WORKS.

Ich bin ein pissed mechanic.

Comments

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Many MINI owners are finding that front and rear fog installations go a lot better if they disregard large portions of the factory instructions and wire them in such that they're controlled without the dubious "benefit" of the body control module. Several advantages here, chief among which is with the simple addition of a couple diodes, you can make the rear fogs do double duty: Rear fog switch off, they're extra brake lamps, helpful on a car as small as the MINI. Rear fog switch on, the RH lamp is disabled and the LH lamp comes on steady as a rear fog. I really need to get some of these signalling mods up.

At least MINIUSA finally gave in and reversed their refusal to release rear fog retrokits for North American market MINIs. Took some pointing out of what should've been obvious, though!

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I hope to find out this week when I take my car in for it's 'free scheduled maintenance' (chuckle) and I have some of the options I installed programmed into life whether I did the wiring right or not. I have a feeling I did. I hate the idead of the body control module being an inaccessible black box for me. I hope someone hacks the system so it can be programmed by the owner some day. As it stands, the stuff I installed are 'real' factory options and it's easy to deal with as it stands. I did a diode mod months ago in anticipation of getting rear fogs someday, even if it amounted to doing it 'my way'. I was one of many who bitched up MINIUSA for the rear fog lights, and did a couple 'articles' on making the rear fogs and the now infamous 'brake light mod' work together.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

I hate the idead of the body control module being an inaccessible black box for me. I hope someone hacks the system so it can be programmed by the owner some day.

These damn black boxes are one of my pet peeves, too. It's bad enough running everything (horn, lights, CD player controls, etc.) through it and keeping it proprietary, but on a more fundamental level, I detest getting in losing battles of wit with machines that've been programmed to believe themselves inexorably smarter than I. GM's autostart subroutine is neck-and-neck for first place on my all time spitlist with computer-controlled automatic transmissions and the general "Oh, you've requested that the headlamps come on. I'll check with the computer and if it says so, I'll turn them on for you" feel of computer-controlled cars. Grrrrrrrr...

Probably one of the reasons I like driving this so much...no damn black box second guessing me when I thumb the "Drive" button!

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

VERY cool ride. Pushbuttons that do all the right things.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It was my father's. Found it for him in '90 with 20,450 original miles. A '62 Dodge Lancer, it is, with a scarce die-cast aluminum version of the 225 Slant-6. Not quite as from the factory...there are disc brakes behind the front Cragars, and soon there'll be twin SU's (believe it or not) nestled behind the A/C compressor...

Pushbuttons that do all the right things

Like some bears I know! =8^{)}