MINIs Making-A-Wish 2005

Posted on by Ian C.

Another excellent but chilly day spent supporting a good cause with MINI owners (see also last years MINIs Making-A-Wish); around 40 MINIs showed, bringing almost 1600 toys and raising more than $3000 for MINIs Making-A-Wish! Steve Scales once again provided excellent organization (including a scenic drive, badges & pins) ably assisted by many including Pat & Angela, Jay, and WIlly 😉

During the drive from Westerly to Providence (RI), we had two stops – one was scenic on the ocean front, the other offered coffee & snacks, and a very-overworked single restroom! The last part of the drive, with state police escort, took us to Make-A-Wish in Providence to deliver the toys; from there we headed to Ribs & Company for lunch, before heading home.

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Also, see this MINI2 thread

Failed light mod

Posted on by Ian C.

For some time the side repeaters of GBMINI have been annoying me. The off white plastic just does not fit nicely with the general red & chrome of the car.
Recently I saw “NEW ERA CHROME OVAL LED REPEATERS” in a MINI Mania UK advert so bought a set. Installation suggests cutting the cars wiring, so I put off installation for a while …

Today I decided instead to modify the side repeaters so that the cars wiring was unchanged (thankfully!); I checked the car connections, and added small pin connectors to the side repeaters, then I took them out to check them on the car – the first one I checked seemed fine, so I modified the second one, and took both out to fit to the car; then I discovered two significant problems!

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The first is that they are badly designed – they simply don’t properly fit in the indentation of the side grille! The oval shape of the new lights seems to be too long vertically, and not long enough horizontally, so that it does not sit neatly.
The other problem is that one of the two lights is poorly made – some of the individual LEDs don’t light up properly, and if you apply light pressure to the housing the LEDs will get more dim or bright. Apparently there is a soldering / assembly issue. Of course I can’t return them to MINI Mania now that I have modified the connector, so unless I decide to repair them and like the poor fit, it’s off to the junk pile with them …