UPCOMING: Time for a MINI drive

Posted on by Ian C.

This evening, Margaret & I fly south and “meet up” with GPMINI, ready for a drive north to bring her up for MINIsOnTop – on the way we will join other MINIs on two organized events: The Blue Ridge Parkway Tour and The Great Ice Cream Run II:

FL to NH route

(click here to see the route in Google Maps)

A (June 12th) – Kissimmee, FL (where GPMINI “lives”)
then 571 miles to
B (June 18th) – Cherokee, NC (the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway Tour)
then 186 miles of Blue Ridge Parkway with MINIs to
C (June 19th) – Banner Elk, NC
then 180 miles of Blue Ridge Parkway with MINIs to
D (June 20th) – Roanoke, VA
then 94 miles of Blue Ridge Parkway with MINIs to
E (June 21st) – Waynesboro, VA (the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway Tour)
then a quick 11 mile hope to
F (June 21st) – Staunton, VA (the start of The Great Ice Cream Run II)
then 266 miles of Great Ice Cream Run with MINIs to
G (June 22nd) – Frackville, PA and a visit to Heisler’s Dairy Bar
then 266 miles of Great Ice Cream Run with MINIs, and maybe some deep fried ice-cream, to
H (June 23rd) – Sturbridge, MA and a visit to Howard’s Drive-In
then 84 miles of Great Ice Cream Run with MINIs to
I (June 24th) – Haverhill, MA and a visit to England’s Microcreamery, after which Margaret & I leave the MINIs and head instead to
J (June 24th/25th) – Gloucester, MA back home, while The Great Ice Cream Run II continues north to Freeport and Bar Harbor in Maine
and finally 150 miles to
K (June 26th/27th) – Bartlett, NH (for MINIsOnTop 2009 at the Attitash Grand Summit hotel)

Maybe I’ll see some of you on the way – or at MINIsOnTop 🙂

MINI E jollity

Posted on by Ian C.

Just found this new but hilarious MINI E weblog, from Autoblog’s solar only MINI E article:
… The right-most pedal, commonly called an “accelerator” in vehicles that haul around tanks full of liquefied dinosaurs, makes the car do two things – Go And Slow. I like to refer to it as the G.A.S. pedal (pronounced “gas”). As you apply pressure to the pedal the car will go; as you reduce pressure on the pedal the car will slow (and eventually stop).
To the left of the G.A.S. pedal you will find another pedal that Basically Removes All Kinetic Energy from the vehicle (which conveniently spells out another easy to pronounce acronym – “B.R.A.K.E.”). When you use this pedal on the East Coast it will bring the car to a complete stop. This pedal is not used in California …

I hope David writes lots more articles in this style 🙂

Cheap auto-up windows?

Posted on by Ian C.

Personally, I would not implement this modification, since it removes control of your windows and is sure to surprise someone who doesn’t know about the modification.
Check out this MINI2 post where remmie writes:
I’ve discovered a great and very cheap mod to get the passenger window to auto-up with just a single short flick of the switch. It involves adding a 22 microfarad capacitor and a 100 Ohm resistor to the toggle switchpanel or the wiring that goes to the toggle switchpanel. These cost about 10 cents each at your local electronic-parts shop.
What it does is letting the Main Computer (BC1) think that the switch is still pressed for about 6 seconds which is enough to close the passenger window fully.

The effect of this modification is to make the “up” input to the car always stay active for 6s longer than you click for, so a quick click will close the windows, but a longer click will still close the windows! The only way to stop the windows closing is to hit “down” – the car then sees both “up” and “down” at the same time, and stops all window movement.

I much prefer my double-click auto-up solution, which is unlikely to be triggered by someone who doesn’t know the modification is present – I can see the above mod catching out the dealership, hopefully not injuring anyone, but maybe causing expensive un-needed “repair” to the car electronics!

Still, now that my circuit is no longer being manufactured (again), some people might want to try this … it is clever, and cheap, after all 🙂