Geoff289
Well-known member
I just stumbled on it too. A great read!
Mechanics Pit (my effort at)
- Thread starter Demon69
- Start date
Cheers guys, am hoping to clean up and modify my pit jack soon, will post it up when im out the other side
rust in the eye
Well-known member
My hat is off to you. Great work and well thought out.
I found it amusing that after one punishing job you then proceed to do the timing chain on a Mini.
God bless you, sir, indeed.
I found it amusing that after one punishing job you then proceed to do the timing chain on a Mini.
God bless you, sir, indeed.
SILVERPLATE
Well-known member
I have a four post lift. Not sure I could live with hole in the garage floor. Non the less, outstanding job. Enjoy your results.
Hammer1963
Well-known member
WOW!
Old Man Roger
Well-known member
I would take that hole in the ground, and I'd be happier than a pig in ****.lol
Jagmandave
Well-known member
So, were you able to fix the vacuum pump? What was wrong with it?
PCMusicGuy
Well-known member
That's a nice pit. Doing that where I grew up would have hit ground water within a couple of feet.
Nobody-named-Olli
Well-known member
Great build! Very well done and thought through!
Kind regards,
Olli
Kind regards,
Olli
That makes two of us
Was helping a buddy on his Honda CRV the other day, he was up top doing filters and oil etc while I was in the hole doing lower arms, thought that was pretty cool. Plus at least this way ive the choice of hole or no hole, don't have that luxury with posts
No I had it apart but didn't find anything that I considered horrible, a bit of slop in the drive key but that floats anyways, was functional but noisy. I replaced it with a pierburg unit, didnt want to chance a cheapy on something that can seize and do timing chains / spockets etc
I lucked out in that I didnt hit water too early and that the flow rate through the clay is super slow
Cheers man. Yep, low on general floor space and low ceiling height had me go with a pit
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Cheers all
Just_Steve
Well-known member
Yes, I was wondering the same thing.
Since you have done more than the Pit, we should probably move it to the Gallery Section. That would more appropriate and a title change would be easy to do.
Thanks for that, will have think about a new title
If you have any issues or can't do it, shoot me a PM, I'll be happy to help.Thanks for that, will have think about a new title
Have an ol girl over the hole today, an early 80s Merc w123 230c, shes a non starter due to no power to fuel pump, found to be dry solder joints in the fuel pump relay so kinda easy fix.
Looking over the car I noticed a friday night special, can ya see it
![2025-03-28-17-06-22-946[1].jpg](https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/data/attachments/2149/2149513-6931c9685203ab62473e5a9a8bda59e5.jpg "2025-03-28-17-06-22-946[1].jpg")
Looking over the car I noticed a friday night special, can ya see it
tweidman
Well-known member
Not easy to bleed like that.....
Yep, the calipers are symmetrical enough that some poor pilgrim got them mixed up going back on, I can picture the scene now "Them ****** Mercs are a complete nightmare to bleed!".
kitdoctor
Well-known member
@Demon69 engineering drawings that show such a membrane never convey what a pain it is to place nor how much it bunches up and how much it moves around when the concrete is placed. So, the belief that one will have a nice neat flap left that can be folded against the edge of a slab is next to impossible to achieve.
RoninB4
Well-known member
-Really nice work on making that pit. Wouldn't be a good idea to have one around here with the poisonous snakes that would drop in to help you while in the pit. Thanks for posting all the photos for the project.
Old Man Roger
Well-known member
Your humor is venomous.
Good overall but can be a bit much at times. I have them switched so you can run left / right or both. Both is great for general inspection as the whole underside gets well lit, left / right only works well if you want the light at the back of you. When topside looking down on suspension / brakes etc it can be dazzling with both on. I like using a head or small work light when I want to focus on something.
Cheers D
Finally got round to putting some wheel cribs together, they stack so you can have some choice on height.
Heres a link for general info on cribbing etc. I have it as each 4"x4" junction (16" square) is good for 6000lbs, or 375lbs per square inch. Ive used 3"x4" for the top rails so have reduced that to 12 square inches per junction, x4 junctions per crib = 48, 48 x 375lbs = 18,000lbs per crib, if they were loaded at the junctions, which they wont be . Overall capacity is limited to the top deck the wheels sit on. In 4x2s we trust 
Refinished (well almost) the extractor box, put a shelf along side so the cribs can stack out the way, next job get a filter on it and remind myself oh how much paint doesn't end up on the thing youre spraying.
Edit:- strange, can't upload last pic, will try on PC a bit later.
At last, reducing image size in paint did the trick.
Heres a link for general info on cribbing etc. I have it as each 4"x4" junction (16" square) is good for 6000lbs, or 375lbs per square inch. Ive used 3"x4" for the top rails so have reduced that to 12 square inches per junction, x4 junctions per crib = 48, 48 x 375lbs = 18,000lbs per crib, if they were loaded at the junctions, which they wont be
. Overall capacity is limited to the top deck the wheels sit on. In 4x2s we trust Refinished (well almost) the extractor box, put a shelf along side so the cribs can stack out the way, next job get a filter on it and remind myself oh how much paint doesn't end up on the thing youre spraying.
Edit:- strange, can't upload last pic, will try on PC a bit later.
At last, reducing image size in paint did the trick.
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With the Cooper S being the gift that keeps on giving, ive stumbled into the realm of oscilloscopes, like a whole new world I always thought of as mystic voodoo has now become accessible.
Back probing the coil signal wire on Cylinder 4 and monitoring misfires on a Kingbolen K10 pro, behaving on idle, for now.
Gotcha! A miss on idle that turns into a dead miss on snap throttle. After swapping plug positions 1 and 4 it turns out a month old NGK didnt want to play anymore, the mini effect in full effect.
This was all after finding out the pattern part ebay Vanos solenoid was causing the cold start erratic idle all along. An OE Delphi unit cured the problem and now 'actual' and 'set point' values track each other closely. Lesson learned!
Back probing the coil signal wire on Cylinder 4 and monitoring misfires on a Kingbolen K10 pro, behaving on idle, for now.
Gotcha! A miss on idle that turns into a dead miss on snap throttle. After swapping plug positions 1 and 4 it turns out a month old NGK didnt want to play anymore, the mini effect in full effect.
This was all after finding out the pattern part ebay Vanos solenoid was causing the cold start erratic idle all along. An OE Delphi unit cured the problem and now 'actual' and 'set point' values track each other closely. Lesson learned!
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It never ends with these cars, fights every step on the way.
Ive always resisted the temptation but finally caved, the lure of the cheapy chinese 'air bag' jacks was just tooo great and curiosity finally won out. Tbh, they're not bad actually 
. After buying one and deciding they're not complete shite I had to get another, logic being you can use both at the same time or jack either side without the switcheroo. If you've the option (not always the case these days) you can go centre, hence the cross beam made of what I had laying about.
If you dont have that option you can go up on the pinch welds side by side and block as required. Will probably make up a Y line so you dont have to keep disconnecting/connecting. Have made some 12x12 cribs that sit under the jacks to help it go quicker (no pics but you get the idea)
Then if you want to get a car up high its no biggie, under the wheels.
Or under the jacking points for corner work at a comfortable sit down height.
All up, adds a lot more options, a lot more stable than jack stands, and as much as I love the beam jack, I have to decide if its worth keeping or not
. After buying one and deciding they're not complete shite I had to get another, logic being you can use both at the same time or jack either side without the switcheroo. If you've the option (not always the case these days) you can go centre, hence the cross beam made of what I had laying about.If you dont have that option you can go up on the pinch welds side by side and block as required. Will probably make up a Y line so you dont have to keep disconnecting/connecting. Have made some 12x12 cribs that sit under the jacks to help it go quicker (no pics but you get the idea)
Then if you want to get a car up high its no biggie, under the wheels.
Or under the jacking points for corner work at a comfortable sit down height.
All up, adds a lot more options, a lot more stable than jack stands, and as much as I love the beam jack, I have to decide if its worth keeping or not
Old Man Roger
Well-known member
It would probably never fail, but having the cribbing on the temporary pit cover boards gives me that wierd feeling. 
Ah yeah, if anyone try's to con you into changing a door handle on an R56 mini, charge it up!
Inner panel, glass and regulator all have to come out with all the nonsense that that entails.
The reward outside of $ is that you can marvel at the true greatness of 'mini' engineering
Inner panel, glass and regulator all have to come out with all the nonsense that that entails.
The reward outside of $ is that you can marvel at the true greatness of 'mini' engineering
What!? I can do much better than that!It would probably never fail, but having the cribbing on the temporary pit cover boards gives me that wierd feeling.
Heres the back end of a 1 ton van jacked centre on them 6x2s, now that did have me feeling a little weird
In reality they're rock solid at that small overlap from the edge, but the pita is the boards have to stay put once its up. If poss, for that reason id always want the cribs on concrete. I wanted to centre load the cribs first time round, but with experience im sure unless its a super narrow car, i'll be able to avoid it.
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