I’ve never seen a simpler thing
Than the little MINI oil filter o-ring.
It’s nice and small and rubber and black,
Doing it’s job, filling a crack..

Time to change my oil, same as before,
Didn’t seem like much of a chore.
New oil and a filter, actually kinda fun,
Only half an hour and I was done.

Tools put away and trash in the bin,
I opened up the door and climbed right in.
Buckled up and turned the key,
Oh, that engine sounds sweet to me.

I record the miles and the work done then,
I pulled out my journal and my trusty pen.
I sat there, idling, and filled out my book,
No reason to give things a second look.

As the engine turned, I was quite unaware
That my wonderful O-ring had developed a tear.
And as a result of my tiny mistake,
My new batch of Castrol was becoming a lake.

Done with my logbook, I put it in gear,
Time for me and Blimey to get outta here,
You’re chuckling by now, but this is no joke,
“OH MY GOD, LOOK AT ALL THAT SMOKE!!!”

The stream of new Castrol had found the exhaust,
And finally there was a sign that oil was being lost,
Smoke poured from the bonnet, a huge cloud of white,
and in through the vents, OH MY what a fright!

I pulled to the curb and switched off the key,
No idea what was happening to Blimey and me.
But I hop out of the car and into the rain
And see a sign that this is gonna be a pain.

Pulled off the filter and saw the big tear,
No idea how that thing got there.
Put a new ring on and 3 more quarts
No worse for the wear, except for my shorts.

Two thousand miles later, everything seems OK,
But I’ll always have a memory of the oil change day.
Oil changes are easy, just one little hitch,
When you change your filter o-ring, don’t tear that little b!t@h!

So… after I installed my custom Redline shift & brake boots, and my polished UJ brake handle, something was still “lacking”:

Yeah, the shift knob.

For a LONG time, my plan has been to get a custom engraved Whalen stainless steel knob. These things are da bomb. I was thinking one engraved with a Union Jack, and “Blimey” in the same font that I used for the door sills, in polished finish. That would tie my whole UJ theme together at primary man/machine interface… Similar to this one:

Well, there’s one catch - I have an automatic. Technically, even though the auto has a “lock” button on the stock knob, you don’t *really* need it… the tranny is electronically controlled, so it won’t let you slam it in reverse while going forward, etc. But the shaft of the auto shifter is machined a little differently than the manual one - same diameter, but different length from the “shoulder” to the end, and the slot in the end is machined 90 degrees differently…

Several folks have installed Whalen knobs on autos - it works, though Doug’s fantastic locking mechanism doesn’t really work as designed due to the length difference. Doug was originally going to make me a knob, then decided to stop *knowingly* selling knobs for autos because (1) he’s a perfectionist and didn’t like the fact that the mechanism wasn’t quite right, and (2) he was concerned about defeating the stock button functionality and the liability that might create. I certainly can’t fault him for either of those concerns. But that left me with no solution for my custom shift knob…

Recently, I had come across some badges / decals at MotorSwag.com that just “fit” Blimey’s theme and character somehow:

I put a one of these on my badge holder and my boot, and love’em. So then I got this evil, rebellious, (great? stupid? insane?) idea, and ended up with this:

My wife HATES it. Me and my sons LOVE it. Three of us and one of her. What does that mean? It means I put the stock knob back on when she drives or rides the MINI.

Anyhoo… this knob was CHEAP (about $15) - so that’s more money for other mods. It wasn’t a good fit for the stock lever, but I found that if I drilled it out a tiny bit, I could epoxy a 2″ length of 1/2″ hard copper pipe in there and it’s a PERFECT slip fit over the stock shift lever. Wrap a little chrome tape around the exposed end of the pipe and it’s like it was meant to be…

I got it from thehotrodgirl.com. It’s the nicest looking skull knob I’ve found. While they say it’s metal, it isn’t; it’s molded resin, with a chrome finish. But that makes it easier to drill out for the 1/2″ copper pipe mod… And it’s cheap enough that if it falls apart, I’ll buy 10 more.

So now I’m thinking of more UJ skull motif stuff… it’s juvenile, but it’s COOL. Bwahahahaha!

What a GREAT drive - long, but great. The Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club (THMMC) did our annual run to Mabry Mill, on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had a small group leave from the Raleigh/Durham area, meet up with a larger group in Winston-Salem, and continue up to the Mill - almost a 12 hour day of driving, hanging out and picnic-ing. Thanks to Twister for leading a great run!
It was great fun running with about 25 MINIs through some small towns in NC and VA - folks on the roadside were actually taking pictures with their camera phones as we went by - I guess they don’t get much excitement in some of those places…  then again, you don’t see this show up at your gas station every day…

We found an empty lot where we could line up at the Mill:

The kids had a great time at the Mill - watching them make apple butter (yum) and seeing touring the old mill. And, of course, the gift shop…

Then we had a fantastic picnic under the blue sky at Rocky Knob - again, we got lucky and found room to park all the MINIs and spread out.

Van entertained us with his super-cool traveling electric guitar rig.

Great drive - beautiful day - highly recommended for anyone who can make it next year!

OK - I’m rewinding the Time Machine to catch up on some seriously delinquent posts… sorry for the time-foolery.