Yet Another - 2002 R53 Mini Cooper S John Cooper Works

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Lauren_E

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MINI JCW
So back in September I was given this for my 21st birthday. A 2002 R53 Cooper S JCW with all certificates and paperwork, even the original invoice for the JCW conversion (Converted to JCW in 2004 at dealers). It is going to be a long term project to tinker at when time and funds allow. It really needs quite a bit of TLC to the bodywork but it runs and drives lovely so that's a good start. Being a 2002 car, it is the first year of the R53 production so they have created a register in order to give you your build number. Mine is number 5435.
Anyway here it is when I got it
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The very first thing changed was the 2 spoke steering wheel for a 3 spoke steering wheel
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Also the rear tail lights were very faded, not overly noticeable in photos but the lenses were very cloudy, so swapped them over for a new set
Old vs new:
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Now that I'm off for a week, I have time to get few jobs completed one of which was retrofitting the factory Harman Kardon system as I miss it from my other R53. Every forum I had read suggested it was impossible to do, but thought I would challenge myself and give it a go.
We had a R53 in for breaking with the HK system so I stripped the entire loom apart an isolated the HK wiring, bit messy but got there in the end
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Over the past few evenings @Wild Thing and I started tearing apart my car in order to lay the new loom and replace the old speaker wires and pins with the HK one.
Wiring along the passenger side and into the fuse box and passenger door
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Into the centre console for the ISO block and round the driver footwell and driver door
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And along the driver side to the rear quarter panel to the new HK amp
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That is as far as I have got, have had the battery connected again to ensure everything is working as it should, before building up again. Will tidy up the wiring tomorrow now that everything is connected
While the carpet is out I have a genuine black one sitting aside to replace the blue one, also a set of full black leather seats to replace the blue ones. They will go in tomorrow hopefully
 
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AlpineF30

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Holy **** look at the amount of wires :eek:

Did all the R53 JCW be converted at the delaers or was there a factory option as well?
 

Carson

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That’s a whole lot of wires !! Fair play.
Look forward to the progress.
Where is the register and how do you find out your build number?
 

Lauren_E

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Lauren_E
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MINI JCW
Holy **** look at the amount of wires :eek:

Did all the R53 JCW be converted at the delaers or was there a factory option as well?

All R53s were converted at the dealers up until the very end of 2005. From December 2005 onwards the R53 JCW was factory built so would be registered as JCW on tax book rather than just Cooper S. It's fairly rare to find a factory R53 JCW

That’s a whole lot of wires !! Fair play.
Look forward to the progress.
Where is the register and how do you find out your build number?

Register is only for the 2002 built cars for the minute as far as I'm aware. It's the "02 S Register" where you input your vin and it will tell you the build number, the car's registration and where in the country it was built for.
 

Dave..

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Wow Lauren, very impressed. I hate wiring of any sort and this would have finished me.
 

southsky sunrise

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There was me farming out my system built for the Nova because it’s was ‘difficult’ aye yeah... fair play @Laureeno101 you’ve bigger b*lls that’s most male members here including myself :joy::joy:(y)
 

Big Pimp

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like im late
Class project Lauren. Can’t wait to see what else you do.

That wiring though! I’d be frigged!

I’m panicking about wiring in a light bar on my quad today lol
 

Lauren_E

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Lauren_E
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MINI JCW
Thanks very much guys. As @Wild Thing said above, never again :joy: I can see why no-one retrofits it! In all honesty, it would have been much easier to fit a good aftermarket system and probably would have sounded better too, but with this car I want to try and keep it OEM looking.

The list of things I want to do is pretty extensive, now that my blue R53 is pretty much finished, and the R56 almost as I want it, I can start focussing on getting this one back to its former glory. Have the full JCW body kit here ready to go on come Spring, then it will be down to you @big_pete so you can work your magic (y)
 

Lauren_E

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Lauren_E
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MINI JCW
Eventually got all the wires tidied up and routed out of the way.
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Then one final test to ensure everything was working before finally building it up again.
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It took much longer than I originally planned, as when it was all apart I decided it would be the best time to clean everything before putting it back into the car again.
Managed to get the black carpet put in last night, then today was just about getting everything fitted again, as well as switching out the front and rear door cards for the Harman Kardon ones. Pretty much all is as it should be now, just need to give the black leather seats a scrub tomorrow as they've been sitting in storage and put them in.
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Wild Thing

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It was a journey for sure all credit to you, I dont know anyone on the mini forums or facebook mini group pages that have ever tackled this and succeeded. I know the goal of the car is full fat JCW original tuning certs etc, etc and all bells and whistles, you are well on the way with that major conversion.
 

AlpineF30

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Fantastic work! Im sure it feels better because a lot said it couldn’t be done.

See for the HK install how does the headunit know its got HK now? Did you swap the HU from the donor car or is just a case of coding it the same way BMW do it?
 

Lynn.E

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Well done Lauren, you have worked hard at this project during your holidays, you didn't let it beat you!!!
 

Lauren_E

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Lauren_E
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Fantastic work! Im sure it feels better because a lot said it couldn’t be done.

See for the HK install how does the headunit know its got HK now? Did you swap the HU from the donor car or is just a case of coding it the same way BMW do it?

Yes was very pleased when it all come together. Sounds much better over the old standard system. HK Headunit was swapped from the donor car so no coding was needed
 

dddrrift

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jeeez, thats a headache right there! well done! although could you not have just switched the entire interior loom from the donor car?
 

Lauren_E

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Lauren_E
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MINI JCW
jeeez, thats a headache right there! well done! although could you not have just switched the entire interior loom from the donor car?

No due to the Mini looms being tailored to the spec ordered. The donor car didn’t have had the multifunction steering wheel, auto climate control, diming mirror etc that mine was spec’d with so wouldnt have had the wiring required
 
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