The new tranny is... IN!!!

Pops and I spent yesterday wrapping up the tranny install, which included faking out the clutch switch and building up a clutch stop - more on that in a minute.

I'll post pics as soon as I can get them uploaded.

I spent Friday evening with the family, knowing that I was going to be gone all weekend. And, part of that evening consisted of picking up the engine hoist from Taylor Rentals, which was a MASSIVE chunk of 1/4" steel, in pieces, that took up a major portion of the Grand's rear and back seat. The kids stacked themselves nect to each other and off we went.

On Saturday, we had a nice leisurely start around 8 AM, after a yummy omelette made by Pops. He's an omelette perfectionist and makes quite the good one.

Once the front was securely on jack stands, we started by tearing off the front fascia, then the aluminum beam, inner fender liners, and condenser. Next, we drained the radiator - which, of course, missed the pan and went all over the floor. This necessitated a major cleanup job, so while that was in motion, I tore out the air intake and battery box (with ECU). Then, we yanked the rest of the front of the car off, including the radiator.

Next, we moved on to the subframe. This requires unbolting the bottom of the front swaybar links, breaking the steering arm ball joints, and pulling the lower ball joint mounts from the a-arms. We placed a jack under the subframe, and took the bolts out from the rear a-arm bushing ears, lower engine mount, and the 6 bolts that hold the subframe in the rear. Then, we unbolted the steering fluid reservoir from the firewall and lowered away - stopping to disconnect the power steering fan electrics.

The subframe, a-arms and front swaybar came down nicely, and we wheeled it out of the way on the jack. It was set aside for later... We checked out all the ball joints and they were still in great shape.

The shifter linkage cables were disconnected, the shift tower removed (which revealed that someone at the plant got overzealous with the torque wrench on one of the three bolts, galling it all up), and we yanked off the slave cylinder and pulled the connection for the backup light switch. We yanked the jackshaft and driveshaft out, and Mike carefully wrapped them in stretch wrap to protect them...

Then, we unbolted the tranny mount from the car and tranny... It was time to get serious! We drained the trannny first, put the plugs back in, and proceeded to pull all the bolts from the tranny. I sat under the car and tugged gently, while Mike manned the jack and pried, and Dad helped lower the tranny from above.

It came off without a hitch - and it was around 10:30 AM. We were rockin!

And then, the first trip to the auto parts store... I noted that my serpentine belt had seen better days, so we ripped it off and called Napa for a 6PK-1033. It's pretty easy with the entire front off the car - Mike slipped a breakover into the slot and pulled up on the tensioner while I worked the belt off... The problem is that there are TWO belts for the Cooper - so Pops took it along to measure up (turns out we needed the shorter of the two).

The second discovery was that we didn't have the female Torx socket required to get the pressure plate off the flywheel - we pulled one off by tappinng on a 6-point socket and Pops took that with him to... Also on the shopping list was another bottle of coolant (Prestone, since I flush every two years max - and for those who want a LOT of info on coolant, this month's Das Bimmer Rundeschriben from the LSC BMWCCA for more info on coolants that anyone could ever want!). We left one thing off the list from Napa, but I'll leave that to later... Hah! This run also included a fresh keg of Shiner Bock - Lord, we didn't realize how badly we need that until later. He also swung by Wendy's for a few triple stacks (highly recommended, btw).

Pops returned and we pulled the pressure plate off, along with the clutch, and then yanked the OEM flywheel. It was early afternoon, and we were getting cocky!

 

On to slapping in the new UUC lightweight flywheel and Spec Stage III clutch and pressure plate, torquing to spec... Then, we carefully sighted up the clutch (we didn't have the BMW tool) and Mike took over, using a breakover and allen wrench, he centered it up even more...

The tranny was swung around into place, and we grunted it up and onto the dowels... It took us a bit of fiddling to work it into place, and we re-installed all the bolts (we thought) and torqued it down. Mike worked the driveshaft and jackshaft back into place...

At this point, remember the galled bolt from the shifter tower? Welp, Pops proceeded to try and excise all the aluminum in the threads that had it all buggered up... Mike, Nathan and I proceeded to use the BMW tool to pull the old rear a-arm bushings out and install the new Powerflex units (thanks to k-huevo for the loan on the tool, which made this process painless!!!).

Pops failed on his quest with the muffed bolt, so we dug into the old VW parts bin and found a suitable replacement... The shifter tower went back in, we clipped on the shift linkage, and re-installed the slave cylinder and connected the backup light switch. A quick trip inside the car found shifting nice and smooth, and we watched the slave acutating the clutch. We were thinking to ourselves, "This ain't so bad!"... little did we know...

We moved on to re-assembling the car, piece by piece... Then, we pulled the plugs from the tranny, and I searched for my gallon of Redline MTL...

"Where the h*ll did I put that bottle of MTL? I KNOW it's around here somewhere..." I tore the garage apart, only to remember that I had given it away... DOH! Mike suggested using Royal Purple Synchromax, so we started calling around... and found that Napa had it. So, back to Napa... Oops!

Whilst Pops was out running to Napa (again), we put the battery box in... Upon his return (he was OH so happy), we pulled the tranny plugs and filled it... And then, someone noticed that there was fluid leaking from the jackshaft seal... Son-of-a-b!!! We had eyeballed the seal and figured it was okay - but, it wasn't. We checked the other seal that was sent along, and it was the wrong one, too.

We all went in for dinner, feeling defeated... Then, Mike had the idea of tearing apart the old Midlands and retrieving the seal - this process took quite some time, and everyone watched on in horror and amusement as we disassembled the old tranny... We finally extracted the seal sans damage! Mike pulled the leaky bastage carefully and re-installed the old seal (I'll be picking up a new one for a spare, should I need it). Time to fill the tranny a second time!

Slapped the wheels back on, lowered the car, and installed the radiator carrier and filled up the coolant system... And we cranked it up... And then, we noted the next problem. When the clutch was fully depressed, it wouldn't go into gear. It was 1:30 AM. We called it quits - our guess was that the slave cylinder needed bled...

 

On to Sunday... I had a hard time rolling out of bed, and Mike and I were dragging butt.

I removed the battery box (again), and we pulled the slave cylinder. We quickly fabbed up a sweet tool to fully compress the cylinder, and then set to bleeding the system. Mike pumped the clutch slowly - a couple major air bubbles were released, and then lots of little ones - Huzzah! we thought, we've cracked the case! Not so fast, Sherlock...

We reinstalled the slave cylinder... The battery box goes back in (again), and we start 'er up. Same problem - clutch fully depressed, and no ino gearo. Daggone it! Mike starts fiddling around with the clutch and determines that the throw is actually hyper-extending the system and the clutch is re-engaging. Did anyone test this setup? Uh oh, we needed to come up with some kind of clutch pedal stopper mechanism...

Unfortunately, it was high time to get Mike to the airport. While I was running him to D/FW, Pops was running to Home Depot to find something we could use to make a clutch stop.

When I returned, Pops was standing there grinning, bag in hand. He'd found some appliance levellers/sliders and other assorted furniture feet that just... might... work. Out comes the battery box...

Problem is that required drilling a hole in the firewall - more surgery. So, we pulled back the carpet and I marked where it would need to go - making contact with the clutch pedal right at the bend. I cut the rubber sound deadening away, made the sign of the cross, and drilled a small pilot hole (after checking the firewall about a hundred times for obstructions). I didn't hit anything... So, on to the next bit up. It was then that we discovered that we were INSIDE the frame of the car. The appliance sliders were summarily tossed aside, since we'd need access to the back to install a nut.

Now what?

Pops walked over to our jackpoint hardware and pulled a toggle and stainless bolt - this might work, but we're gonna need a bigger hole! So, I reamed it out, BIG SIZE, and test fit the tip of the toggle. We took three furniture feet, drilled holes in them, and made a stack with fender washers in between for rigidity... In goes the battery box...

Pops crawled up under and held it in place while I pushed the clutch in and started the car... Except that nothing happened. DOH! Daggone clutch switch! Ah, yes, the clutch switch - mandated for the US and Japan, but non-existant in MINIs sold elsewhere in the world. A quick search on all the forums and Google turned up nothing on defeating the clutch switch. Time for rigging!

In the meantime, we DID pull the stack and start the car... then, we checked our stack height. We pulled one of the feet out and wallah - clutch engagement and full disengagement, and the car tripped through all the gears with ease...

We pulled the clutch switch and started troubleshooting. We checked the Bentley's electrical diagrams. We applied a magnet to the switch - wallah, the car starts in Neutral. Problem was that we didn't have the RIGHT magnet for permanent affixing to the switch. Off to Michael's for some craft magnets! We found a max strength magnet, 1/2" in diameter - perfect. Back to the house!

We tested it first - it worked. Then, Pops taped it on and secured it all with a wire tie. Then, we tied it up and out of the way.

In goes our clutch stop... We test it and it works. We wrap up the rest of the install and I take it out for a spin. It sure likes to rev with the lighter flywheel! The clutch throw is VERY short, but it works like a champ. It took awhile to get used to the engagement, which is very abrupt but positive - to be expected from a Stage III clutch. It's not very stiff and has a sharp breakover - the quicker you shift, the better it likes it. Methinks it'll like being abused more than being driven easily.

Anyhoo, that's the story... We finished up around 8:00 PM on Sunday, and I drove the car around half of today before dropping it off at the body shop (that's another story - I got rear ended by a 2005 Toyota Camry last Monday doing 30 mph, which left surprisingly little damage ($1400)).

Now, about putting that old Midlands back together... I'll get to it. I'm about halfway done at this point.

 

Cool! Any pictures? So did you get the Mania Gearbox? Or did you get the bits for the rebuild?

 

Should have pics soon... I got the Mania UK box! I plan on rebuilding the old one with new Mania UK guts...

 

Oooh... how are the new bits compared to the old Midlands? Never got to actually look inside the box.

 

I didn't look inside the new MMUK box... I tore into the old one. It's VERY evident why the synchros fail - what a crap design!

I'll try and snap some pics of the old tranny as I re-assemble, too... I'll take extra care to shoot the dogs on the 1st/2nd synchros that were obviously being eaten up.

 

Can you tell me a bit about using a "breakover" on the belt tensioner? What's a breakover? I'd like to change out my serpentine belt, maybe even put in a lighter crank pulley while I'm at it. Mini Mania has the tool for $119, but if it's not necessary...

 

I haven't actually looked at the belt on my MC...but a breakover usually refers to a metal bar, sometimes one made to hold a socket, but without the ratchet capability of a normal socket wrench, and sometimes just a metal bar. In either case, it's used to move the belt idler pulley to remove the tension so you can then remove the serpentine belt.

 

It was a 1/2" breaker bar, IIRC.. "breakover" is just another name for it...