I'm about to replace my clutch, personally. first time I've opened the bell housing myself, although it is no virgin.

any special tools or tips from those who have done it?
Caddman: aren't you a repeat offender?

I presently have the Sachs Stage 2, which has not been heavily used; it only saw 1 day of Evo school, an autocross or two, several dyno runs, 4-5000 road and city miles, no drag racing, no trackl days. Pedal engagement started about 1/2" off the floor when the clutch was new and the unit worked great. Last week it slipped when I was gassing it hard in third and has been doing so since if I get on it. Engagement is now about 1/2" from the pedal top. I haven't been paying enough attention to note if the engagement was gradually changing. I have no idea what is going on; no oil leaks (not consistent with changing engagement anyway, eh?). Typical sign of a worn out disc or pressure plate springs, but way too soon.

I have a new Spec stage 2, pressure plate, disc and throwout bearing ready to go in.

 

finally got started. I now have the tranny ready to drop; just the bell housing bolts to go...I'm waiting for a buddy to help.


a few bits of enlightenment; (I'm working on jack stands with the wheels removed and have air tools):

I can drop the subframe in about an hour; this involves the bumper and support, splash pan, separating the tie rod ball joints, un-bolting the control arm ball joints (leaving the control arm ball joint tapers intact, but removing the bolts holding the joint to the hub) and a few other bits.

the drive shafts do not have to be removed from the hubs; pry them out of the trans and tie them up. you do have to remove the intermediate shaft bracket and drain the trans oil.

remove the clutch slave from the trans

the entire intake system from radiator panel up to and including throttle body has to come out so that you can do the next steps:

the shifter cables are a ***** to pop off; if doing it again, I would get the special tool or make one.

I am using a jack under the engine rather than the special engine fixture, (which requires that you remove the water pump bolts). once supported, you can remove the gearbox to frame mount, lower the engine a bit and:

fight with the starter heat shield. a dinky part, held in with one 10mm hex bolt, but constrained by the header and water lines to the oil cooler. I removed the lower starter bolt, pried the water lines and forced out the shield. then I could remove the large wire connection on the starter, remove the other starter bolt, pull out the starter and remove the final 10mm nut holding on the last wire. This entire step was more heinous than dropping the subframe; probably made more difficult because of my header, remote oil pressure feed and Tee extension for the oil temp sensor. I'll probably trim the shield a bit.

next (tomorrow) will be the bell-housing bolts and out she comes.

 

Sounds like either you ride your clutch, or that's a clutch to cross off the shopping list in the future. The stock clutch can take more abuse than that, even with your HP figures.

Thanks for the disassembly directions though - very helpful! :smile:

 

i don't ride the clutch and hadn't even had a chance to abuse my rig at Englishtown! It's a Sachs unit which is supposed to be high class. When i pop it open, maybe a secret flaw will be revealed. I have a Spec sittng on the bench ready to go in.

 

thanks for the info i am about to do the same thing i am going to do the stage 3 clutch though i think. do have have pics it would be great to see

coop

 

any more news on the clutch reinstall?

 

just today (!) I dropped the tranny. some more tid-bits:

the upper bell-housing bolts, "accessible" from the eng compartment, are hard to get at. I removed the hincky plastic intake runner between throttle body and blower, requiring you pull the radiator forward ("Service mode") for access. Wiring harness doodads also need to be unbolted. I crawled under the car and wiggled out the trans onto my chest; not too bad (did this with a VW engine once).

There is quite a bit of black dust inside the bell housing, indicating disc wear. no signs of oil, mis-assembly or other mechanical gremlins.

I was NOT able to pull the clutch since it requires what looks to be a T45 female torx socket. I'll post a pic or two later.

 

jlm - Is that a chip missing on the second pic or is it the flash?

Well, at least there isn't any shrapnel this time.

I was looking at a set of female torx sockets just today and wondered where the hell I would ever use them.

Are you going to do the flywheel as well?

 

so far, I've encountered them on the steering rack ("T55" size, actually an "E12") and the clutch.

 

I just had to buy a set of 'E' sockets. You can find a set made by Lisle for about $25-35. The cyclinder head bolts on my winter beater (saab) needed to be re-torqued and have such bolts. Supposedly a 12pt socket will also engage an external torx bolt, but I would rather have the correct tool.

 

finally took off my pressure plate (after all, didn't the Odyssey last 30 years?)


my new Spec 2 clutch disc measures .340" thick
a stocker with low miles measures about .310"
the Sachs Racing disc I removed measures about .230"

flywheel and pressure plate surfaces look fine.

 

sounds like your install is taking as long as mine did; i started about a month ago, and i'm just getting the front subframe back on tomorrow - gotta wait for the sealant to sit overnight before reinstalling my oil filter plug that i'm attaching my oil pressure sending unit to tomorrow morning....

i'm so exhausted with this project - i don't know how techs can do this crap in one day!! hope you enjoy your system as much as i (hopefully!) will be on monday!

 

upon comparison of a stock, new Spec and the old Sachs pressure plates, it appears the springs and/or assembly of the Sachs plate are funky.
standard operation should be: in the relaxed postion, the pressure fingers (that are contacted by the throwout bearing) should be convex; compression of them by the throwout bearing when depressing the pedal will then flex them through neutral into slightly concave. Both the stock and Spec are very similar and operate as described. The Sachs unit has flat instead of convex springs in the relaxed position.

Additionally, around the perimeter are three "S" shaped leaf springs, oriented tangentially, which act as torque links between the PPlate housing and the acutal plate. these are almost flat on the Sachs plate, but have about 1/4" offset on the other two.

I was able to do a solo install of the piggy little trans by hooking my cherry picker to the conveniently provided eye on top of the trans and lifting it up into postion by pulling from above, through the engine mount area. I should get most of it together today.

 

Man, the stock clutch goes fast when it goes. In the last couple hundred miles it is engaging further and further up.....in a hurry. I guess I won't be doctoring this along for a few thousand miles like previous cars. ....and only 16,000 miles.

 

Now there's a surprise!

 

ahhhh, you noted my sarcasm!

 

Yea, it began when the Sox got lucky.

 

Good point of advice from one MINI owner to a lot of others....

BE CAREFUL removing the transmission from the motor - using tools to hold wires up and out of the way to get to the two top bolts on the tranny can result in pushing in the supercharger bypass valve tab so it stays open.... upon starting my car on Saturday after the installation was complete in just four short weeks (i can be sarcastic too....), the motor was running 2lbs of boost in IDLE = not a good situation....

the valve, as my local MINI dealership mechanic informed me (thanks goes out to Lee at Century MINI!), has a tendancy of getting hit when messing around with the transmission.... his suggestion? NEVER do the install with the motor in the car, and i don't disagree with him after dealing with this crap for a whole month.... it is much easier and is actually a WHOLE lot less time consuming to simply pull the motor, despite what Bentley publishing decided to tell all of us in the manual!!!

happy motoring with my little guy begins in just 3 short hours from now once i get back to the shop to correct the valve position!!!

 

I removed the throttle body, runner to the blower and snoot between the intercooler out and intake manifold (holding that pesky bypass valve). well worth the extra seven or eight six bolts.

 

JLM,

the 'special' tool you refer to for removing the shifter cables, do you happen to know what it looks like and where one could obtain such an item? I am assuming that Classic Mini would be able to supply this tool but I have no idea about part numbers, use and shape of tool etc.

Does anyone happen to have a good website address for a retailer that sells OEM quality tools to the public?

Thanks in advance,

Henry

 

Hose clamp pliers will work.

 

Thanks for that I'll give it a go...I used long nosed pliers to retract the OEM rear piston into the caliper. There is usually a way around most problems

Henry

 

Oops. I should have written "hose clamping pliers". They have a forcep shape.

 

Ok.... it's been a few weeks since I "finished" this job and still haven't figured out how to reset the outside temperature indication to display in Fahrenheit rather than Centigrade. I assume it defaulted to Centigrade while I had the battery out, but I thought this would be something easy to reset. If I don't figure it out soon, my wife is going to be a lot less impressed my clutch and brake job :-)

The owner's manual says "take it to the dealer" and I can't find any reference to this at all in my Bentley service manual.

Anyone know of any instructions for changing the default settings for display of external temperature?

Thanks
Lloyd

 

I had to have the dealer change mine from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Coming from a science background, I prefer the metric system. I don't know why it would change from just disconnecting the battery. Maybe the settings only hold for so long?

Steve