I was at full speed when I heard the transmission suddenly shifted down and stayed at same gear and will not shift up. I guess it went to limp mode. then I started hearing rattling noise from the engine bay and smell of brunt rubber. Upon inspection, I saw a loose part which appears to be the harmonic balancer (see figure 1). I also notice that the pulley is now misaligned (see figure 2). Any DIY on this repair? Is this an expensive repair?

Also, just about the same time, I also lost my power steering. Is this related to the harmonic balancer coming loose? or is the power steering pump also broke?

The car still runs but with the rattling noise and smell of burnt rubber. I assume the burnt rubber is from the drive belt?

Need help...would appreciate your inputs

 

I would suggest upgrading the harmonic balancer, rather than replacing it with stock. Have a look at this ATI Super Damper
http://www.waymotorworks.com/super-d...ulley-r53.html

As far as power steering goes; it's electric and not belt driven. You could have two seperate issues here, but let's hope that the Power Steering stopped working only because your altranator is not turning -with the belt burning slipping and all

BTW, don't drive it like that, your water pump isn't turning either!

If you want to DIY it, be sure to get the special tool to compress the tensioner spring. I paid almost $90 for mine, but very glad as I thought changing the belt was very easy -and I had read stories of struggles people had trying to do the job without the tool.

 

+1 on the ATI pulley from WMW.
Also buy or borrow the belt tool.
If you are a member of a Mini Cooper club I suspect one of the members has a tool you can borrow.
The WMW pulley comes with a bolt to use for replacing the pulley.
Check your belt tensioner for damage. You might want to buy a new tensioner if car has high mileage.
There are How Tos on the pulley replacement so you can see what you are getting into. It is not a difficult job depending on your automotive skills and tools that you have.

 

Time for an ATI Damper

 

i am having some difficulties removing the crank pulley. I have removed the bolt with no problem, but I just could not pull out the pulley and this is using the harmonic balancer puller that I rented from Autozone.

Any tips from those who had done this would be appreciated.

 

It should pull off. Make sure the puller is pulling straight and not binding. Make sure you are using the puller correctly and the the center bolt is not pushing against the pulley you are trying to remove. From what I recall I unthreaded the pulley bolt a ways out but did not remove so that the center puller bolt could push against the pulley bolt to get the pulley to start to come off. Once the pulley started to move it got easier to pull off. I think I threaded the pulley bolt out a little, pulled the pulley off a little, readjusted the pulley bolt by threading it out a little more, then pulled again.

It does take a lot of tightening of the puller bolt to get the pulley to start to come off. Use hardened bolts to thread into the pulley so they do not stretch or break.

If all else fails you can apply heat to the pulley to get it to expand while trying to get it off but that should not be needed.

 

thank you. I think what I am missing is a spacer that needs to bottom into the bolt cavity so I do not push the bolt of the tool against the pulley - kinda how you described above. I did not realize this at first.

 

I am now installing the ATI super damper but cannot figure out how to apply a counterhold so i can torque it to 85 ftlbs. The M6 bolts that i used as counterhold in removing the stock damper does not seem to fit in the ATI super damper. I notice that there are 3 bolts in the ATI but not sure if i should be removing these bolts to install the counter hold? Need help

 

Do you have an assistant that can help you? If so, have them put the car in gear and apply the brakes (very hard) while you torque the bolt.

 

I figured that the 3 bolts is the only way to apply a counter hold. so I installed a counter hold like so on one bolt. see attached pic. car is back to life. It is running fine now and power steering is back as well. I replaced the belt as well because it is frayed on the edges.

 

Smart, thanks for sharing pic of tool. Glad you're on the road again, and that power steering solved itself.

Do you notice a smoother engine with the higher quality harmonic balancer?

 

Congrats on the completed job. Glad all worked out well.

 

definitely smoother engine. one other good surprise is that the rough shifting on the auto transmission which I had noticed started a few month s back ( before the harmonic balancer(HB) replacement), now is gone. shifting seems smoother. I figure the stock HB has been deteriorating for quite sometime, but cannot figure out how it could have affected transmission rough shifting?

 

Sounds like good news. Maybe the rpm change as gears change is smoothed out more? I dunno. Glad you have good results!

 

This is proof in why we recommend the ATI Damper over any other as we notice they always idle and run smoother than the stock damper ever did. We replace them on cars that don't even have broken dampers and notice they run better. On my personal car it even smoothed out the 70mph cruise on the hwy.

 

OK, I just did the upgrade to the ATI. Let me tell you, if my step-dad did not have a friend with one of those 1/2" drive impact wrench, the OEM would not have come off. He is not a small man and he could not budge it with a 1/2" breaker bar, mostly (I think) because the engine spun. Yes, we had it in gear (tired both 1st and 6th even though I am sure 6th is the right gear in this case) and I was stomping on the break pedal. If I were to do it again, I would get something like this: http://www.kochtools.com/index.php?p=product&id=196

What a pain.

On the bright side, the ATI seems to work well.

 

Glad the ATI is working. Impact Wrenches are awesome for pulleys.

 

+1
Great improvement.....have had mine for quite a bit now....
Mine idles better...and is silky smooth...
I got lazy and had mine done at a shop that does tons of mini work...great, them having the tools...took them like 30-45 minutes....lol...better than me fighting it for an afternoon!!
Amazing how having the right tools...or the wallet..lol...makes a job painless!!
But I guess paying a local mini shop does keep them around for when I absolutely need them to do something WAY over my head.....