just curious to see who else has blown there trannies

o4 mini cooper s blown tranny at 25,000

 

Out of curiousity, what constitutes a blown transmission? Gears shredded? Bearing(s) failure? Or????

 

I know of one MINI owner that had two lightened flywheels fail, each resulting in a "blown" transmission - but in his case it was the transmission casing that got holes blown in it, rendering the transmission useless.

 

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well at first habberstadt told me the throw out bearing and clutch plate shattered ...then later that day also the flywheel was found to be torn up then the next day i was told the whole gear box was trashed ....2nd gear split open and locked and jammed all of it up. and the gears actually blew open the housing

 

So, back to my original question of what constitutes a blown transmission - was the transmission failure a result of the failure of the flywheel (as in a lightened flywheel going biff) that resulted in the gear box being torn up? I don't claim to be an expert, but it sure sounds like the transmission failure was due to a cause that was outside of the transmission itself.

 

I don't know, but it seems to me that a tranny would make an awful lot of warning noises before it would ever blow parts out of the housing. Go figure??

Sorry about your gearbox.

 

NOPE NO WARNING NOISES JUST A CLUNK THEN A WHOLE LOT OF CLUNKS AND GRINDS ....MAIN CAUSE IS BELIEVED TO BE THE STOCK FLYWHEEL.... SOMETHING ABOUT CHATTERING? WHATEVER THAT IS

 

Are you meaning to SHOUT? (All caps.) Chattering can occur when friction material is de-laminating from the flywheel. The flywheel can also develop a crack from a manufacturing defect. But if the flywheel cracked, it (cracked flywheel) was the cause of the transmission failure, not the other way around. (I haven't heard of any situations where a bearing locked up in the transmission and then the flywheel shattered....) It is not unheard of to have flwheels crack (more frequent in the past than today). That is the whole reason for the bell housing around the flywheel that the transmission bolts up to - contain the pieces of the cracked flywheel from becomming missles that injure or kill someone when the flywheel cracks and the pieces go ballistic.

 

The friction material is on the clutch plate not the flywheel. The flywheel is just a large chunk of steel that bolts to the crankshaft. The belhousing on most cars, ours included does practical zero as far as protection from exploded flywheels goes. All it is made from is cast aluminum. Chattering can be caused by a burned clutch disc & or a burned flywheel. There can also be heat checking of the flywheel caused by excessive slipping & burning of the clutch. It's possible that's where the flywheel came apart. Not a common failure, that God.

You are very lucky to still have both of your feet intact. Flywheel explosions can kill & maim.

 

You would be surprised how much protection is provided by the bell housing (even one made from aluminum). If takingcurves was driving the car at the time the flywheel failed, the reason his feet and legs are still attached to his body is largely due to the aluminum bell housing containing the flywheel parts.

 

no i was not yelling just to lazy to change it once i realized the mistake .... well now im glad atleast to have my legs minus the car

 

im sure problems can occur, but this sounds like a very isolated case.

 

Yes, thankfully. Getrag seems to make pretty respectable and reliable transmissions, and I would be surprised to see a lot of people having problems before, say, 80-100k mi., if not more.

I've never even heard of that, a defect in the flywheel causing such a massive failure? If it was a serious enough defect to cause that kind of "explosion," why did it take 25k mi. to become apparent? Just plain old metal fatigue or what?

 

I'd love to know how you were driving the car up till then... barring a pretty serious manufacturing defect (very rare with the automated manufacturing checks that are in place), it's HARD to blow out a transmission like that. I helped build drag cycles for a few years and I can count on one hand the number of cracked casings I've seen, even after a disasterous mis-shift....

 

I was wondering the same thing. How many RPM's were showing on the tach when it went KABOOM ??? This is a most rare failure & no one here should be worrying about it happening on their car. It won't.

 

I blew a hole in my transmission casing. However I don't think it was caused by too much stress from Horsepower but it was wheel hop.

My transmission held up to 10 plus red line launches with drag slicks fine. And then I went to the strip on street tires, wheel hoped like crazy off the line, and pop. Felt like it came out of gear.

I think everyone at the track hated me because I don't think anyone got to run after that. I guess a few quarts of redline tranny fluid will do that...

I was running a spec flywheel and stage three clutch. They are still intact.

 

Guess that goes to show if you beat the living carp out of your car you will break things. Expensive things. For me it won't be a problem.

How much does a new tranny cost?

 

Well I don't consider it beating the crap out of it. To me it is pushing the limits. Sure stuff breaks but as long as you figure out to prevent breaking it again. Well to me that is worth it.

 

Please accept my apologies. I didn't mean to judge you. Your car your business what you do with it.

 

you're not talking about #11 Bill of Rights thread are you?

post #14
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=72478

 

Well, if you drive on the edge then you have to expect that, every once in a while, things are going to slip past it. Personally, I can't imagine driving my car hard enough in any non-track situation to cause enough hop to blow things out like you describe, but it IS your car, that's a good point.

I just hope that you were someplace that bystanders couldn't get caught in ther middle of anything. Sure, I drive faster than the posted limits occasionally, take corners fast, etc., but I've seen some illegal street dragging and racing that really stood my hair on end... people hauling *** at 140 down residential streets, etc.


Hope that's not you. If you really want to go fast, and you obviously have the cash to support a Mini habit, then spend a few bucks more, get track certified and go to town in a safe environment. That's all I'm saying.

Your Mini. Your business. But it's everyone's streets.

 

My apologies for using slang when refering to the Drag Strip. I was at Rockingham drag way when my transmission let go.

I am all for staying off the streets and keeping it in a controlled enviroment.

 

Hey, I feel your pain. Was just informed I have to fork out $2500 for a new clutch and flywheel for a 2003 MINI with less than 40,000 miles on it.
I hate to say it, but I think I'm gonna get rid of the thing after these repairs.

 

just buy aftermarket clutch and flywheel, it will be cheaper then 2500.


UUC stage 3 and lightweight fly wheel is what i had on mine and i loved it.

 

If you want the cheapest way to go get the SPEC flywheel and clutch kit.

If you don't mind me asking what happened to them.