2002 Cooper S. Awful slow drive to work, traffic crawling for about 20 mins, in first just idling forward most of the way. Then the road opens up and a drive for 5 mins normally. Pull into chick-fill-a, (Bit of sideways drift as its wet), Then at the pickup window, the gear box is stiff, manage to crunch it into first and pull off. Then I realize my clutch has gone. I get it out of first but can't get it into any other gear. The pedal look low too. So I coast into a parking space and turn off. (This is pretty bad, as I know my cell phone is out boo-hoo). I pop the hood to see if there is anything strange, the break fluid reservoir is full. (I think the clutch and the breaks share the same fluid right?) no strange smells. OH well I think I'll eat my breakfast while I think what to do. Put the hood back down and get back in. Odd, the pedal seems to be up again. Start the car. gearbox is fine clutch working no problems! Does anyone have any Idea what might have happened?

 

I don't know what the clutch equivalent is, but I had the same thing happen to my brakes and it was a faulty master cylinder valve, which only acted up when the brake fluid was very hot. Sounds similar.

 

Thanks for the reply, I did a search and I think you might be right, although I'm not sure why it would suddenly start working again as I didn't do any of the things suggested to re-pressurize it. Does anyone know the cost of replacing master or slave cylinders. I'm a little handy, does anyone know if there are howto's on replacing these?

 

Clutch slave cylinder: remove trans to access. It's internal.

 

Yup Slave cylinder. It's actually just next to the clutch you can see it in all it's leaky glory here:




I'll phone Downtown Mini tomorrow.
:(

Thanks for the feedback helping me locate this quickly.

 

Well, you wanted an excuse to install a Quaife, anyway, right? And might as well replace the clutch/flywheel while you're there?
I love spending other people's money!
So sorry for your messy problem, hope it is easy to correct.
Oh, and Classic MINI and Morristown MINI are hard to beat for prices.

 

Geez-that makes the clutch slave an EXPENSIVE repair (stating the obvious)

Not a great design point...

 

Well at least it looks easy to access, my friend changed the slave on his miata himself so I don't think it's a particully technical job either. I'd probably like to have a go myself if I had alternate transport. I'd also love to put a limited slip diff in there along with a lighter flywheel but we are trying to pay off the credit cards not add more!

 

Mine's an '05 and had a similar issue, but I don't recall that the dealer had to remove the trans to replace the slave cylinder. I was in/out in under 2hrs, but the '02's could be different. There is an DYI out there some where on bleeding the clutch slave cylinder if you need it. Good luck.

 

Well that would make a LOT more sense than having to pull the tranny. I haven't had to do it on a MINI (obviously) and it didn't make sense why they'd do it like that.