I need some personal/professional opinion from the community.


I recently purchased a 2003 Mini Cooper S, 128k mi with burnt clutch, new tires, new struts, used replacement engine at ~100k mi (2005 used engine ~50k mi). The car runs, usual oil leak spots, timing chain rattle. There was a terrible burned clutch smell, and when looking at the car, with it running you could shift the car without depressing the clutch, no grinding or noises at all. All gears are there everything seems normal, the clutch fork moves when pressing on the clutch, just appeared to be a clutch. I have not driven the car so I am not sure if there is any grinding or other noises from the transmission.


I removed the engine, replaced the clutch, throw out bearing, pressure plate with the commonly recommended single mass conversion kit. I also replaced the input shaft seal, and other recommended bushings. I decided to pull the entire engine and trans so I could replace the common seals and gaskets, clean up the engine and engine bay.


While pulling the motor/trans I found other problems like broken motor mounts, seized ball joint, broken tie-rod, bad belt tensioner, and other misc small problems. It was at this moment that I decided to correct everything and make the car a long-term fun commuter car. So supercharger maintenance, new idler pulley, new oil pump, timing cover seals and gasket, new timing chain/rails and tensioner. When replacing the valve cover and oil pan gasket, the engine interior is very clean, no trace of sludge at all. In addition, I have replaced all the parts with OEM.


My question, the motor and trans are back in the car. I was torquing the harmonic balancer, with someone stepping on the brake with the car in gear, and the motor still spins. There is no way to torque the balancer unless I use the automatic trans method. Do I have a problem with the transmission? Diff or broken shaft? I am questioning it since the motor still spins with someone on the brakes and in gear. I assume the engine should not spin. Am I correct?


Thank you in advance for any thoughts or input you could provide.

 

It sounds like there may be internal problems with the transmission to me. However, I would check the shift cables first and make sure it is selecting the gears. Have someone run through the gears and watch the trans where the cables attach to see if they do anything. Honestly, even with a bad clutch it should have done something, and I would have run the trans through the gears while it was out of the car and spun the input shaft to be certain it was doing something. If the car was as neglected and abused as you say then it is possible that they broke it. I am also curious as to the condition of the dual mass flywheel. Was it all chewed up?

 

Thanks for your input. The dual mass rubber was fine. Clutch gone and gouges in the flywheel surface. The trans does shift with the cables, but I did not try when the trans was out. Wish I had. From my understanding, with the car in gear and brakes applied the motor will turn no more than half way then stop. Mine keeps spinning and cannot torque the harmonic balancer.

Looks s like the motor and trans will be coming back out.

 

Do you have an impact gun to install the crank pulley with?

 

Yes I do. I was able to get the balancer completely on but not torqued since motor spins when in gear and brakes depressed. I know I can use other methods to hold the engine to torque but doesn’t make sense if I have to pull the trans back out to fix.

 

If you have done everything correctly when installing the clutch and put the drivetrain back, you should be able to determine if the gearbox is F^&k'ed by just driving it; assuming you are competent (not most home mechanics). If I were in your situation, I would use the impact wrench with finesse to tighten the crank damper. I have never heard of a Getrag gearbox gone bad unless misused or mis-serviced.

 

Check your axles. The axle could have snapped inside the boot... easy diag method: lift car, spin wheel, see if the shaft spins too. If it does, check that the inner cup spins too. If they spin, then it's a bigger problem. If they don't spin, axles are the problem.

If they are good, as mentioned above, make sure you're in gear. Try different gears... if the engine still spins "freely" in one gear, but not in another, then you have internal gearbox problems.
If all gears, then you might have a clutch/pressure plate installation issue or internal gearbox problem.

 

Oh, I don't know why I forgot to mention this and can very well be OP's problem. If you failed to fully insert the left side axle into the gearbox such that the snap ring clicked and locked, the axle can slide off the spline shaft of the differential, and you may not realize it. This has happened to some owners here. I believe this is only possible on the left axle. The right axle has the carrier bearing bracket which is impossible to install if you didn't insert the axle fully.

You can visually check the gap between the inner CV joint and the gearbox housing. There should be no more than may be 1/4" gap.

 

I'm still on my first cup of coffee this morning, but, that sounds like a problem to me. If the engine is running and you shift into gear it should definitely grind... or are you saying that the clutch was so shot it was just spinning freely with no resistance at all?

 

This does not seem possible until you look at the engaging length of the splines. Yeap! A photo is worth a thousand words.