My 2004 R50 has 150,000 miles on what I'm pretty sure is the original clutch. It's running fine, but the car has some downtime for the next 6 weeks, and after that, I'm going to need it to be reliable for another 5 years. So I think I want to replace the clutch preemptively.

I'm in southeastern Connecticut, and I'm willing to take the car pretty much anywhere between NYC and Boston if I can find someone who knows what they're doing AND can give me a fair price. I'd also like to have the engine and transmission mounts replaced, and possibly other "while we're in there" kinds of work.

I appreciate any recommendations, or even just any feedback on what the going rate is for a R50 clutch job in the Northeast these days. Thanks!

 

Recommendations during clutch replacement?

I would say replace the rear main seal and axle shaft seals too.

Go to RealOEM.com to input your specific car information for parts diagrams (like the picture below), including part numbers.


There's another manual transmission that was greyed out with the generic information I plugged in for your car that shows an input shaft seal is available (I would replace) along with the parts I circled above. I just replaced all these on the 6-speed in my R53 and it was surprisingly easy to do. Also be prepared for broken shift cable bushings during this job. I broke one of mine (needs entire shift cable) and there is another recent thread where the author found damaged shift cable bushings (resulting in only 2 gears available) after a recent clutch replacement.

Your idea to replace the engine and transmission mounts during that repair is good too!

 

Problem trying to replace the fork bushing is the pin that is in the clutch arm. About the only way to get the clutch fork off the replace the bushing is to cut the fork in half. This is do to the pin holding the arm. It is made of soft metal an tapered. If you try to knock out the pin. It will crack your transmission case. With the fork cut an removed you can get the arm in a vise an try to either knock it out or drill. Mini know about this issue. They charge almost 180 for the arm an there is a 100 core charge. Now asked me how I know. Lol.

 

The average cost for a clutch is about 1500 to 1800 bucks depending on who going to rip you off more. If you are handy an have a good tool set. You can do it yourself for about 500 bucks for everything.

 

In addition to the previously mentioned rear main seal and other items mentioned above, I also ended up replacing the slave cylinder and hydraulic lines due to leaks. There were also a ton of "while I have it apart" stuff too but you may not want to go down that rabbit hole. I sent a PM

 

If you haven’t found a place already, get in touch with Mark at https://northeastmotorwerks.com
He runs an independent shop in Middletown, and specializes in Mini and BMW repairs.

 

Thanks for the tip. That's really close to me!

 

Like before the guide tubes and pivots on the Gen 1 Cooper S are good things to replace.