As the title says, I'm new to minis, and have a trans related problem. It's a 2004 jcw 6 speed with 102k miles. Not exactly sure what happened but when I was heading to work the other day, cursing in 6th at about 80 85 , it popped out of gear and wouldn't go back in 6th . I let it coast for a sec and it slid in 5th and was OK for about a quarter mile then popped out of gear again and wouldn't go back into any gear . I left it in neutral and coasted off the highway. When I let off the clutch the car died but continued to coast off the highway for about a mile to a gas station. The car still cranks right up and runs perfectly fine , clutch feels the same but when I let off the pedal , the car dies in any gear even neutral. If I give it gas like I'm going to take off from a stop it feels as if the car is under extreme load and will start to die as soon the clutch starts to engaged . When I drained the trans fluid , there wasn' much, barely enought to cover the bottom of my 5 qt drain pan and it was almost black . There were no metal chunks or shavings in it though and no metallic sheen to the oil itself . The linkages have been replaced by the recall and looked and felt perfectly fine upon inspection. Not sure if it is the trans itself that needs replaced or somehing clutch related. Any ideas or second opinions? TIA !

 

With that little bit of oil I would guess your transmission is toast. But let try to be positive I would try to fill it up with some manual transmission fluid. red line is by far the best choice. but if you cant get that locally valvoline mtf will work for a test. best of luck.

 

should I let it get to operating temp to see if it'll spin the wheels? I was also thinking maybe the syncho got stuck for 6th and it' just locked in that gear.

 

if you are having issues with putting it in gear and regardless of in gear or out when you release the clutch the engine dies I'm guessing your bearings are seized up. getting up to operating temp isn't really going to make any difference.

 

Going to move Stock Problems/Issues section.

If you have not thrown out the old oil, attempt to determine how much was in the transmission when the issues started. Up to about July 04 the transmission takes 2 qts, after that about 1.5 qts..

 

it's about 2 or 3 Oz at the most . At work right now can measure later

 

Sounds like you seized the main shaft bearings, start looking for a used one somewhere.

 

well, sucks to suck huh ? Lmao.
luckily I was already looking into it and found one about 2 hours away for a decent price with a 90 day warranty. Thanks guys !