I have a 2004 mini cooper s that will not move. I have never been so confused in my life. Here is what happen. I down shifted from second into first and floored it. Car caught traction and i heard a loud pop. Like an acle broke. Pushed the car home, put it on jack stands to look at the axles and see which one was broken and to my surprise not one axle was broke. Here is what the car does. Car will go into evey gear with out using the clutch just fine, but wont move. As the car is in gear it sounds like metal rolling around inside the trans. Broken input shaft i thought. Bought a new trans, pulled old trans out and to my surprise the input shaft looked fine. I can twist the input shaft just fine and both outputs move. So i installed new trans to see maybe if it was an internal issue. While trans was out i checked the clutch and it looked a little worn but not bad. I put the car back together to find that It is doing the same thing. I decided to order a clutch to make sure the friction plate wasnt bad and to also know that everything is new. I remove the trans, remove the clutch. This time i spin the flywheel to make sure i get compression, just to make sure the crank isnt broken. I install new clutch, new throw out bearing and put the new trans back in. Put the car back together and leave it on jack stands. I rotate the axles on the passenger side while the car is in gear not running to see if it rotates the opposite side. It does not. I then start the car and proceed to try the new clutch. The car does the same damn thing. I can put the car into every gear with out the clutch being used, but the axles do not spin. The clutch pedal feels normal when pushed in and released. The slave cylinder is pushing the throw out bearing lever. And it sounds like metal rolling around, with each gear i put it in the louder and faster the metal sounds like it is rolling. I am totally lost. Has anyone experienced this before. I do not know what to do. Any help wpuld hw greatly appreciated. Have a great day and thanks.

 

Interesting that no one has responded! I have not experienced what you describe, but I've spent plenty of time messing about with clutches and gear boxes. You say that it will go into any gear without the clutch - with the engine running? and without any fuss? If so, it's pretty clear that the input shaft isn't turning (or all the gears are stripped). Since you have replaced the gearbox, that's not the case and there must be a disconnect between the crank and the input shaft. The clutch would be the first suspect, but it would have to have failed catastrophically - like the center ripped out of the disk. Since that is not the case, we're looking at the crank/flywheel. You say you've checked by backdriving the flywheel to turn the engine over, so the only thing left I can think of is that the MINI flywheel is dual mass type. I have not actually examined one of these, but it suggests that it might have separated. Did you turn it from the clutch mounting surface or from the ring gear? If the latter, there may be one last thing to check - if the former, then I'm as stumped as you are! You've probably gone through all these thoughts already, but I hope it helps in some way. Let us know what you find.

 

Good thoughts from Sp4rtan, I saw the post but was stumped relative to the cause.

 

I would like to play the devils advocate for a second (I have some experience with this, I was married to his sister for a few years) worse case is the transmission input shaft snapped. For the most part the Getrag transmissions are bullet proof, but things happen.

A snapped input shaft would allow the transmission to move freely though the gears with out the clutch and with the engine running you would hear the metallic grinding sounds of the spinning shaft no longer connected to the rest of the shaft.

Dropping the transmission is the most reliable means of determining the the actual damage.

Best of luck

Motor On!