Toph6888 Posted October 17, 2015 Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Girlfriend's car had her clutch go out about a month ago, and just now finding time to work on it since I was in Japan for work for 2 weeks. Her car is a 2009 cooper s and after doing some research into the mini's, turns out the stock clutches only last 40-50k normally. Thanks BMW. (I talked to some people at a dealership, and they said they have had cars in with less than 15k miles on them for clutch replacements...) Anyways, went back and forth on how to tackle this thing since I have just a one car garage and shorter jackstands so height was kinda an issue. The manual says to basically to drop the front subframe, support the engine from above, and then drop the transmission out the bottom. I went back and forth on how to support the engine, and given the mini does not have traditional frame rails to use an engine bar across the top, I decided to say F it and just remove the entire drivetrain from the vehicle. And here we go. First Night ~2.5hrs The mini takes up a lot less space in the garage than my mustang does haha. Got the car up on stands, then proceded to remove the entire front. Grille and cover came off first, then radiator support assembly. It actually came off surprisingly easy and was not bad at all. Front clip has pretty much everything on it, intake tubes, bumper, headlights, radiator/condenser, everything comes off with minor electrical connectors once the coolant/refrigerant is drained. How the car sat after the first day: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toph6888 Posted October 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Second evening ~4hrs Didn't get a lot of photos here, but pretty much cleared off the rest of the little bits (heater hoses, shifter cables, exhaust vband, computer, etc etc) to get to where the only thing connecting the engine/trans were the mounts. The engine and trans mounts are directly on the super low frame rails, and then there is one torque arm under the engine. I had purchased an engine hoist off craigslist for $75 bucks so we were ready to go. Once we had it on the hoist it took me and 2 others about 10 mins to back the engine/tran combo out from between the frame rails with some minor fiddling. Only issue was the hoist oil was slightly low, so one person had to give the hoist a pump or two every minute to keep it up. Fixed that later that day, but were able to get it out without any issues. Engine out with the trans off: Proceeded to remove the clutch components: Pressure plate had some nice small hot spots. Also you can see a ring on the outer edge where the rivets from the friction disk were wearing into the pressure plate. What remains of the rivets on the friction disc: The mother of all flywheels, this thing was a beast. Damn dual mass flywheels Back of the engine (got some good cleaning in there to get rid of all the friction material dust, engine side wasn't as bad but bellhousing was caked with it: Transmission wasn't too bad to move around, I would guess its about the same weight as my T5 in my mustang so no big deal moving it around the garage. And finally the money shot of the car with no drivetrain. Girlfriend wasn't anywhere near as excited as I was that the entire front of the car was pretty much on the garage floor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toph6888 Posted October 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Third day/evening ~7hrs Got the engine up onto my engine stand so that I could replace the oil pan gasket. It had a small leak on it so it was well worth getting it fixed up since the motor was out anyways. New gasket on Then started putting on the new bits. We decided to go with a solid mass flywheel so in the future we can have it turned. It was also about $300 cheaper than the stock Dual Mass flywheel (still was $500 though....) Then on went the new clutch (the alignment tool didn't fit the crank, so that was annoying, but I was able to measure and keep the disk centered up when putting on the pressure plate so that we were able to get the transmission back on easy enough). Then got the transmission/starter back onto the engine. Then my girlfriend went out to get us some dinner, so my friend and I started to maneuver the engine/trans towards the car and wait for her to get back, but then said screw it and lifted it up. It slid in super easy, about 10 mins to get it back in between the frame rails on the engine/trans mounts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toph6888 Posted October 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Fourth Day ~4 hrs Nothing to exciting at this point, just a matter of getting everything put back on. Got the little bits buttoned up under the engine and all the mounts secured and passenger axle back in the car. Driver axle needs a new circlip that will be here tomorrow (mini manual says it HAS to be replaced, and while probably not, its not worth it to me to try to save the $10 vs getting into this whole thing again). Pretty much buttoned up and ready for fluids/test before we put the bumper back on. Got some new rotors/ebc red pads to go onto the car as well, so she should hopefully be pretty good for a while in terms of maintenance on this thing. Should have everything done and this thing back on the road tomorrow mid day. All in all about 20hrs of time into this thing, which having never worked on them before I figure isn't too bad for tearing the whole drivetrain out and putting it back in. Just waiting till we start hearing the eventual ticking from the engine that will say its time for a timing chain replacement that requires a $200 tool to hold the variable camshafts in place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseyctsv Posted October 17, 2015 Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Good lord - nice work. I am so glad I did not get one of these for my daughter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toph6888 Posted October 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Good lord - nice work. I am so glad I did not get one of these for my daughter. Honestly, pulling the engine/trans was actually a lot easier then I thought it would be (especially compared to the mustang that you have to go up and over the radiator support, where this can come straight out). Biggest pain in the ass is the AC lines come around the entire front of the engine and there isn't enough play in the lines to get the engine and trans out over top of it so they have to be disconnected. Went to BMW to get the part I needed today, a lock ring for the end of the drivers side halfshaft. And of course, even though it has the right part number on the bag, it looks nothing like what is needed. I need this: http://new.minimania.com/images_temp/800600001g2nmd3012.jpg And they gave me this: So now I will have to wait for the part to come in from an online store that has the correct part picture/application. Damn you BMW!!! Mini won't make it to the Buckeye Miata club drive around hocking hills this weekend but we will at least be there in the WRX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeitgeist57 Posted October 17, 2015 Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Very impressive! I've done some healthy jobs and I appreciate modern German cars with an engineered plan to "service position". Cool to see accessories mounted to a relatively easy assembly to remove. Great job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iwashmycar Posted October 17, 2015 Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Nice work!. I had 54K on my 09S when I ditched it but the clutch was perfectly fine far as I could tell. They really are pretty simple cars to work on except for being very crammed together! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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