Yesterday as I was driving to a co workers house I was foced to turn down a dirt road becasue of our states wonderful construction. It had rained recently and I drove through a puddle about 6 inches deep which sprayed mud all over my poor MINI. Almost immediately the car became hard to shift in any gear. The car is driveable but incredibly difficult to shift as if there was something in the linkage. I cleaned the bottom and under hood and every little spot I could find but the car is still hard to shift. The car is a 2004 MINI S with a few modifications but nothing done to the transmission except a short shifter kit. Any clue on what I can do to solve this issue besides driving 300 miles to the dealer?!

 

The linkage is in two places, one under the airbox and one above the exhaust. You might as well try to look and see if there is anything obvious there.

 

Since you state the car has a short shift kit, I would suspect that the linkage above the exhaust and below the shift lever got gummed up with mud. Was the dust cover removed and not reinstalled when the short shift kit installed? Many people remove the cover instead of deforming the cover to still work with the shift kit. I think you will need to drop the exhaust and heat shield to be able to see the bottom of the shift level, at the cable linkage.

 

The box remains on the shift linkage but as cut and modified to fit the short shifter. I also have n after market exhasut and my guess is that the heat shielding has been moved around letting mud in through the modified cover. I'l pul it apart and check it out. What can be used to clean and re grease the shift linkage?

 

Probably depends on how much of a mess it is. I would try water spray first. If need more cleaner power I would try a foaming engine degreaser or something like PB Blaster (for rusted botls but has lubricant in it).
Probably the real concern is whether or not small particles got inside the little connection cups. It might be worth disconnecting the linkages to clean them completely. I would use a plastic safe grease such as Green Grease, SuperLube, or White Lithium grease to lube the parts.

 

I'l give it a try tommorow morning and post how it goes. Thanks for all the help.