A couple of months ago, my daughter brought her 02 R50 home from college and said it was making a noise when the clutch was engaged. It was a fairly loud growling noise coming from the left side. After researching the threads, and knowing I didnt have a dual mass flywheel, and did have new wheel bearings, that left the clutch or the gearbox. Hoping it was the cheaper solution, I ordered a clutch and got ready to pull the gearbox. I used the K-Huevo thread for pulling the tranny. It has the most useful information and best pictures if you have to do this. Anyway, once I got to it, the clutch was in great shape for 96k miles driven by a 20yr old girl, so on to the gearbox. My search for a gearbox or rebuild kit, lead me to an ebay site from England. Mini-gearboxes-limited. They had a rebuild kit with all the bearings pressed in place, a differential, and all the seals you need. It was $470 with $120 shipping to Tennessee. I won't say it was an easy rebuild, but I am not a professional mechanic and still managed to get the job done. They send instructions for the rebuild, but it is only disassembly. You will need another source like TIS or Bentley's to get re-assembly torques and proceedures to re-install the seals. If you do this, make sure to take plenty of pictures and notes when you pull the casing and have the gear and syncro stack exposed. If you are able to, do a function check of the shift levers, so you know what they are supposed to do once you install the new ones. I removed my gear stack and kept it together. That was a big help with putting the new gears together. So, after the usual headaches getting everything back together, it looks like a success. I was lucky. There was no significant damage inside the gearbox yet. The only difference between the new and old, was very significant play in the old bearings, so I assume that was the source of the noise. I now have about 150 test miles on it an so far so good. Turning it back over to the girl this weekend. I don't know how long to expect it to last, but I am hoping for another 50K out of it. One very pleasant surprise was the new gears I got had a different gear ratio, so now the RPMs are about 750 less at 80mph (sweet). I don't know if you can request this gear ratio when you order the kit. I wasnt even aware that there was such a thing. Some times it is better to be lucky than good. As we rack up the miles on this rebuild, I will update this thread to let you know how long the success lasts. Good luck if you have to try this and feel free to message me if you have any questions. I am definitely not an expert, but I did learn a few things along the way.

 

Let us know how it has progressed. Now that I have a 2002 R50 with the midlands I am a little worried about the future.

 

So far so good at 2 months and 2500 miles. The left side driveshaft seal is seeping a little bit. Just enough to notice oil below the seal, but not enough to drip. I did not use the plastic guide that the manual called for to protect the seal when installing the driveshafts, so that may be something to consider. I guess I was lucky on the right side. It is dry. My plan to is to change the gearbox oil every 20k or so to see if it extends the life of the bearings. It may not do anything, but its only 20 bucks and 30 minutes so why not.

 

I know this is an old thread...but any update on the rebuilt kit?

 

Over 15k miles on the rebuild and no issues (with the transmission). As for the rest of the car, all I can say is that at least with an 02, things seemed to break as fast as I could fix them, so I am sorry (not really) to say that I sold the Mini and hope the next owner has better luck than me. My daughter really loved the car too, but was also tired of bringing it home on a monthly basis for its regular dose of parts and money. Best of luck to all you hard core mini fans out there.

 

Glad to hear it went well as far as the rebuild is concerned. My Midlands let go at 50k miles and was replaced under extended warranty.

 

Mine went bust at 11 months old and fixed under warranty the new one has done 100,000 and feels great hope i have'nt blighted it by saying so.I run it on Amsoil manual transmission fluid and it is better oil than the Texaco oem actually it says recomended for Mini on the bottle.Much smoother just changed it couple days ago after 2 yrs from the last Amsoil change.I would say change it every year new oil feels good and shure cant hurt.These boxes are insane when one is dead in short order and the other has run fine for years at one point i was going to buy one of those kits to put down.I plan to drive this sucker till the wheels fall off.

 

I just got don't putting a new engine in a car I picked up at auction. Having now gotten to test drive it, mine has the same trans symptoms as yours. I will be doing the rebuild as well. Thank you for the name of the ebay rebuild parts supplier. I will take pictures of the process. I JUST had the engine and trans out! Wish I had known back then so I wouldn't be doing things twice. How long did it take to drop out just the trans? I am thinking I might just go ahead and take out the engine again so that way I can keep the car a roller so I can move it around while its down and out. Im thinking I can do it in three hours now. The trans job alone calls for 6. What does it actually take?

I know the original poster sold the mini, others feel free to chime in.

Thanks!

 

When I did my swap, I pulled the engine also for exactly that reason. Side benefit was that I got to install flywheel/clutch, and mate the gearbox on my workbench, not laying on my back.

You may want to go the other route, and change your lower control arm bushings while the subframe is down.


Oh, and great thread. I'm glad to hear those rebuild kits are good. I had initially considered that route, but abandoned the idea when I found two holes punched through my case. I went with the 6 speed conversion, instead.

 

I know this is an old post, but I am about to rebuild my 2004 R50 with 130K miles. I will pull the engine & trans together, since I just finished doing that on my 1998 Civic & it was far less trouble than working under the car. Also, replacing the clutch with the mileage sounds like a good idea. Looks like there are new options for kits in the last 3 years & wondering if anyone has some data & opinions on the ones available now.

 

Jtee from Mini Gearboxes limited out of the UK. He knows his stuff. Responds super quick. I was going to do one of his rebuild kits, but turns out he cut me a deal on a trans that a customer ordered in error. It was like $800-900 with a clutch. That was a one time deal but even his products on his ebay store are very reasonably priced. Leaving the engine in would mean you don't have to mess with taking off the exhaust manifold, and some other bits here and there. I have done it with engine out, and just trans. With how light the trans is, I prefer to just pull the sub frame and it. The only benefit is that with the engine out you can pull the crank pulley and do a front crank seal at the same time. Definitely do a clutch and rear main. if you don't do things like that you will have to go back in at some point so its worth doing right the first time.

I was going to do a rebuild, but time is money, and just to save a couple hundred and have to do a days worth of rebuilding needing a press or puller. I just didn't want to mess with it.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Parts-Access...rboxes-limited

 

So I bought a rebuild kit from the UK guy, and rebuilding it was a piece of cake, but now that I am trying to re-install the tranny, I can't drop the left side of the engine enough to like up the two cases because the counter weight arm on the shifter won't clear the frame. I am afraid that if I insert the input shaft through the clutch pressure plate at an angle to clear the frame, I will damage the fingers or mis-align something. Any ideas from all of you experienced Midlands guys?

 

I think I got mine by removing the far motor mount and having the passengers side mount barely hang on so that the jack under the oil pan could be used to angle the bell housing side of the engine lower then the crank pulley side. This should give you the angle you need.