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BEFORE YOU THINK OF READING ANY FURTHER, PLEASE KNOW THAT I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE YOU MAY
DO TO YOUR MINI. I'M AN IDIOT AND THOUGHT I WOULD HAVE FUN, KNOWING FULL WELL THAT IF I SCREWED UP I WOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. IF YOU WANT TO BE AN IDIOT
JUST LIKE ME, THEN DON'T GET PISSED IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU DO TO YOUR BABY. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO CHANCE IT, THEN TAKE
YOUR CAR TO THE DEALER AND PAY THEM TO CHANGE YOUR TRANSMISSION OIL FOR YOU.
stupid disclaimers.. now
lets have some fun
MINI states that the transmission fluid in the transmission is a "lifetime" fluid. Never to be changed or checked. This seems a little odd to me since my shifting has
become more and more difficult from when I first drove Claire. From the recommendations from people at NAM, I decided to change my transmission oil around the 50,000 mile mark.
This is the story of that change.
BIG THANKS TO
AGRANGER with the assist from KAPPS from over on NAM
Without the text write-up from these guys, I would have never had any clue.
This transmission oil change was done on a 2005 MINI COOPER S with 48,000 miles. Things may differ here and there
from year to year.
First, gather up the things you're going to need to complete the job
- The car jack. (I prefer Craftsman anything)
- The car jack stand.
- 2 bottles of Redline MTL Transmission Fluid
- Torque Wrench
- Socket Driver
- Messy-Mess Rag
- Magnetic grabber thingy (You'll see why later)
- 8mm Hex socket
- Low profile bucket for oil containment
- 1/2in outer diameter (3/8 inner diameter) hose/tubing AND small funnel which will fit snugly in the tubing.
Excellent... let's begin the craziness.
Step 1: Put your bottles of MTL in warm water.
Warm oil flows faster, which makes your life easier when pouring.
Step 2: Elevate the MINI on the driver side.
In the image above you'll notice that I have the jack in the middle of the car with a piece of wood between the mini and the jack. I did this because if you try to jack the car up on the
jack point, you'll notice that getting a jack stand there will be impossible. The point of the piece of wood is to distribute the pressure from the jack stand along the sub-frame
of the mini. Once you jack up the car high enough, place the jack stand under the front jack point and slowly lower the mini onto it.
A brief
note on jack stands
Never ever EVER get under your car with the weight of the car only supported by the jack. Jacks were designed to lift the car, not to hold it up for long periods of time.
There is a huge amount of pressure that is present in the jack when supporting your car and if left in the jack for long periods of time, could cause a failure. If that failure should
happen while your head is under your mini, be prepared to say hi to the pearly gates. ALWAYS have your car supported by the jack stand before any part of your body
goes under the car.
Step 3: Observe. Locate. Plan.
Crawl under the car from the front and observe (and admire) the rarely seen parts of your mini. You are going to be locating the transmission, which sits about two and a half feet
from the front, and closer to the drivers side wheel.
Locate the two plugs that you will be using. The top one is for filling, the bottom one is for draining. This may sound weird now, but touch the transmission and plugs. Get an
actual feel for the things you are going to be manipulating. Stare at it for a while and draw out a plan in your head of what needs to happen. Open drain plug, oil comes out,
close drain plug, open fill plug, oil goes in, close fill plug... you get the point.
Step 4: Lower the MINI.
Wait. wait. wait. Lower the mini? Didn't we just raise it?
Yes. LOWER THE MINI! Why?
The two plugs on the transmission are SUPPOSED to be torqued to 32-ft/lbs. Key word being "supposed". From the dealer, the transmission plugs are torqued to about 1.5 million ft-lbs.
This requires a lot of force to get these plugs open. Jack stands are not meant to support a car with a force moving forwards and backwards. They were designed to hold weight, not momentum.
Lower the mini for your own safety. 5 minutes of extra time beats out months of hospital recovery.
Step 5: Budge the fill hole. Budge the drain hole.
Budging the fill hole is very important. If you were to empty the transmission and then fail at opening the the fill hole, then you will have to get your mini towed since driving a car with
no transmission fluid is suicide.
With your mini on all four wheels, reach from the front of the car to where you located the transmission before. You will be able to sneak your arm far enough to easily feel both of the
plugs. Slide your 8mm hex socket into the fill hole, and using a ridiculous amount of force, budge the fill hole. All you're doing is making sure you can get it off. If the fill hole budges
then go ahead and budge only the drain hole.
Step 6: Elevate the MINI again on the driver side.
Deja vu? No, we've been here before. Look to step 2 if you forgot about how to do this. (Actually, if you forgot already... then... maybe you should re-think doing this yourself.)
Step 7: Empty the transmission of its fluid.
Finally! With the mini elevated again and on the jack stand (not the
jack), unscrew the drain plug the rest of the way making sure your little
bucket or pan is close to the drain plug, however, still giving it lots
of "shooting room" since the oil will be gushing out. Allow the oil to drain
for at least 10 minutes. You want to make sure all of the oil is
out of there.
If you have mad skills then make sure you take the drain plug and wipe it off, setting it somewhere it will not get lost. If you are like me, with clutziness abounding, let the plug
fall into the pan/bucket. We'll get it later.
Step 8: Close the drain hole
If you're like me and don't have the skills to grab the plug before it falls into the oil, then take your little magnetic grabby thingy (yes, that is the technical name), and
fish it out of the bucket of oil.
Wipe off the plug real good with your messy-mess towel and screw it back in. Grab your torque wrench and torque that plug to 32 ft-lbs.
Step 9: Worm the hose/tube into the fill hole of the transmission.
Unscrew the fill hole the rest of the way (since you already budged it open). Wipe off the plug and put it somewhere safe.
The easiest way to fish the tube down through the top of the engine bay
is finding it down through a hole that sits just to the right of the brake
reservoir. It doesn't take much to get it close enough to the bottom to
where you can grab it and pull it down.
From the top:
From the bottom:
Put the hose in the fill hole:
Step 10: Pour in the new fluid.
Go get your two bottles from the warm water. The MCS takes 1.7 liters to fill up which ends up being 1 and 6/7s bottles of MTL. Have a friend, wife, partner, etc. look under the car
and keep pouring the fluid until starts dribbling out of the fill hole. Make sure the bucket/pan is still under the transmission so that it will be caught.
Step 11: Close the fill hole. Wipe up the drippy mess. Remove the bucket. Lower the MINI.
Put the plug back into the fill hole and torque the plug to 32 ft-lbs. Take your messy-mess rag and wipe all the drippies up.
Remove the bucket from under the car and take a look inside. Some people
have reportedly said their oil was brownish-red. Mine was, unfortunately,
black.
Lower the mini back down slowly... just reverse the way you jacked it up.
Check for leaks.
Remove the funnel/hose contraption.
Step 12: Take your baby for a test drive.
Drive around with your windows open and no stereo on. Listen for weird noises or feel for abnormal shifting. Things should be A LOT smoother.
That's it! You're done!
If you have any questions about this, email me. ben - @at@ - shankrabbit.com
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