Jinx can mean more than one thing; I'm using the "tempting fate" version here, as in declaring that your Midlands transmission has run XX,XXX miles and still hasn't failed. I'll start: The original Midlands tranny in my '02 MC has 66K miles on it and is still going strong. I've read enough about folks with broken Midlands'. Someone asked me once how many miles I had on mine and when I said "nearly 60K" he said "then it's about to go." I don't believe it's as inevitable as that. Of course I should probably admit that I have an ulterior motive for blatantly tempting fate like this. I hope to do a 6-spd swap one day and I've decided to wait until my Midlands breaks ("don't fix what ain't broke" right?), but the blasted thing keeps working perfectly! There, that oughta do it..... Anyone else willing to risk it? :wink:
Well here goes:frown2: My Midlands is not the original, the first one was swapped out at about 30,000 miles. The tranny did not fail, but one of the axle seals froze. This happened while I was still up in Manitoba, middle of the winter, temp. was around -35F. I was motoring into the city, a 50 mile commute, and as I stopped at a traffic light, things did not sound good. So I went straight to the dealer, and the tech had a look under the car, and knew what the issue was. He drained the tranny, then flushed it, put in new seals, refilled it and all was fine. They still got me a new tranny, which between ordering it, and my schedule, ended up being about a month before the swap. The old tranny worked like nothing had ever happened. The new tranny was not a rebuild, but a brand new one. Poco is an 03, and now has 105,000 miles on him, so that puts about 75,000 miles on his "new" tranny. It works like new, never had an issue with it. I don't abuse the tranny, no burn outs, no slamming through the gears, always rev match when down shifting. He IS driven hard every time he goes out. Steve if I need a new tranny in the next little while, it's going to be your fault:lol: Mark
Hey, the choice to post was yours and yours alone. :lol: I'm exercising the little gray cells here trying to conjure up a memory.....seems like quite a few early Coopers had cold weather Midlands issues. That was an actual tranny issue though if I remember correctly and different from the problem you had, yes?
Yeah, it was an axle seal issue, not the tranny. The dealer still replaced the tranny because it dumped about 1/2 it's fluid, so no telling what was swimming around in there. I have been posting about this for years now, with no ill effects:lol: Mark
I guess I'm not really so overly keen to swap the tranny that I want to be forced to do it quickly. I actually like the Midlands so I'm happy to keep it as long as it wants to keep working, but when it goes, it's going away. In fact, I may decide to swap even if I only really NEED to do the clutch -- might as well do the deed while I'm in there -- but for now my original Midlands is still working like a trooper! Anybody else lurking out there willing to join the fate tempting club?
Now that I am fairly certain my transmission is failing and cannot be jinxed, I will openly state that I got 185,000 miles out of the Midlands and the original clutch in my 2003 R50. I just hope that a jinx is not transferrable!
As far as I know, a transmission jinx is not contagious. Of course if you replace it with another Midlands, it's still a Midlands. I like to think if (when?) mine goes TU I'll replace it with a Getrag but unless I'm feeling especially adventurous (and mechanically competent) I'll probably just go with another Midlands. After all, it works great, why mess with success?
Steve, can you even still buy a Midlands to replace it with when it fails? (notice the "when", in keeping with the spirit of this thread! :biggrin5: )
Steve, I too have decided to replace mine with another Midlands. I love the way my car drives and handles, and I would like for it to remain the same.
The Midlands hit 130,000miles all in my hands hard tyre chirping driving with no issues. I found the shifting good and plan to rebuild the Midlands with a LSD, 5:1 diff and heavy duty bearings.
Just pulled the Midlands apart to find near perfect internals! I was amazed for a 130,000 mile ex rental car. Next I'm going to fit a 5;1 final drive and all new bearings.