MiniSpares 5pd box

Manufacturer: Trans-X
Origin: (USA)
Product: Helical cut 5 speed gearbox
Available from: MiniSpares Tel : 0181 368 6292

Rating: 4/5
Ease of fitting: 3/5
Similar other product tried: None

Comments:

When I bought my new Cooper the first thing I noticed was the very high final drive, while this was great on the motorway it wasn't ideal for the B road journey to work. After the Rover warranty ran out I changed the final drive to 3.44:1. The lower ratio made a marked improvement on the acceleration but unfortunately made motorway driving a struggle. After achieving a gain in acceleration I was reluctant to go back. The only real answer was a 5 speed box, after hearing about reliability problems with Mini Sports unit I decided to go with MiniSpares. The box is fitted with a 3.44:1 final drive ratio but in 5th is equivalent to 3.1:1.

The box was fairly easy to fit (even though Mini Spares failed to send me the starter kit and didn't supply the primary gear bearing, which is pretty poor on a gearbox costing £1500) but in all it wasn't any harder to fit than a 4 speed box.

Overall I have been very pleased with the gearbox, the quickshift bias unit took a bit of fiddling with to get working correctly but the gearbox has been ace.

Update

The bulkrings on 2nd and 3rd gear are begining to show signs of wear after 54,000 miles so the box has been removed for strip down and re-build

Update 2

The strip down was harder than I thought, some over zealous action with a 3 foot scaffolding pole and 2 broken gears later I decided to send it to Neil at Minispares North. Neil was very helpful and kept me informed with his progress (and the escalating cost). In all it cost £800 that included new bearings, bulk rings, laygear, selector shaft, diff planet gears, uprated diff pin, central oil pickup & some of the gears on the main shaft. Neil reckons it would have been nearer £300 if I hadn't broken the laygear. Well there is only one way to learn...