dropping trans and changing clutch

[black98V6]

So my clutch has started slipping, I had been picking up parts to do it myself but decided to try a shop. They quoted me 8.5 hours to do the work which came out to around $800. I told them thanks but no thanks, so I'm gonna do it myself. I know I will have to take a buch of crap off to get the trans out to include:
Y pipe
Trans cross member
torque arm
driveshaft
starter

So far it doesn't look too bad, I'll also be changing out the rear main and rear plate seal.

Does anyone know of any little (or big) issues I should look out for while doing this? Here is what I think I'm looking at in this order

Lift the car
drop the driveshaft
drop torque arm
drop y pipe
drop starter
remove the shifter from the top
Drain fluid
support trans
drop cross member
unbolt trans from engine
Remove electrical plugs and clutch fluid line
slide trans out ( I hear this can be a PITA)
remove pressure plate, clutch
unbolt flywheel
remove the pilot bushing (using grease and a socket extension
remove pilot bearing (not sure how this comes out, do I need a puller?)
pull rear main seal
unbolt rear plate, clean surfaces, reinstall seal, rear main
and then reverse of what I just did

anybody got any nuggets of wisdom to add?

are there any bolts that cannot be reused?

[flamingchicken]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

when you go to put the torque arm back on, its not gonna go right, cause the dif will want to rotate. jack up the back and put the rear axle on jack stands, if the bolt holes dont line up you will need to jack up on the mounts for the LCAs to spin the dif. i believe thats how i did it.

i think the flywheel bolts are not reusable.

[Choppers]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

if you have a leaking rear main seal or want to change it now would be the time also.:)

[black98V6]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

i think the flywheel bolts are not reusable.

would that be flywheel to crank or pressure plate to flywheel bolts?



I'll be doing the rear main at the same time along with possibly the rear plate.

[Skinny]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

I reorganized a bit.

Here is what I think I'm looking at in this order

*remove the shifter from the top
Disconnect battery
Lift the car
*drop y pipe
drop the driveshaft
drop torque arm
drop starter
Drain fluid
support trans
drop cross member
*Remove electrical plugs and clutch fluid line
unbolt trans from engine
slide trans out ( I hear this can be a PITA) The hard part is putting it back in
remove pressure plate, clutch
unbolt flywheel
remove the pilot bushing (using grease and a socket extension) Good luck
remove pilot bearing (not sure how this comes out, do I need a puller?) You have a bearing or a bushing, not both
pull rear main seal
unbolt rear plate, clean surfaces, reinstall seal, rear main
and then reverse of what I just did


I'm pretty sure the flywheel to crankshaft bolts are not reusable. Even if they were, I wouldn't reuse them anyway. As I said above, good luck with the grease/extension thing. I use a small slide-hammer. If I remember correctly, the rear plate also covers a coolant passage. You may need to drain the coolant as well if you pull the plate off. Also, you should take the flywheel to a transmission shop and have them resurface it for you before installing a new clutch.

[Meatyshells]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

you dont need to drop the starter or the y-pipe
and yes you can reuse the flywheel bolts (flywheel to crank) just use a little thread locker

make sure you drain the fluid before you pull the driveshaft out because fluid will probably come out of the hole.

it is easier to unbolt the torque arm mount from the trans then take the torque arm off the rear end

[espey_16]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

Also, if you have the axle supported with jackstands, you won't be able to pull the 2 rear tq arm bolts all the way out. But if you have the body supported, it allowes the suspension to hang and you will have enough room to pull those 2 bolts. I'd just buy new flywheel and pressure plate bolts, cheap insurance. When I did it cost $4 for all the bolts. Make sure you top off and bleed the air out of your cooling system after you do the rear main, some coolant might leak out when you pull the plate off. And you have a pilot bearing or a bushing, not both.

[fredbmxer4life]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

Black let me know how this goes will be my first time dropping my tranny too the clutch is gone in my tranny clutch pedal comes up almost completely before it grabs, my buddy drove it the other day and parked it in gear. I dont park it in gear because ever since i bought car the clutch safety is messed up. So i reached in car to start it and show him something in engine bay and the car started and and litterally drove away with no one in it because starter turned motor over. Thank god i opened door to reach inside to start car rather than through the window so i jumped in pressed brake and stalled it.

Yeah i know bash on me all you want but there was a reason i never left car in gear when i parked it and thats why because safety switch was messed up.

[black98V6]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

Well the deed is prettymuch done, here are the cliffs for anyone looking at this:

First off this was a royal PITA and it was for the most part 2 solid days of working by myself. I wouldn't recommend anyone do this by themself.
I didn't drop the starter but did drop the Y pipe and managed to snap a bolt off in the manifold. I'll be taking the car to an exhaust shop to get it drilled out and reattached.

While I don't think I would have NEEDED to drop the Y-pipe it would have been more difficult if I had not. I did purchase new crank to flywheel bolts from the dealer. They are hardened and for 8 of them was about $30. I reused the flywheel to pressure plate bolts. Use or don't reuse at your own risk.

I left the driveshaft in the trans and that made it a little more unwieldy but not impossible.
I completely removed the torque arm and that was a bit of a PITA to get back in but not impossible either. this whole process would have been eaiser with 2 floor jacks not just 1. You can jack on where the panhard bar bolts to the axle to pivot the torque arm up or down. The real PITA to me was getting the clamshell thing back together for the torque arm.
I did not do the rear plate but did do the rear main, after fighting everything the first day I just could not bring myself to take anything else off the car. I may pay for this later but so be it.

You have to pull the bellhousing off of the trans to get the slave cylinder out, while not a big deal it was near the end of day 1 when I did this and was prettywell spent. For some reason I didn't realize I would need to do this.

Getting the trans out was a PITA it is in there tight and takes alot of persuading to get out. I used a floor jack with a trans adapter. Personally I would not try this otherwise especially if you are attempting this on your own. I can see where draining the fluid would help lighten up the trans but working on your back (for me at least) is tough enough without trying to wrestle the trans.

Putting it back in was something like a 2.5 hour job alone. Getting it the last inch sucked! The problem is that the engine sags when you pull the trans so getting everything lined up perfectly is difficult. Again as second floor jack might have been useful here. After shaking pushing lifting and lowering it just popped in the last inch or so.

It took almost all of my tools to get this job done. Some made things easier others were required. I have a small 90 degree cordless impact wrench from Home Depot that came in handy alot. It only goes to around 90 ft lbs but makes taking off and putting on those long bolts easier. I also have a cordless impact from sears that goes to just around 120 ft lbs it too was useful but not required and could really mess things up if you aren't careful. A good 2 ft worth of extensions is also needed. The top 2 trans bolts are WAY up in there!

The spec on the pressure plate to flywheel bolts are torque to 20 NM then another 50 degrees. I don't think a torque wrench is exactly necessary because when they hit the 20 NM point they get TIGHT, the last 50 degrees is fun.

My clutch seems much lighter than the old one but it is pretty smooth and seems to be holding well. My old flywheel was smooth as glass, I'm surprised anything could stick to it. I put a centerforce dual friction (which is made by exide (or exidy) btw), rhino flywheel, raybestos slave and felpro rear main. I did not take out the pilot bushing, the chilton manual which advises using grease and an extension is full of BS.

In short I didn't really do everything I set out to do but think this will suit me with 140k miles on the car now my repairs should last for a couple of years until I finally relenquish the keys.

At this point on monday I have a pile of dirty tools in my garage and a car with a really nasty exhaust leak but I'm relatively happy. Had I initially been quoted less money I wouldn't have tackled this myself. Part of me wishes I had paid to get it done (I could afford it but couldn't bring myself to spend the money) the other part of me is glad I did it, once the bruises and cuts heal and I can drive the car regularly I should feel even better about blowing my weekend to do the job.

Edit: So much for this being the short version.

[black98V6]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

Ok the car is being driven now so I thought I'd make one follow up post. It cost me $200 to have someone drill and tap the intake manifold. This was a steep price but the shop was right around the corner from my house and they seem to do good work.

So basically I paid $100 for the work and $100 for the convience to be able to make a 5 minute walk back to my house.

There is a slight vibration which goes up with RPM but I don't think it's anything to be concerned over at the moment. The new clutch is a bit grabby and I stalled the car in traffic today. I'm getting used to it pretty quickly though. The feel seems to be lighter than the old one but is engaging right about the same place as the old one. No biggie here I kind of expected it after all of the reviews. Personally though I don't see how a clutch that "feels" lighter can grab harder but hey maybe that's why they cost so much.

I can say now that I am glad I did the job myself, I wouldn't hesitate to do it again, the only difference is that I now know what to drop and in what order to make things go easier. I also know to find my pry bar BEFORE I start the job. I think now I could do it in a day by myself.

I'm going to see how it goes and if all goes well no more posts here, if I missed something and it comes back to bite me I'll add to this post for anyone who might be considering doing this themselves.

My next project will be the upper and lower intake manifold gaskets.

To infinity and beyond.......

[techsan23]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

It cost me $200 to have someone drill and tap the intake manifold.

There is a slight vibration which goes up with RPM

U mean drilling and tapping the head right?

As far as the vibration goes; a bent input shaft will normally cause a bad vibration. Hopefully that is not the case.

[black98V6]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

No I meant drilling and tapping the manifold where it bolts to the Y-pipe. I snapped one of those 2 bolts at the flange on the drivers side. After doing everything else I didn't want to F with it. I know I got bent over but I'm pretty sure this is the starting price for any kind of "mechanic" work at this place. Mechanic work at a recognized shop is expensive where I live.

Yeah I'm hoping I didn't bend the shaft while doing everything else however it's a very mild vibration I guess it would best be described as a low amplitude vibration that goes up (frequency) with RPM, I'm thinking the flywheel isn't exactly perfect. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the heads up on the input shaft.

Oah that does remind me though, anyone have a way to know that they have indexed the flywheel properly? Since it is balanced it has to be indexed right and there were no pins or anything that I could see and visually the holes looked to be uniform. I tried to make sure I put the new one in the same way the old one came out but I could be off by a hole either way.

[Fondle]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

you paid 200$ for that? ouch, you could have bought a set of headers with a new y pipe for that

[black98V6]

Re: dropping trans and changing clutch

I had been trying to buy a set of headers from a guy on the board for over a month, and yeah ouch is right but at this point I'm scared to try to pull off the manifolds for fear of breaking one of those bolts also.

It's getting to feel more and more normal. I have a 50 mile round trip commute much of which is stop and go so the clutch is getting broken in right. I think the little vibration is going away or I'm getting used to it. I do know I need to add some ATF though, the gears are a bit more clunky than usual.