HOWTO: Clutch Replacement

[da13ro]

Ok, so me and a mate replaced the clutch on my Sierra (96 Coily) on the weekend, and thought, seen as though we didn’t have any idea going into the job, that I would write a list of steps that WE did, which seemed to have worked in this instance. Please feel free to correct me where I went wrong, and if there is easier ways let me know… Though, it did work. Hope this can help someone in the future save some money…

1) Jack the car up, and put the car onto axle stands. Disconnect battery etc

2) While the car is on the ground, remove the gear stick. There is a plate around the shifter, 4 bolts, under these, pull all that junk up, then there is a circle plate under that, then yank the gearstick up.

3) Jump under and remove the exhaust, first undo the bolts which connect it to the engine, there are 2 sprung bolts. These will most likely be as hard a buggery… We used a socket with two extensions + a meter length of pipe to leverage the bolts out. There will be 4 hangers, just unscrew the exhaust mounts of the rubber hangers.

4) Up just below the gearbox there will be a strut connecting the LHS to the RHS, some tube structure. Undo each of the bolts on either side and remove this.

5) Next under the drive shafts, if you follow the one of the back of the gearbox to where it connects to the transfer case, under the 4 bolts on there. (to hold it so it doesn’t spin, you can jam a screw driver between the other to bolts on the uni joint and under the other with a socket. Once remove the drive shaft will slide of out of the gearbox. There is another drive shaft going forwards to the front diff, undo the drive shaft off the diff, slide it back and tuck it over the trailing arms out of the way.

6) Jump up into the engine bay, (this is where I assume it is different on a coily) there are two wires coming up from the gear box. One has a white clip, and one has a waterproof plug. Disconnect these, speedo and rev cables…let them hang down.

7) Remove the clutch cable of the side of the gearbox, undo the nut at the top, and it will slide with a bit of effort of the spline.

8) Get under the car, and get the hydrolic jack to support the gear box’s weight. At the back of the gearbox there will be a bracked connecting it onto the car, also where a exhust hanger is. Under 4 bolts the hook onto the gear box, and the rear two bolts which bolt onto the car. It will fall down a bit.

9) !removed the starter motor up through the engine bay… and let it hang down…

10) Move up to the car and undo all the bolts around the bell housing, I think there are 6 in total, don’t really remember... Two long ones up at the top

11) Now man handle the gearbox back to the rear of the car, so the spline which goes through the gearbox to the clutch slides out. Be careful how, as it isn’t exactly heavy, just awkward… Slide it back, drop the front of the gearbox down and then forward, releasing the rear from the support.

12) Bolted onto the flywheel is the clutch, undo the bolts around this, and remove the clutch housing, exposeing the flywheel.

13) Remove the flywheel with the 6 bolts in the middle. (Tip, to stop the flywheel from spinning, replace one of the LONG bolts in the top LHS of the vehicle bell housing. Get someone to jam a screwdriver over the bolt, into the giant sprocket on the flywheel.)

14) Go to the gearbox, and at the front of it, where it bolted onto the bell housing, remove the throwout bearing, (it will sorta unclip when twister to the side.

15) Take the clutch, bearing and flywheel down to your clutch shop, get the flywheel machined and a new clutch kit.

16) Ok so its all ready to go back in, first clean up the inside of the gearbox where the clutch sat. All the clutch dust, great up the spline and put the new bearing on. Check it slides smoothly.

17) Jump back under, mount the flywheel, (use some loctite) and your going to put the clutch disc in then the housing onto the fly wheel. If you have an alignment tool it would make it easier, though we sorta guessed it. And clamped up the housing with some loctite. Don’t do it too tight as it will bend the housing and tighten diagonally.

18) This is the tricky part, the gearbox, it’s a bit of a pain, there is a metal gasket thingo which sits BEHIND the flywheel, but inbetween the gearbox and bell. There are some lugs (which will either fall of, be stuck on the gearbox or bell housing, put them onto the bell housing, think there were 2, one either side, then push the metal gasket thing onto these lugs, this will stop it swinging around, and will make it much easier to put the gearbox on.

19) Following this, drag the gearbox back under the car and its probably easiest to man handle it up, rear of it first up onto that brace, then bring the front up….get the jack under there as you will probably need a rest right about now.

20) I know the manuals say to do it in one swift motion, but we both know this isn’t going to happen, so seat the bottom of the box onto the lugs, and then the top, get someone to chuck the long bolts onto the top. Then continue to place and tighten the rest, pretty tight too.

21) Chuck the starter motor back on now, (if you took it off)

22) Rear of the gearbox, 4 bolts + 2 onto the crossmember…

23) Then continue to replace all the other stuff in reverse order…

Adjusting the clutch:
Ok after putting it all on, we pushed the clutch and there was no pressure at all. Turnes out the cable was extremely loose, so you loosen the nut at the end of the cable (on the arm) out to the very end. Then we got vice grips to hold onto the rod that goes though the gearbox onto the throwout bearing (has a spline on the end, attaches to the clutch arm) we twisted the rod to take up the slack, and pushed the arm onto the spline....then took about 2cm back on the adjuster nut, clutch felt perfect... You want atleast 0.5cm play on the pedal before you feel any significant pressure, otherwise you will be wearing away at the bearing and clutch all the time.


More:
• I was told to drain the gearbox oil, but we didn’t, as its only to lesson the weight, was fine. Did get a lil messy at one point…
• Clutch cost $164 and fly wheel cost $32 to get machined. Though was quoted $184 & $50. Brake and Clutch centre, very friendly and helpful, took about 20 min to get the flywheel machined.
• Get a bunch of tins or bucked, and each component (uni, flywheel, starter motor etc) put in a different tin, and chuck a postit note in there too. Makes it real easy to put back together.


Again, sorry if some of this is not how you would do it, but it worked, so its what ill do in the future. Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I was concentrating on the car not pics. You get the idea… Was good fun doing it, and a great learning curve. Took about 8 hours, though could do it in 4 next time with what we learnt.

Cheers,
Brodie J

P.S: All thanks to my mate James who was invaluable on the day.

[Brendan-s]

Nice work mate, we're doing a clutch on a mate's 88 leafy later this week so I'll take pics and maybe you can add them later.

[GRPABT1]

Bible bible bible bible bible bible.....

[lay80n]

Bible bible bible bible bible bible.....

Onto it

Layto....

[da13ro]

Yeah I think photo's would be great. It would be awesome to see others do howto's as well on other things. Like vicelores body lift one will be great in a couple of weeks for me. And doing the clutch myself saved over $800. It took about 20 min to write up, would be cool to see others Might save me some more money

Cheers!