If you've been following my chronicles of replacing the clutch for the first time then you'll be glad to see that I've made progress.

I brought down the transmission. fixed the clutch. but i spent 3 hours trying to put the transmission back and i could not do it. it slides in a little bit as if it's center but it will not lock in. does anyone know why?
Thank you.

 

You're probably having trouble mating up the tranny shaft that goes into the pilot bearing in the flywheel. The most likely cause of this is that you did not get the clutch properly centered as you attached it to the flywheel. Did you try using one of those "clutch centering tools?"

 

did you use a clutch alignment tool or did you eyeball the disk in place?

 

centering tool is your BEST FRIEND... Often people use an old broomstick or something, but it just isn't as accurate.

Often times it'll take a little twisting and fenegaling to get in... But to save you from a lot of hard work, I'd unbolt the pressure plate and realign the clutch disc... (Also remember to torque the pressure plate bolts like you'd do a wheel... Star/cross pattern.

 

Damn, three posts agreeing to the same thing all in the time it took me to look up the spelling for the word "fenegaling" (Which doesn't actually exist.)

That tells you something.

 

the tranny and engine are not lined up properly. meaning u dont have the right angle. Im a one man band and I use a rope tied from the tailshaft to a large piece of pipe wedge on the shifter hole. at this point, the bellhousing is sitting on the floor while the tailshaft is almost touching the shifter floor board.

Lift and bench press the tranny thru the bellhousing, wiggle and use my knee to lift the back end IF NEEDED.

Be sure to have the bolts near you.

BTW: spray brake cleaner on the center of the disk to clean up excess paint. aplly a dab of grease, and slide it back/forth on the input shaft. that helps me a lot.

 

Get two long bolts with the same thread as the engine, Cut the head off and cut a slot in them, Thread them into two hole on the engine hang the trans on them, and then work it forward and wiggle to get it ligned up.


But first like everyone else said make sure your line up tool will go in and out easy.

 

Hah! Thats almost exactly what I just did on my s13! (Well, I used an aluminum baseball bat instead of pipe.) Took me forever just to get it lined up right, then yesterday, I got under it again and it slid in on my third try. I think my bowels loosedned, as I had been trying to get the fugger in for over a week.

 

It helps if you let the rear of the engine sag a little before you block it up. What you're going to want to try to do is get a partner. The stronger of you can bench press the tranny up while the other aligns it with the engine. It won't slide all the way on, so thread a couple bolts, then use them to pull it all the way together. It might also help to block up the *** end of the tranny if your buddy starts getting tired.

 

Even with a friend I use a hydraulic jack to lift it into place (the ones with wheels). Once you have the tranny properly balanced and at the right height then it's just a matter of finessing it into place ever so gently...

 

yea, i did the same as felgar.. jack it up till it's about the same height then slowly slide it in..

 

i grease up the tranny alignment pins so they slide in good. i think theres 2 on the motor..... be sure to put a thin coat of grease on the input shaft splines and clutch disc splines.

 

The clutch alignment tool is nice, and all, but I found a much easier way to do that. Even with everything aligned, you're still trying to wiggle a 75-80 pound, unbalanced transmission onto the motor, trying to line up a the splines, and get it into the tiny hole, all while trying to bench-press the whole operation. A well-seasoned mechanic imparted this method to me earlier this year, and it worked like a champ:

Get your long bolts, as was suggested above, and pop the heads off.

Put your tranny on a jack (tranny jack is best, but whatever will work).

Throw a strap around the output end and run that strap up into the car, via the shifter hole. Get a sucker to sit in the car and lift up on the strap, to help with alignment.

Pull the little rubber inspection plug out of the bottom of the bellhousing.

Get a screwdriver and a 14-mil open-ended wrench (or a box wrench with a serious offset)

Get your bolts handy and identify where, on the flywheel, the longer bolts are supposed to go. Mark it with a junkyard pen, whiteout, paint, whatever, on the teeth of the flywheel and on the pressure plate.

Remove the pressure plate and clutch disk from the flywheel. (yes, this really does work)

Install your throwout bearing.

Slide the pressure plate over the input shaft of the tranny and let it hang there.

Install the clutch disk onto the splines of the input shaft. Aligning that is now much easier, as the 80 pound tranny sits still and you can manipulate the 2 pound clutch disk.

Use the jack and your sucker to lift the transmission up so that it is more-or-less lined up.

Bring the transmission forward, lining the input shaft up with the pilot bearing.

When the bellhousing is close enough to the motor, put the headless bolts through the bellhousing and get a few good threads into the block. (I like to use a hacksaw or grinder to put a nice slot into the end of the bolt after I cut off the head. That way I can use a flat-bladed screwdriver to turn the bolt).

Once the bolts are in, and you have a good number of threads into the block, drop the jack out of the way. Tell your sucker to make sure to keep the tail-end supported.

Now you can slide the tranny forward, sliding it on the headless bolts, using your sucker with the strap to angle the tranny so that the input shaft mates up with the pilot bearing.

Bolt the tranny to the motor and put the crossmember/tranny mount back in.

Send your sucker out to get some headlight fluid and elbow grease while you use the starter hole (in the bell housing) to slide the pressure plate and clutch disk forward to the flywheel. There are pins on the flywheeel that go into holes on the pressure plate. Make sure your two "long bolt" marks are lined up, and start the pressure plate onto the pins.

You'll need to use a screwdriver and hammer to gently tap the pressure plate into place. Give it a gentle tap, then 1/8th of a turn, another tap, and so on, until it's seated on the pins.

Starting with the long bolts, thread the bolts on until finger tight. The long bolts are a littel difficult, but they'll go. I found that turning the flywheel so that the bolt hole was centered in the starter hole, putting the bolt in at an angle, then turning the flywheel anti-clockwise to straighten the bolt worked well to force the bolt into the hole without thrashing any threads.

Once all the bolts are finger-tight, use the wrench to apply the appropriate torque in the approriate order.

Complete the re-assembly as normal after this point.

I know that's not the way that the manual gives, however, I spent about 8 hours under the car trying to wiggle the tranny onto the clutch disk. I used the alignment tool, and I even triple-checked the disk to make sure it really was lined up. This method took me about 4 hours, and 2 of those were spent figuring out how to get the longer bolts in without damanging them. After doing this to my -SE, I was up-and-running with no problems. I've put about 500-700 miles on the car since (it's a garage queen!), and while I still have some air that needs to be bled out of the clutch line, there are no other problems.,