[oily rag]

Hello.

Having a terrible time, bitten off far more than I can chew and about to concede defeat. The scrap yard could be the cars next home.

Clutch packed up the other day and as I'm skint at the moment it was a choice of have a go myself or scrap the bloody thing. Me and this car do not have the happiest of relationships.

Anyhoo, thought I'd give it a go as work is quiet, it has been bloody fiddly but was kind of going OK until I try to take the right hand drive shaft out. The two bolts that hold the intermediate bearing, the bottom one is easy but how the hell do you undo the top bolt? I can't even see it let alone get a spanner/socket on it.There is the lower air intake pipe and bracket to the turbo that is completely in the way. I've tried to remove the air intake but it has a branch that goes up over the engine so it aint going nowhere.

HELP!

 

[david42]

Hello.

Having a terrible time, bitten off far more than I can chew and about to concede defeat. The scrap yard could be the cars next home.

Clutch packed up the other day and as I'm skint at the moment it was a choice of have a go myself or scrap the bloody thing. Me and this car do not have the happiest of relationships.

Anyhoo, thought I'd give it a go as work is quiet, it has been bloody fiddly but was kind of going OK until I try to take the right hand drive shaft out. The two bolts that hold the intermediate bearing, the bottom one is easy but how the hell do you undo the top bolt? I can't even see it let alone get a spanner/socket on it.There is the lower air intake pipe and bracket to the turbo that is completely in the way. I've tried to remove the air intake but it has a branch that goes up over the engine so it aint going nowhere.

HELP!

I used a1/4 inch drive 11mm deep socket and and a flex joint and loads of extension bars and you can guide it in from further back . But you need to remove the little bracket that hold the plastic pipe under neath with a rachet spanner 13mm then you can get your fingers on the bearing bolts

Sent from my Hudl HT7S3 using Tapatalk

 

[oily rag]

I used a1/4 inch drive 11mm deep socket and and a flex joint and loads of extension bars and you can guide it in from further back . But you need to remove the little bracket that hold the plastic pipe under neath with a rachet spanner 13mm then you can get your fingers on the bearing bolts

Sent from my Hudl HT7S3 using Tapatalk

You sir are a bloody genius. I was at the end of my tether and you gave me the confidence to give it one more try. I managed to get the bracket off with a regular spanner, a ratchet would have been so much easier, and I managed to cobble together a flexi which worked surprisingly well.

The neighbours must think I'm mad as I held the driveshaft above my head and gave a triumphant battle cry.

Mind you, god knows how I'm going to put all this back together again.

Tomorrow I should have the old clutch out so no doubt that will be fun.

Thanks again for your help, I literally couldn't have done it without you.

 

[david42]

You sir are a bloody genius. I was at the end of my tether and you gave me the confidence to give it one more try. I managed to get the bracket off with a regular spanner, a ratchet would have been so much easier, and I managed to cobble together a flexi which worked surprisingly well.

The neighbours must think I'm mad as I held the driveshaft above my head and gave a triumphant battle cry.

Mind you, god knows how I'm going to put all this back together again.

Tomorrow I should have the old clutch out so no doubt that will be fun.

Thanks again for your help, I literally couldn't have done it without you.

check your lower engine mount because if that need doing now is the time with the driveshaft out

 

[madbadandold]

Keep us informed mate.

 

[oily rag]

Thanks for the heads up on the engine mount, I'll take a shufty.

Quick update on progress generally. Firstly if anyone else is considering trying this at home...DON'T. Without proper workshop facilities and a lift it is a bloody nightmare. I was quoted £600 and with hindsight that would have been worth every penny.

I've finally managed to get the transmission off after much tears and tantrums. The thrust bearing was completely disintegrated, looked like something from a plane crash, a few unrecognisable twisted bits of metal. The actual clutch was pretty good funnily enough I almost thought about putting the old one back on until I came to my senses. So I'm ordering a new clutch kit along with new release fork and guide tube which got rather mangled in the incident, the DMF looks OK, I'm probably competely mad but I just cannot face changing the flywheel as well. The car has probably got another 18 months tops in it so I'm prepared to take the risk.

I'm also going to change the driveshaft oil seals, anything else I have forgotten?

Few little pointers I picked up which might help some other poor misguided fool who tries this. The rear engine/transmission mounting link to subframe. It is impossible to remove the studs. I undid the bolts eventually which left it loose enough to drop the transmission and then wiggle the bracket off to clear the sub frame.

There is a nasty little hidden bolt that attaches the transmission. It is on the engine side above the aforementioned bracket behind the gear linkages. I had hours of fun wondering why the transmission wouldn't budge and then had to connect half of it back up again to crawl under the car to find that bolt.

And finally that upper left hand engine/transmission mount. How the hell are you supposed to unscrew the centre stud? It is basically a 16mm with purposefully rounded edges so you cant get anything on it to give it the welly it needs to undo it. You can drop the transmission with it still attached but it is tight.

As you can tell I am not a mechanic, I start off with lots of enthusiasm but my lack of technical ability soon catches me out. I really should have learnt my lesson after the great brake debacle of 2015. I'm OK with old cars, I can cope with my old MG but these new things are a complete mystery to me. They are just too damn complicated.

 

[reliable406]

I lift the whole engine and box out to do clutches on these i know it sounds mad but its so much easier to get at everything once engine is out hanging on the engine lift you dont even need the drivers side shaft out the mount as it can be wiggled out the hub on the way out

I would not even consider trying to do it on the ground you are officially mad

 

[madbadandold]

Well done. Remember, practice makes perfect!!

 

[david42]

The first time I done my clutch with a Jack and axle stands it took a day and half . But now I learnt and I done a gearbox and driveshafts change in 6 hours

Sent from my Hudl HT7S3 using Tapatalk

 

[oily rag]

Well I got there in the end. Putting everything back together wasn't too bad except that bloody intermediate bearing on the right hand drive shaft. It was still nigh on impossible to reach the top bolt. I was wondering do you actually need to remove the right hand drive shaft? I would have thought you could slide the transmission off with the driveshaft still in place which could save a hell of a lot of time and hassle, anyone tried it?

The other snippet of advice I picked up concerns lining up the transmission ready to bolt it back on to the engine. All the advice I read emphasised how important it was to get the transmission lined up perfectly to get it slide into place easily. I spent hours getting it what I thought was dead on but had a lot of trouble getting it to slide into place. In the end I found getting it roughly lined up with plenty of slack to allow it to be man handled into position worked far better. Even working on my own I found it reasonably easy to jiggle it into position and use my foot to push it home from the left hand wheel arch.

 

[madbadandold]

Well done. It gives you great satisfaction to complete something that looked daunting but patience and common sense are the keys to completion.