March 28, 2012

  • Doing work, son

    So Sunday i took my car to my friend's apartment and we started working on getting the clutch and flywheel installed. Here's pics of what we would be putting in. This is my new clutch disk and pressure plate.

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    And here's the flywheel we put in. 

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    Everything went smoothly until we had to drop the transmission. Our instructions, which wound up to be really no use at all, didn't tell us that there were 6 bolts connecting the engine and transmission. So we had to find those to drop the transmission, which we eventually did. 

     

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    That, my friends is the inside of my car's transmission. Of course there's nothing in it right now because the old clutch and flywheel are still mounted in the bell housing on the car, but that would soon change. You can see the input shaft for the flywheel and the hole for the front axles, which are actually directly behind the transmission in this picture on the ground. It was really cool! 

    Here's the old clutch and flywheel that we pulled out soon after the transmission came out.

     

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    They were SO fried. When we pulled the bell housing off of the clutch assembly, black soot fell out of it. I talked to a friend of mine who has a Celica and those cars use the same clutch as my car. He said his clutch went on his car (as in completely stopped working, making the car undriveable) at 117,000 miles. My car has roughly 112,000 miles on it now. I probably lucked out by doing this now as opposed to 5,000 miles from now. Seeing all the soot that fell, and all the burn marks and hot spots on the old clutch and flywheel make me feel good about myself. 

    It was such a pain in the ass to get the transmission back up in the car...it took us 5 freaking hours to get the perfect angle to mount it back up. But we did, and this is what it looked like when the transmission and the axles were put back into place.

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    You can see both axles are back in, and the transmission is mounted. NOTHING was completely rusted out, which shocked me for having 112,000 miles on the car. Everything came out smoothly. Look at the front of the transmission, see that wet big brown bolt? That's where you put the transmission fluid in. I went with synthetic fluid just because it's so much better for the transmission (especially now with new parts in there) and it also lasts longer. It was STILL a golden-reddish color when we drained it before we started everything. And it had been 2 years since I last drained the fluid. Usually it'll come out pretty thick but this came out like brand new engine oil. Gold and thin. 

     

    I would post a video of the car starting up on the first try, but it seems I can't submit it to photobucket since it's too long of a video :( lol. I am SO happy to have a like-new transmission again. And I sorta can't wait to break in the clutch and flywheel, so I can gas it and see the real improvement. But yeah, I spent a total of 20 hours doing this. I've got a few battle scars. One on my left pinky finger, one on my left knee from where the transmission fell on it, and one on my right arm. Other than that I am just SORE. I actually had to call into work yesterday because my car wasn't running yet. I can tell the assistant manager was mad...I just hope everyone understands that I couldn't leave the car just sitting there. It was only one day...if I get penalized I accept full responsibility. As long as I keep my job i don't care lol. 

     

    But yeah that's about it! I'm spending today pretty much doing nothing and just recovering from doing all this work, which by the way, I'm never doing again. EVER. Too much stress on the body. At least I didn't have to spend a grand on having it installed by a shop. If I can do something myself, I will. Being a total gearhead has its advantages.

     

    Have a good day everyone :D