Romeo’s Clutch Swap, day by day

About 2 weeks ago, I got a call that he was broke down out in Vancouver, Lisa and I buzzed out checked over his car, sure enough the clutch was toast.   We talked back and fourth, The Dr. was tied up with a clutch job and an exhaust job.  He could have taken it to Mr. Clutch and paid them to install a stock clutch, or saved the install cash and put that towards a "Good" clutch.  So after some wheeling and dealing, we came to a solution.  

        The car was towed here to my place.  "HE" is doing the work, I am simply providing the space to work, the air tools and pointing him in the right direction on what needs to be removed.  Seeing as I have a fair bit of experience doing tranny / clutch swaps in my driveway, I knew what needed to be done and in what order.

                        So we started on the car around 5pm, got hung up on a few things relating to the E-Brake cables not wanting to release, and a few semi stuck bolts.  Surprisingly enough, the 4 upper Y-Pipe to manifold bolts came out without snapping or stripping, even thought the threads were pretty rusted.   Same deal with the lower down pipe to cat converter. 

The real shock came when we started dropping the cradle out.  I noted before we even started that the front of his engine was sitting a bit low, to the point the dogbone was angled down a lot.  

      I suspected his front mount was totally shot.  So we went on about the business.  As I lowered the cradle, I was amazed at what I saw.   The front mount was fine, however there were NO BOLTS AT ALL holding the bracket to the front of the engine, only thing that was keeping the front of the motor from falling out to the ground had been the dogbone and the CV Shafts.  With the dogbone out and suspension dropped, if we we would have un-bolted the trans, the motor would have literally fallen onto the ground.   About that time I said, dat was enough, it was getting dark, and I was going to need extra light to locate and adjust the motor to get the new bolts in.   The bracket is bound up and I HOPE I REALLY HOPE its not too twisted.  As getting those bolts to line up on a good day with a good bracket and clean bolts can be an exercise in patience / futility.

Well here are the few quick pics I snapped today.     Sorry I did not grab any later in the day as it was getting dark quick. 

 

 

 

 

 

     Side note, if anyone wants to come over to see how its done, we are going to get back to work on it, Thursday after 4pm, and then again on Friday.  We are hoping to get it done for Arlington, just going to be one heck of a time crunch. 

It's ironic, because everything was going along so splendidly up until that point.

 

          Actually, as Tristan can agree, I commented several times that the previous mechanic must have had a good head on his shoulders.  Nothing was cross threaded, proper antisieze had been used.  All the nuts and bolts with the exception of 1 were of correct size.  (one of the exhaust bolts had been replaced with a 13mm rather than the correct 10mm and a nut had been spun on the end of it.     When I pulled the drivers lower control arm from the cradle, I was able to just about push the bolts out with my fingers.  I didn't even have to use a breaker bar.  Just a 1/2 drive ratchet and 18mm on the bolt head and 18mm wrench on the nut side.

                 I am guessing that the front bolts got wiggled loose.  OR there was a secondary mechanic that did not do the major jobs on the car.    The rest of the car was too perfect, for those bolts to have been responsible of the main mechanic.        Patric you should come over and check out the build tomorrow.   Just bring ICE and your own face rag, I kept running the garden hose soaking towl a toil and putting it on the shoulders to keep the sun and cool damp on my shoulders. 

 

Well I am off to bed, need some sleep. 

Well anyone that wants to pop over, give me a wring on my cell and leave a voice message.

Well if you want to come out early, I'll be here most of the afternoon, just got a few clients need go out to early in the morning, but later in the afternoon.  around 12pm I should be back here working.

 

Holy CRAP its HOT.

Yesterday in the shade at 2pm it was 37.5C   Its just after 12 now, and its already at 33.8  I guess its just because we are at the top of Johnson Hill we are in a little weather pocket all our own.  Tristen when you come over today, bring lots of fluids. 

 

 

Its 33 here now in the shade.   The top number is the inside temp, thats inside my garage with all the doors open and fans running.  The outside temp is a remote thermostat under a white picnic table next to the house outside. 

 

So has Tristan turned up?

I'll have to stick to my original plan. I'll leave here shortly after 6 PM.

 

I'm just eating my dinner right now, but I saw you were looking for a flywheel. Any chance the flywheel off an '87 duke is of any use? I have one here already resurfaced. I suspect it's a different animal though.

 

OK so here are the pics from today, I thought were was 40 to sort out, we actually took 60 pics.  (Patrick took some with my camera too)  We had a mini party going on, Patrick came over, Nigel came over, then Graeme stopped by as well.  

Well enough chatter here are the pics.

Cradle swung down

 

 

 

Tristan getting at the inspection plate bolts.

See lots of room to swing and get at things.

 

 

Only a few lines were to short and had to removed to allow it to drop

See that shiny spot on that bracket, that is how far up the bracket was and I had to pry it into position.  The bottom hole was all the way up where the top bolt was.  That engine must have bouncing like crazy.

See that golden shiny spot on the CV shaft, its because it had been grinding on the cradle.  Yikes.

 

Is the Alternator fan normally that close to the bolt?

See he is actually doing it.  I am only the spare wheel here.

 

Him posing for a pic for Patrick, man that disk is messed up.

Uhm, dual friction anyone.  Steel on one side and rivets on the other.  there is suppose to be clutch material on both sides.

Disk was completely destroyed, this was the only sign that it might have been a disk at one time.

Side by side, new puck race clutch vs the OEM style Luke Clutch.

 

 

 

New Pressure Plate

Note how massive the springs and rivets are.

This is the level Yellow pressure plate which is a great mix of street and strip use.

 

HMM, na that didn't get hot at all.   Isn't steel suppose to be BLUE all the time.

 

 

I am not even certain that this can be turned down. 

Patrick standing there looking at it with a stunned look on his face.

Inside of trans.  Lots of bits of disk in there.

Romeo himself.

Don't let that calm, cool, and collected image of Tristan above fool anyone. When I got there about 7:30 PM he was furiously playing air guitar while complaining about the walls "melting".