How to change a clutch

[MadmikeX3]

Hello all i was wondering is it possible for me a 17 guy to do his own clutch. many ppl here are telling me that i shouldent mess with it because there very hard to do and what not. but i have a friend who is willing to help me he said all we need it the tourqe specs and a tourqe wrench and we could do it. Does any one have a step by step guid on this just so i dont screw this up entirily or just a few tips for me. thanks

[xekushnr]

if he didnt say anything about a clutch alignment tool, i wouldnt let him lay a finger on your car. in your position i would probably just pay a shop (or someone reputable) to do it for you. BTW, way to hijack my sig.

[MadmikeX3]

Yea my friend know about the tool i already have a new Stage 1 with all the goodies that come with it. All the shops are asking at leat 200 upfront and i dont have that kind of moneyat this point so yea. Also i tried to ask you one day if i could take your sig and use it and mod it but i never had a reply Sry if you want me to take it off i will.

[mr_wizard]

If you have the right tools I would say you could do it. It won't be easy though by any means. I did my first clutch swap at 17 with my 240sx as well. I for some reason had an EXTREMELY hard time getting the transmission back on. It took me about a week alone to get that thing back on, I came very close to taking it to a shop at that point. I ended up jacking it up under the car so hard it popped into place finally. This is a known issue on 240's... transmission's are just hard to get on. The bell housing is a little too big fir the underbody to allow the input shaft to align correctly so you can slide it into place. It's actually pretty straight forward as long as you have someone that knows what they're doing. Other hard part is reaching the bolts that hold the transmission on the motor, and then putting them back on. Just don't slack on anything and make sure your doing it right and you will be ok. I'll try to give you a rough guide on how to do it, someone correct me if I miss something. You want to label these bolts by the way so you know what goes where when you put it back together. Personally, I like using a permanant marker and zip lock bags.

1. D/C battery and drain the transmission fluid2. Take off center consol by "popping" it off. You should be able to see the shift stick and plastic boot around it.3. Take that plastic boot off by taking out the 4 screws securing the maetal bracket holding that plastic boot down.4. Remove the C clamp holding the shifter into the transmission by squeezing the 2 ends together using something like pliers. (see the FSM for illustration)5. Make sure the shifter is in neutral and pull the shifter out.6. Take off the driveshaft where the 4 bolts secure it to the center carrier bearing. The center carrier bearing has a shaft that is inside the transmission, slide that out after taking off the securing bracket holding the carrier bearing itself on.7. Take off the clutch slave cylinder on the passenger side of the transmission, it's secured with two bolts.8. Support the bottom of the transmission with something, after you take out the next few bolts it's going to want to come down.9. Take out the 4 bolts holding the center bracket that secure the transmission to the under body of the car and the other bracket linking the transmission to the exhaust. Then carefully take off all the sensors off of the transmission.10. Take off the bolts securing the transmission to the motor. You might want to use a very long extension, or several of them connected together, to get to the ones at the top. Those are going to be a pain in the ***. You may want to label which ones go in which holes as well, they are different sizes. 11. Two of those bolts, specifically the ones on the upper passenger side that hold the starter in place, when you take those out, put the starter somewhere out of the way.12. After those bolts are all out, you should be able to slide the transmission backwards and down. There's an input shaft that needs to clear the clutch and clutch cover stuff before it can safely come out. Once that's cleared the transmission is now off and you can see the clutch cover, clutch, and flywheel behind that. Also, behind the flywheel is a rubber seal called the rear main oil seal that rots over time and is a big cause of oil leaks for 240's. There about 20$ at Napa, now would be a good time to replace this because they are a ***** to get to if you need to do it in the future.13. Procede to take off the bolts securing the clutch cover (clutch should fall out after taking this off, or whats left of it), and behind that the 6 bolts holding the flywheel.14. Take the flywheel to be resurfaced. This is required for new clutch's on older flywheels because of wearing. Some mechanic shops do it, ask around you should find a shop that does it. That runs around 30 or so.15. Do the rear main oil seal thing at this point. You may want to drain your oil too, taking that off will cause oil to come out.16. Now, take out the pilot bushing that's seated in where the input shaft ended up. It's a round cylinder piece that's sort of wedged into the motor. You may need to rent a slide hammer from Auto Zone to get this out. WD-40 helps too. You will be replacing this with the new one that's included in your clutch kit.17. After that's removed, simply tap the new pilot bushing into the motor where the old one was using a rubber mallet or small hammer. 18. Replace the throw-out bearing inside the transmission. This is sort of hard to explain without physically showing you, so this you will have to eyeball yourself. Look at the FSM for your car, that will help with illustrated images. You may want to apply some grease to the bearing as well, if it's not already done.19. Put the Flywheel back on using the torque specs said in your cars FSM. You can rent a torque wrench from Auto Zone for free, just like the slide hammer.20. Put the clutch on the flywheel, and put the clutch cover over it to temporarly hold it up. Put the 6? screws in the clutch cover loosely so you can use your alignment tool to align the clutch so the input shaft from the transmission will go all the way through straight. While doing this you may want to tighten the cover enough so the clutch stays put while your aligning it. 21. After you have it aligned perfectly, tighten those 6? bolts up according to torque specs as said on your FSM (Field Service Manual).22. Now just put everything back together in reverse of how you took it all apart. Good luck with getting that shaft to align correctly, the bell housing won't clear the underbody perfectly so might be a bit of a struggle. Don't forget to put new transmission fluid in.
Modified by mr_wizard at 5:17 PM 6/6/2006

[i2ice4m3]

I haven't done a clutch job with the engine in the car, but I have done it out of the car. Here are some tips that may help you:

I would recommend unbolting the 4 bolts near the middle of the driveshaft, the two bolts that hold the driveshaft bracket on, and then slide the driveshaft out.

When you unbolt transmission mount, the thing will rotate down so really make sure you have something supporting the transmission.

Put your car on jackstands as high as safety permits to give yourself plenty of room to maneuver.

There will be a bolt at the very top that you may havee a hard time to get to, so be sure to have extensions and universal joints for tools.

The clutch pressure plate will have 6 bolts holding it in, and the pressure plate will only fit on the flywheel in one position. It may not look like it, but the guide pins for the pressure plate are not equidistant from each other.

The 6 bolts holding the flywheel onto the engine output are hard to break loose. Impact gun would help a lot. If you don't have one, you need to devise a plan to torque those 6 bolts off.

Also, be SURE to torque the flywheel and clutch bolts to the correct specs. You really really don't wanna have to do this twice.

Good luck and i hope you have some muscle

[mr_wizard]

Doh, forgot about the bracket securing the center carrier bearing on. I fixed it on the list.

[ricebike]

240sx.org link to doing clutch job wif pix here! click me!

+ check clutch pedal freeplay after the job

PS: be prepared for extra $ just in case the clutch slave/master cylinders go...which usually does.

[pr240sx]

May add the the list...Disconnect the batterydrain transmission oil BEFORE removing driveshaftWhen removing and re-installing the transmission, it helps to rotate the transmission so the starter hump points down.Also, the CAT converter bracket may be on the way, remove it!!Before dropping the transmission, be sure to remove the slave cylinder and disconnect all sensors, tie them somewhere safe!Remove the speed sensor. some oil will drain thru it. Place it in a safe place

transmission takes 3 quarts of oil. DO NOT use GL-5 type oil as it will eat away your brass syncros.

[corn322]

I found removing the motor mounts and droping the engine as far as it would go helped a lot.

[mr_wizard]

I found removing the motor mounts and droping the engine as far as it would go helped a lot.

If you can get the motor mounts loose. When I did the clutch we tried doing that since we couldn't get the transmission back on. Used a big *** air wrench and still couldn't get them off. I would suggest soaking the bolts and nuts with WD-40 or something better before attempting that, you could easily strip them trying to get em off.

[MadmikeX3]

Thanks guys for all the help but i found a guy who will do the clutch for me for 210 and he will throw in the flywheel resurfacing for free and he will work pay ments with me.

[180fan]

210 is a great price. However, this being your first clutch job, you should give it a shot. Reason...you can then be just like the rest of the 240 owners that have gone through the ordeal and have spent the usual 1 day or more trying to get the transmission up for the first time. Afterwards it's like a 3 hour job tops. Time to bust that clutch-job hymen.

[MadmikeX3]

You make a good point tbut thats why im going to help him while he does it. But also One more question please...What are syptoms of your Master and slave clutch cylinders going out on you cause ive had it twice to where i cant go in to any gears what so ever so i bleed the lines and added new fluid and slammed it in to first and it would stutter and shake then it would be fine after that. Im not sure mayb i need a whole new transmission?

[180fan]

hard to shift or won't go into gear. Mash the pedal and the slave doesn't move (this can also be attributed to air in the system). Mash the pedal and fluid seeps out from the boot on the slave. Usually though, it's cuz people don't bleed their hydraulic system well enough.

[MadmikeX3]

It wont go in to gear if i sit for a bit i have to slam it in to 1st and its so hard i stalled tqwice slamming it but i bleed the system by releasing the screw puming it three times and then hoilding it and tightining it back