i need some answers for a 1st time clutch replacement

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

Hello all. I have a question for u.
I'm in the process of replacing my clutch by myself.

Are there any steps or specific precautions I should take or things to look out for?
I am changing the master and slave cylinders, clutch, pressure plate, bearing, that copper looking metal thingy (can't remember the name) and the rear main seal.

While reading ip on what I must do, it said I must remove the driveshat. Do I unbolt it at the. Diff and pull it to the rear so that it pops out of the transmission?

[costa_rican13]

idk about clutch replacement havent had to do it yet. but the driveshaft has 4 bolts on the diff, remove those. drop tail part of shaft,undo the carrier bearing bolts, should be 2. then pull the shaft from the trans, done. also might be a good time to replace that transmission seal too if its leaking.

[darens13]

dont forget to take your shifter off, jack up on the crank pulley if you have to, to angle the to angle the transmission down. you also might as well replace the gear oil in the transmission if you havent already. really the toughest part is gonna be sliding the transmission back into place. it can take forever or it can take a few minutes, either way just take your time and having a buddy help is nice. good luck

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

idk about clutch replacement havent had to do it yet. but the driveshaft has 4 bolts on the diff, remove those. drop tail part of shaft,undo the carrier bearing bolts, should be 2. then pull the shaft from the trans, done. also might be a good time to replace that transmission seal too if its leaking.

Thanks for the knowledge and I'll look into that transmission seal. I did not notice any leaking from it but I'll put some liquid gasket on it when I put it back together.

dont forget to take your shifter off, jack up on the crank pulley if you have to, to angle the to angle the transmission down. you also might as well replace the gear oil in the transmission if you havent already. really the toughest part is gonna be sliding the transmission back into place. it can take forever or it can take a few minutes, either way just take your time and having a buddy help is nice. good luck

I've taken the shifter out and was able to get to/loosen all the bolts without having to jack up the crank pulley. I used one of those wiggle adapters, I think they are called a u joint?
editYep, it is.

Transmission gear oil has been drained and new oil standing by.
I also have a neighbor who is a car guy to help when I need him.

Thank you guys for the replies.
Anyone else have anything I might miss?

[JKL1031]

have a clutch alignmet tool ready?

[danshaz82]

these helped me when i did mine last year
http://www.nicoclub.com/archives/240sx- ... -swap.html
rear-main-seal-replacement-t360453.html
transmission-install-tips-t318898.html

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

The first link I knew about but the others are new to me. Thank you for those.

[costa_rican13]

You shouldn't put liquid gasket in the seal. It's just pry the old seal from the shaft hole and put the new one in. Autozone has them for like 10 bucks or something like that. The dealer has the price if not a dollar cheaper. I can't remember.

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

You shouldn't put liquid gasket in the seal. It's just pry the old seal from the shaft hole and put the new one in. Autozone has them for like 10 bucks or something like that. The dealer has the price if not a dollar cheaper. I can't remember.

Do you mean this


If so, why not? What harm can the liquid gasket cause?
Also, do you have a part number for that gasket?

[LoserCard]

You replace that black ring in the center.

[CJH]

Redoing a clutch is pretty straight forward

Take the transmission harness off
Take out the starter
Drain transmission fluid
Unbolt drive shaft from diff and unbolt carrier bearing in center. Slide out drive shaft
Remove shifter
unbolt transmission
slide transmission out
Note: The transmission isnt that hard. I did mine myself. I laid under it and as I pulled it off, I twist it back and forth as I pull. Once it was off, I lowered it onto my chest. Than rolled it gently to the floor.
Unbolt clutch and flywheel.
The brass thingy, aka pilot bushing, is kind of a b****. The auto store up here doesnt have a small enough tool to remove it. I ended up brakeing mine inside and pulling out the pieces. Then I froze the new one. I brought it out and lined it up. Used a socket and tapped it in.
There you go. Everything but the rear main seal is removed. When putting it back together, just do this in reverse. Its easy. But as stated above, reinstalling the transmission can happen in 2 sec, or an hour. Depeneds on your luck. If you need more room, loosen your motor mounts, put a block of wood under your oil pan, and jack the front of your motor a little. this will tilt the motor back, giving you more room. Another thing I do is bring a jack stand under the car with me. I set the back of the transmission on the jack stand so it stays up and helps me line up the transmission.

Dont forget to use a torque wrench to torque down the flywheel and clutch properly. Dont forget to replace your throw out bearing in the transmission.
If you are replacing your master and slave, I recomend that you remove your dampener.

[costa_rican13]

You replace that black ring in the center.

this! and its called rear transmission seal. i dont have a part number. but autozone and the dealer sell them. i got mine from autozone because i work there. but i would say the dealer has probably a better quality seal though.

[Morph]

Few things, probally said before but oh well.

Unbolt your motor mounts to get the angle on the transmission to get it out. ( dont have to complelty remove them just loosen the bolts till you can jack the engine to a good angle)

REMOVE YOUR SHIFTER. Took me a few min to figure WTF was going on.

Slide hammer to remove your pilot bushing takes maybe 5 min and is a peice of cake. ( rented it from auto zone )

Dampener box delete it.

Torque wrench, check everything at least 2x so you ( like me) dont have to repull the effer b/c you cant remember if the flywheel bolts were torqued.

Get your flywheel resurfaced. Some transmission shop did mine for 25 bucks.

[alms24sebring]

Sounds like you know what you are doing, you got it.

You dont put sealant on a seal because it creates a double seal and it will leak

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

OK Thank you for all the replies.

REMOVE YOUR SHIFTER. Took me a few min to figure WTF was going on.

Already done. It's a B&M which I took apart to see if I can isolate the buzzing noise with thick grease. ( I read somewhere that might work)

Take the transmission harness off done
Take out the starter done
Drain transmission fluid done

Remove shifter done
unbolt transmission done
slide transmission out

Unbolt drive shaft from diff

I'm stuck here with a problem
I cant seem to loosen this bolt circled in red. The issue is It's at the top near the bottom of the drive-shaft tunnel and I can't get a good angle on it to apply sufficient torque.




How do I rotate the drive-shaft to get at this bolt?

and unbolt carrier bearing in center.

Is this the carrier bearing in the center?

Slide out drive shaft

Slide it out from here?


Waiting on your replies.

[SilviablhS14]

If you put the transmission in Neutral and the spin the shaft and put it back in gear you will be able to get that bolt loose but I'm not sure how since you have already pulled the shifter.

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

If you put the transmission in Neutral and the spin the shaft and put it back in gear you will be able to get that bolt loose but I'm not sure how since you have already pulled the shifter.

It was in neutral when I took the shifter out but I still can't completely turn it.
Question for you, if I turn that big 27mm bolt at the front of the engine, will that rotate the drive-shaft?

[LoserCard]

Silly... You have to put the car in neutral, raise the rear wheels, AND left off the e-brake...

Oh and BTW, you will be able to turn it by hand. No need to crank it over using the main pulley bolt. Once you turn the driveshaft to where you need to put the e-brake back on to break that last bolt loose.

Oh and another thing, when you go to put the driveshaft back on, if you make sure that the bolt holes on the differential are rotated even (2 left and 2 right), you can put the driveshaft back on without rotating it at all.

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

Silly... You have to put the car in neutral, raise the rear wheels, AND left off the e-brake...

Oh and BTW, you will be able to turn it by hand. No need to crank it over using the main pulley bolt. Once you turn the driveshaft to where you need to put the e-brake back on to break that last bolt loose.

Oh and another thing, when you go to put the driveshaft back on, if you make sure that the bolt holes on the differential are rotated even (2 left and 2 right), you can put the driveshaft back on without rotating it at all.

This right here sounds like a win. Silly Rabbit...lol

But now I have another issue to deal with. My condo association had my car towed last night because it was on jack stands. I'm going to sue the bastards.

[Morph]

Dude that blows, but you might be out of luck depending on what you signed when you moved in. My old landlord had me sign a paper stating no cars would be worked on in the parking lot. If you didnt sign anything like that then go talk to them and politely ask them to pay the towing charge.

[CJH]

Yes, as stated above, leave the car out of gear and leave your ebrake off. I was under the car and could turn the drive shaft with my hands. Another yes, that is the carrier bearing in the middle. Take the two bolts out and you are good to go. Once the shaft is disconected from the diff and the bearing is unbolted, you can just slide it right out of the transmission.

Take a min. to think about how a transmission and motor work. You asked if you can turn the bolt on the crank shaft to spin your drive shaft. Well, if your car is in gear, of course you can. If your car isnt in gear, than no.

Totally sucks that your car got towed. I had issues with my old apartment telling me they would tow my car. I went into the office and made a big stink every week. They put a tow sticker on my car every week, I bitched in the office every week. Two years and a lot of wasted stickers later, my car never got towed. But I got annoyed and I moved. I rent a town house now and I have a garage, with electricity! Love it!

[OM3GA]

I cringe when people place jacks under the crank pulley. My clutch has been done twice with solid engine mounts and no jack under the crank pulley, you just need to undo all of the transmission bolts and start pulling it back and rotate it. Make sure you remove all of the wiring connected to the transmission and the starter.

Good luck!

[dgms240]

Good luck with the towing ordeal. As far as the car goes, like someone else mentioned you should remove your clutch damper box while your at it. Just unbolt the hardlines from the master and the slave, with box attached, and replace with braided stainless line. It will make a noticable difference in the feel of the clutch and it makes it 10 times easier to bleed the system. You can get the stainless line for around $40 from Enjuku Racing.
http://www.enjukuracing.com/agency-powe ... -7975.html
You might want to replace the factory clutch fork pivot ball with the NISMO one while your at it. They have a tendency to break. Enjuku has them for like $55
http://enjukuracing.com/nismo-clutch-fo ... -6494.html

[samxini]

I found that getting the transmission back in is to make sure the starter "hump" on the bellhousing is pointing straight down. Then get the transmission in as far as you can and rotate it to the correct posostion. Mine still wasn't in all the way so me and a buddy put bolts on either side of the transmission and tightened them at the same time until it slid in all the way.

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

Thanks for the support guys. Here's what's going on now.

Take a min. to think about how a transmission and motor work. You asked if you can turn the bolt on the crank shaft to spin your drive shaft. Well, if your car is in gear, of course you can. If your car isnt in gear, than no.

This makes sense. I posted my question when I was bone tired and couldn't think anymore which is why I get the silly rabbit award.

Dude that blows, but you might be out of luck depending on what you signed when you moved in. My old landlord had me sign a paper stating no cars would be worked on in the parking lot. If you didnt sign anything like that then go talk to them and politely ask them to pay the towing charge.

$250 later I have the car back. (there goes the money for the damper delete hose and pivot fork.) Apparently the rules of the condo association state that none working cars cannot be parked on the property. They had seen the car on the jack stands the night before so they called the towing company. The rules also state that only minor repairs can be done and no oil changes. To me this is a bunch of minor repairs so it qualifies .
Got off work early so I'll be going out now to tackle it. Just won't leave it up on jack stands anymore.

[Morph]

FYI, to delete the box you dont have to get the SS line. What I did is when to the local junk yard and got another hardline, bent it to shape and hooked that up in place. Think it cost $5 bucks and maybe an hr.

[CJH]

FYI, to delete the box you dont have to get the SS line. What I did is when to the local junk yard and got another hardline, bent it to shape and hooked that up in place. Think it cost $5 bucks and maybe an hr.

You can go to an auto store and get a new hard line for $5.

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

Thank you all for your help with this job. Everything went well and I got all the things done that I wanted to. The clutch line screw at the master cylinder gave me hell so I ordered a 52" ss cluth line to replace it.....then after the order was placed, my friend got the damn rusted screw out. go figure.
I did delete the damper box by bending the clutch line to the rubber slave cylinder like so..



I took this image from Zeroyon.

There was one mishap where I broke a bolt. It's one of the 4 17mm bolts that hold up the transmission crossmember. I'll have to replace that next.

I've never had a new clutch on this car as I got the car with I think 80K miles. It's nice feeling but I know I'll get used to it after a while.

BTW, anyone know where I can get some dynamat at a good price to line the trunk? I want to quiet the exhaust sound a bit.

[Morph]

Job well done, - the broken bolt but ish happens lol.

[MAXIMUS Nismo]

Someone on here has a signature that bolstered my resolve to do it myself even when all the ish with the towing and other crap was going on.

It says something about there's no feeling like saying I did this myself. And that is true.
Hmmm, what's next?