Finally working on my car again, stupid heat!!

Well, I finally got a wild hair up my ass and pulled the trans on my 240 last Saturday. It went smoothly except the part where I used a giant drip pan with a oil catch tray to catch the trans fluid and my dumbass still got it on the floor. My garage smells like shit now. As I had suspected the old clutch was damn near down to the rivets. The lightened flywheel was fucked up pretty bad. Not just grooved but missing material as if the clutch has been eating away at it. I took a look and thought it looked okay to machine, but then looked at the back and that sucker was almost solid blue.

I shitcanned the flywheel and the old clutch. Thankfully I have intended on putting an OEM flywheel back in just to make it easier to drive on the street. Everything is new. I bought an unused RPS max sprung 6 puck from someone last feb and got the flywheel work done. I am also upgrading my clutch fork to a cast iron unit from a G35 (I don't remember the details, bought it in a kit form) which should make it easier to drive. Rumor has it the RPS PP is not as difficult to push as the heavy duty ACT was. It's going to have to cool way off for me to venture back out there again though so things are on hold.

My chassis is still relatively rust free which shocked the shit out of me. I figured I would find at least one rust hole by now since the car has seen salt for the last 6 years up here. I think I know why it's not rusty. I knew I had a power steering leak but had no idea how bad it was. There is PS fluid on everything under there. What a damn mess. My rack is leaking and god knows when I will get around to replacing that. Another 250 I just don't want to spend.

I am going to do a few other things whilst I have it up in the air on all four jackstands. Nothing too big but its convenient to get a few things sorted and get my shifter hole welded up in the trans tunnel instead of using a bolted in plate. It is also clear I will be due for a rear end anytime now. I have a TON of gear lash. It's been noisy ever since I put it in.

do you have AC in your garage? SUCKS if you don't its sooo disgusting outside....

Grats on getting the motivation to work on it again.

Actually your boost controller got me motivated to figure out what the deal was, then I saw the clutch sitting there looking sad and here we are!

No A/C in my garage. It's heated and I am trying to talk myself out of installing air conditioning. At least we don't have very much of this heat. The temp out there is actually not bad right now but that freakin' humidity is brutal. Most of my garage is below ground level so it doesn't get retarded hot in there.

I think I am going to drag the dehumidifier out there right now!

Evan

Awesome that you're working on it

I was under the hood of the Camaro on Sunday afternoon... that was enough for me. This humidity is ridiculous!


Glad to hear that you are getting shit done, its been way too long since Ive seen that car!

Very cool car for sure hope to see it on the road this year.

congrats on getting some work done can't wait to see it

Thanks guys, wonder what's gonna take a shit on this thing next! lol

Old enough to not be a classic but still fall apart like an unrestored one.

Fuck the heat, it was 80 in my garage and not too bad. I got the clutch installed. Pilot bearing was trashed, which was fun to chisel out.

Evan

Way to go that heat has to be stifling!!!! Best of luck with it. It would be nice to see it on the road soon.

Mike

Evan on a side note a cool way to get the pilot bearing out is pack the end of the crank and the pilot bearing hole with greas and use the alignment tool or punch of the same size stick it in the hole and hit is the grease cause pressure on the back side of the bearing/bushing and pops it out. this works really good if you have a grease gun that fits i nthe hole where you can get it nice and full and have a punch or alignemnt tool that fits tight and is metal.

Thanks for the suggestion Steve. I have a slide hammer bearing puller and I also tried the grease trick. The pilot bearing was so worn that I didn't have anything that was the right size to keep the grease from squirting back out the edges. That was a pleasant treat! I would say about half the bearing thickness was gone. I wonder what that did to my input shaft bearing.

The grease trick has never worked for me! I have tried several times.

Not a whole lot to look at but progress.

Nice job!

I know the clamp is overkill, not sure why I used it. Just put it on lightly in hopes that the line would never blow off! Aeroquip fittings with summit brand pushlok hose.

240sxguy wrote:

Fuck the heat, it was 80 in my garage and not too bad. I got the clutch installed. Pilot bearing was trashed, which was fun to chisel out.

Too late now, but one method I've used in the past to get the pilot bearing out is to put a tack weld on the pilot bearing itself. It shrinks it just enough to fall right out.

That's how I got the races out of the steering neck of my bmw motorcycle for the bearings. My "bearing" is of the oillite type so I think my mig would have just burnt a hole in it.

It worked great on the bearing races though, the bottom one literally fell out after I got it good & hot.

God damn it's slow in this section! Seriously nobody doing shit to their cars or what?

Fuel system is finished. Just need to wire up a pair of relays and that's done. Pressure tested fine without leaks. Found a leak at my return line which is new! That's not professional, and I haven't touched it during this project. I need to fix that now.

Shifter hole is fixed. I welded new 22ga steel in there and that's done. I need to spray some undercoat up there from outside the car so I don't end up with rust.

Hopefully going to pick up an aftermarket short shifter tomorrow night and I can reinstall the trans. That bitch is heavy and I am not looking forward to it. Not a lot of leverage with the car that close to the floor. Some fancy footwork with a jack does the trick though.

Keep up the good work.


As far as this section a guess i could post pics of Andy doing my trans twice.................

^ Ugh that blows dude.

Spent 4-5 hours trying to get my trans mated up to the engine. What a fucking nightmare. I am 99% sure I am going to have to pull the motor. There just isn't enough room under there between lying on the floor and everything fitting so tight. I fucked myself a bit when I built my last set of mounts which raised up the engine. The goal was to protect the pan from the road, not hopelessly block the installation of a trans. I removed the mount from the passenger side and used my cherry picker to lower it down and it still won't go. I pulled the trans again and checked the lineup of the clutch disc and everything seems ok. I just can't get the damn pilot bearing to engage.

Fuck you car.

There is no way this car is going to see the road before next year if I have to pull the motor. I just don't have time to deal with this right now.

stupid question did you check to make sure the pilot bearing fit over the end of the input shaft before you installed it in the crank? If it came out is should go in.....

Steve, I didn't..

However, I did use a caliper to measure the end of the trans and my alignment tool and they were very very close. Within margin of error for laying on the floor under a car. This is not to say it does actually fit though.

I don't know if the pilot bearing is out of alignment from the disc by just a hair or what. I figure if it slides through the pressure plate it should engage the pilot bearing. At this point I am afraid I am going to bend the pressure plate. Doubtful but that would be my luck.

240sxguy wrote:

Steve, I didn't..

However, I did use a caliper to measure the end of the trans and my alignment tool and they were very very close. Within margin of error for laying on the floor under a car. This is not to say it does actually fit though.

I don't know if the pilot bearing is out of alignment from the disc by just a hair or what. I figure if it slides through the pressure plate it should engage the pilot bearing. At this point I am afraid I am going to bend the pressure plate. Doubtful but that would be my luck.

I don't think your going to bed the pressure plate.... i think your thinking the clutch disc not the pressure plate... the input shaft doesn't even touch the pressure plate.... If you can get it in the disc and you measured the it usually it take a little wiggling and it goes.... can you take both mounts loose and lower the motor a bit with out pulling it? the problem with having it real loose in there is it makes it hard to move one just a bit and push to make it go. talk nice to it buy it a few drinks slip it a roofy and you will be able to slide it right in.