Page 1 of 1

Flywheel/Clutch Install

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:03 am
by jasonMX5
First time writing an installation so bear with me.

Skill level: Moderate

Time: 4-6 hours

Tools: Complete mechanic tool set. Tranny jack. four jackstands/jack.

Not a step just a recommendation. Drain oil from transmission after te shifter removal. Also suck out the oil in the shifter linkage area.

Step one: Center console removal/ shifter removal.

The console has a plastic cover at the dash board, in the cup holder, and at the gas opener compartment. They all pop off with a flat head screwdriver.
Remove the shifter nob and pull e brake to max. Remove the screws then take the console out. You have to slide the ebrake boot over the lever. Once you can see the wiring clips detach them and remove the console from the car
Take rubber boots off. You may have to use a little lube on the o ring around the shifter itself.
Remove 3 bolts on the attachment shifter plate then tug until the shifter slides out.

Step two: Jacking the car up.

I placed jackstands at all four lift points as specified in the owners manual. Front ones are just behind the front wheels, rear points are just in front of the rear wheels.

Step three: Brace removal

Remove the two frame braces that are on the bottom of the car. Both have four bolts on them be carefull they don't fall on you.

Step four: Midpipe removal

There is a hanger attached to the torque arm leave it in place for now. Detach the muffler and let it hang or support it. Move to the header and unbolt the studs should hang off of the one stud still in place while you move to the torque arm hanger. Unbolt the center hanger make sure to support the entire midpipe so it does not fall on top of yourself. Remove midpipe from the car.

Step five: Torque arm/drive shaft.

Place the transmission jack under the tranny and set it up flush against the tranny.

Torque arm. It has four bolts two at the rear of the tranny, two at the differential. Start with the transmission bolts first. Get a box or something to support the torque arm after you detach it. Make sure to brace the arm while you are removing it. It will fall hard if you don't and potential injury is high. Now get another box for the rear part of the arm. Again while you are unbolting the rear end make sure to brace the differential and the arm while you are are removing the arm. After you get the arm down resting on the boxes I let the differential rest against the X member. Remove torque arm. Again don't forget to brace.

Step six: Wire harness.

Near the shifter attachment section on the transmission there are four clips. Color code them before removal. You can let the transmission jack slightly down to angle the tranny down for easier access. It is a tight squeeze I used the shifter port hole to examine color code them. Then went down and reached around both sides and unclipped them. Then remove the harness there are 4 clips on the top of the transmission so undo them then zip tie the harness out of the way.

Step seven: Slave cylinder/tranny unbolt.

Unbolt the slave cylinder from the tranny then slide it out of the tranny fork. You can zip tie it out of the way but be carefull not to bend any pipe.

Transmission unbolt. Start with the bottom bolts. You may need a breaker bar but they are not really hard to take out. There are two bolts on the engine side. I used a ratcheting wrench to take them out broke them free with my leg. Then take out the bolts on the drivetrain side. There are two up on the very top I just put the rathcet right up on the top of the tranny put it on and used my body weight to break them both loose.

Step eight: Trans removal.

Wrap the chain around the tranny and secure it. Now slide the transmission away from the engine. Once the input shaft is free and clear lower transmission. You can either pull it all the way out or just slide it back to the differential.

Step ten: Clutch/Flywheel removal/install

Loosen all of the pressure plate bolts don't remove any until they are all loose. once it has no remaining pressure remove all the bolts except the very top one. Brace the pressure plate up against the flywheel and remove the remaining bolt. Pull the pressure plate off of the dowles and make sure to catch the clutch puck before it falls on your face.

Flywheel. You will have to brace the flywheel...I jammed a piece of wood against the starter gear. Un bolt the flywheel from the crank. It will not fall off but before you remove the top bolt hold it in place just in case. Slide it off of the crank and put that heavy thing somewhere in your shop.

(I did not put in a new pilot bearing it only had 2.5k miles on it at the time)
Flywheel installation. You can heat the flywheel to help the fit..Not to much heat it will distort things. Place the flywheel up against the hub. Note it will not slide on easy due to the aluminum heating differently it has to be a different size I.E tighter fit. Put all the bolts in and tighten them until flush with flywheel. I put some heat on the hub of the flywheel to help it fit a little easier. Now tighten in a star pattern until the flywheel is flush up against the backing. Remove the bolts and put on the locktite. Put all bolts in and hand tighten. Get out your torque wrench and tighten to 75 foot lbs. Make sure to use the right pattern in tightening.

Clutch assembely. Clean the surfaces of the flywheel and pressure plate with some brake cleaner. Place puck on flywheel and use alignment tool to help hold in in place. Put pressure plate onto the dowles and then put top bolt on to hold it in place. Put on the locktite then put the remaining bolts in. Put locktite on the top bolt after. Hand tighten in the correct pattern. Get out the torque wrench. I put 28 foot lbs on these. They are rated for 30lbs but only require 25 lbs so I did not bother with 30. Okay now the hard part is over.

Before you put anything back together make sure you put locktite on the whole assembely. You don't want it flying off and blowing up on the road below you or something. It can happen :)

Step eleven: Throwout bearing.

Pull the fork forward and slide the old bearing off. Put new bearing on and push fork back into position.

RE assembely:

Okay it is easy. Put everything back together in reverse the way you took it off. Except the clutch/flywheel of course....

Trick to get tranny input shaft to line up, put the drive shaft in and rotate it with your foot. Make sure tranny is in gear of course. Don't forget to put oil in the transmission if you took it out like I did. The bolts on the transmission tighten until they don't move anymore....Don't over tighten them or they will shear off... You can put a little bit of locktite on all the remaining bolts. Especially the driveshaft bolts and the torque arm bolts.

If you have any addons feel free to add to my little guide. It is just a guide to get you some basic knowledge of what is going on. Don't attempt this if you don't understand this guide...That means you will have trouble most likely. Don't forget to put .1 .2 quarts of oil back into the shifter linkage area. Look in your owners manual for the correct oil based on the transmission you have. I used synthetic oil.

Hope this helps you out guys.

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:49 am
by Brian
Great contribution Jason....others will certainly appreciate this. Thanks,

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 6:47 am
by tomkk
Resurrecting an old thread. The process will be similar but any idea whether this was an NA, NB or NC Jason was working on?

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:53 am
by George
NC. Those are the instructions I printed out two years ago! Done the job a couple times since then.

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 2:09 pm
by tomkk
Thanks, George, I was just going to post the same. Just finished my 08 today. He did a great job with the instructions - not sure I would have seen those wire connectors on top of the transmission ...

Re: Flywheel/Clutch Install

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 6:43 pm
by JeffR063
July 2016 update on a 2015 GT:

Partway through this process and there are a couple of details that I'd like to add:

Freeing up the wiring harness on the tranny is interesting. I lowered the jack to access the connectors on the top through the shifter hole. Kinda tricky, but I have large hands, making it a challenge. Then I freed up the wiring clips that run along the tranny. For the rear-most 3 clips I used a small flat screwdriver to release the barbs from below the hole they are clipped through. The front one is blocked by a flange and I couldn't free it. I used an Exacto knife with a saw blade to carefully cut through the bottom of the clip to free it. It was nerve-wracking as I was worried about nicking the wires. It worked and I'll use a zip-tie to secure on the reinstall.

Not only are there bolts that must be removed from the back side of the clutch housing, there are two more on the bottom that bolt through from the front. Not hard to remove, unless you don't know they're there.

I'd say draining the tranny oil is not optional. I didn't at first, but when I tilted the tranny to slide it out, I found out that there is no seal on the tailpiece. I became aware of this as I was trying to identify the strange wet sensation on my right side as I pulled the tranny out. Interestingly, tranny oil feels a lot like water when in soaks your clothes. Unfortunately, it doesn't clean up as easily. Yuck.

Next step is installing the flywheel and pressure plate. If anymore issues arise I'll update again.

Jeff

Re: Flywheel/Clutch Install

Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 9:45 pm
by JeffR063
Finished.

Recommendation: do not attempt this without a tranny jack that has left/right and fore/back tilt controls. I attempted it with a floor jack and what would have taken probably an hour at most, took a full day, several times with the tranny falling off the jack necessitating bench-pressing the blasted thing over my head. I also mangled the aluminum insulation blanket shielding the tunnel. I was able to repair the damage with aluminum duct tape. I feel lucky that I got it in.

BTW, the balance point of the tranny is just in front of the tail piece. I thought it was further forward, which also added to the festivities.

Once the tranny is in place, it's pretty much down hill. I didn't experience any troubles outside of the original install instructions.

Final conclusion: this is how the car should have come from the factory!