clutch R&R

[lurker]

i'm about to replace the clutch on my '93, and there sure are a lot of hoses, belts and wires on the engine. would it be easier to pull the engine, or the transmission?


hey, maybe i should check my haynes manual! doh!

yep, tranny out. ch 7a, 8
ok, got it out, now to get it back in. it's slow going out in that sauna i call a driveway. should have it done this evening.

[lurker]

not done. the pilot bearing is shot, rough and grindy when i turn it. problem is, i cant get it out, and the loaner tools at my store (pilot bearing puller and blind hole puller) are all too big to go into the bearing. i see a suggestion of filling the space behind it with grease and pressing it out either with a grease gun or close-fitting bolt through the center of the bearing. we'll see how this plays out tomorrow

[lurker]

i tried the grease thing, no go.

looking through the fsm, i see there's a special tool, #J-34839, maybe i'll see if i can get it from the local chevy dealer. since i now own 2 metros, this may be a worthwhile investment.

looking on teamswift i see it said that you can pull the flywheel and drive it out from the back. it being the weekend, i think i'll try that next.

i've also been told you can smash (big hammer) the inner race into the hole and then a regular puller will fit in the outer race.

[lurker]

YAY!

i put one of the tranny mounting bolts back in, jammed a prybar against it into the flywheel teeth to keep the flywheel fro turning, took the flywheel off, drove out the bearing with a hammer and socket. whole thing took about 5 minutes, including head-scratching. manuals didnt suggest it, neither did several professional mechanics i asked.

now to get it all back together. new pilot bearing is in the freezer, slowly shrinking.

[lurker]

this durn thing is kicking my butt

i cant get the tranny to go back in all the way. i lined up the clutch disk with the alignment tool, put the pressure plate on, and the transmission wont go all the way on. it hangs up about 1 inch out, as if the nose of the shaft is hanging on the pilot bearing. ive checked the disk alignment repeatedly, and there appears to be nothing outside the bell housing hanging it up, so it's got to be the input shaft, but what?

ive done fords and chevys with no problem, but this one....i had this tranny halfway in three times today, and out twice, and it's getting annoying. this thing will not beat me, durnit. tomorrow is another day.

[lurker]

got it in. seems to be fairly sensitive to the angle at which the input shaft meets the splines of the clutch disk. so now i need to replace a couple of bolts and hook everything back up. someone apparently had the tranny off before me, and swapped one of the metric bolts for a 3/8ths X150. and the driver side outer CV boot is torn. got an axle on order, arrives tomorrow AM. i could replace the boot for a lot less, but the way my luck is running, the axle will go out next week if i don't do the whole thing now. still under $600 in the car.

[lurker]

more stuff. soon as i fix one thing and notice another.

the car had a wandering idle, up, down, up, down, up, ... you get the idea. a quick scan of the question here revealed a couple of possibilities, pcv valve, tps, vacuum leaks, etc. while doing the clutch i noticed a loose vacuum line and connected it up, and now the idle is low and stable.

oops, now the speedometer doesnt work. i suspect i pulled the cable end out of the speedometer while stuffing the drive gear into the tranny. i'll fool with that later, maybe tomorrow.

the left front ball joint is on the edge. it doesn't seem to have any play, but there's also no resistance to movement. i'll try refreshing the grease and see if that will keep it alive until i can get a new control arm. shouldn't be a hard fix, but then with this car i never know.

then there's the gas guage.
when i bought the car, the gas guage read about 3/4 full. cool, i think, sale price includes a tank of gas! as i've driven around town, i notice the gas guage going up couple more of these and i can start selling gasoline! so today on the way home i notice it's getting near full so i put in $10 worth of gas (4 gallons), and the guage drops to below half. :wtf: i suspect it's wired backwards. this car's been one surprise after another.

[lurker]

tonight i bought 3 spark plugs, NGK platinums. i figure the thing is overdue for a tuneup, especially since it's sort of gutless at low rpms compared to my LSI. maybe a characteristic of the XFI, but a tuneup can't hurt: rotor, cap and wireset are next. then, on the drive home, the check engine light comes on. what now?

[lurker]

the code was no surprise, 24, vehicle speed sensor.
ive had the speedo cable off the tranny and back on, but still not right. so i'll mess with that some more. it would be nice to be able to track mileage.

the gas guage is fine . i actually looked at the letters and discovered that full is straight up, empty is to the right. on my '90, it's the other way, needle travels to the left as it approaches empty, so i didn't even look at the letters, just assumed it was going nearer to full as the gas got used

[lurker]

today i ordered a new speedometer cable from advance auto parts for $26.33 including tax, should arrive this afternoon. the old housing is pretty chewed up, and i figure i might as well just replace it. next on the list of priorities is finishing the tuneup, and then the archetypal metro problem, the window regulators. the driver's side will almost roll up, and the passenger side is just completely messed up, wont go up or down, sits there about halfway, canted at an angle. then there's the passenger door, which wont open from the outside. all good things to look into while the door skins are off.

[lurker]

took my instrument panel off this morning and noted that the speedometer cable was disconnected, so i hooked it back up. hopefully this fixes the problem, and i now have a spare brand new cable in storage, should i ever need it. i could return it for a refund, but i'll hang on to it as insurance. today when i go out i'll see if that fixed it., then i can clear the code 24 and move on to the next issue.

[lurker]

speedometer now works fine, check engine light is out and shift light works. i havent really noticed any difference in drivability either way.

tonight a bought a rotor and cap, next week we'll try a wireset, then on to other stuff.

[lurker]

did the rotor, cap and plug wires thing and it's much better. still a little low rpm stutter, but making progress. no exact measurements, but definitely getting somewhere in the 50 mpg area.