Clutch time! Other goodies. Now with pics!

[Fairtax4me]

So today the transmission came out of my Legacy. Only took about 3 hours despite having to fight it with a hammer and wedge for a half hour to get the bell housing separated. (damn alignment pins)

 

Started out by driving the car to a friend of mines garage. He has a big jack, which helps when you're doing this kinda thing. But it doesn't do any good if it blows a seal, so the first thing we did was drive off to the parts store to spend $100 on a new jack. Get back and there's another problem, only 2 jack stands. But there are wheel ramps. So I put the rear wheels on the ramps, jack under the front cross member and lifted as high as it would go. 2 big jack stands on the lift points, and I get ~ 20" of clearance under the car.

 

Drop (literally drop) the exhaust system first, which turned out to be heavier than I thought it would be. It pinned me. Next time I'll know better than to undo all of the rubber hangers first. Leave the ones on the muffler in place, then you can crawl out from under the car without it dropping on you.

 

After that everything went pretty well. Disconnecting and unplugging, but it pissed me off that I couldn't pop the axles off the differential stubs. Pins came out easy, they slide easy, but you just can't get that extra 1/4" of room that you need to take them off completely until you get the bell housing separated and slide the transmission back.

 

So I get the thing out, figure out that my transmission mount is pretty well shot, the input seal that I thought was leaking... dry. It's leaking between the halves of the case.

 

Pull the PP and disc off, Flywheel and PP glazed. But only about half of the clutch disc was actually making full contact. There is a ring of rust about 1/2" wide all the way around both PP and flywheel where the clutch disc was supposed to be making contact.

 

Now I get to pull the flywheel off, what else do I find? Plastic oil separator. Leaking. Add another item to the list.

 

Gonna drop the flywheel off in the morning to have it cut. And call Subaru to see if they just so happen (though I doubt it) to have a metal oil separator in stock.

 

To be continued... and I'll try to get some pics along the way.

Edited January 17, 2010 by Fairtax4me
title change

[lostinthe202]

Weird on that rust ring. Is that the original clutch?

 

I know what you mean on the exhaust. When I pulled mine off the outback the last time it broke in two at the joint behind the trans, still running one of those stainless braided stop-gap deals. Changes the voice of the car a bit, kinda like a squirrel with it's cheeks full of nuts:grin:

 

On the axles, I pulled the top camber bolt out of the knuckle (after marking location, though I didn't really need to because of the rust pattern:rolleyes:) and loosened the lower one and the knuckle (and axle) just pivot right out of the way. Just another one of those tricks picked up from the good ol' USMB.

 

You still gonna open the trans up?

[Fairtax4me]

I hadn't though about the knuckle to strut bolts. I didn't even bother to take the wheels off the car. I though about trying to undo the lower ball joint from the knuckle but I decided against it when I tried to turn the bolts and they wouldn't budge with a breaker bar. At least not from where I was.

 

I still have to crack the case to reseal it. I was going through about half a quart of gear oil every 500 miles. And I want to check on the condition of that main roller bearing. I'm still suspicious of it from reading descriptions of the symptoms associated with it going bad.

[Fairtax4me]

They sure made this thing a pain in the rump roast to take apart. Actually it's relatively simple, but actually getting the parts of the case separated is the hard part. I started by tapping around with a rubber mallot to try and crack the transfer housing loose, no dice. Graduated to pounding it with a mini sledge and it still wouldn't budge. Ended up having to pry it apart by hammering a small screwdriver between the sections of the case. Not my favorite way, but it did finally get the job done. After tapping around for 2 hours I finally got the case apart.

 

The areas of interest: main roller bearing, main needle bearing, and input seal. Input seal was fine but I replaced it anyway. Main roller bearing is in perfect shape. No play, no twist, no grinding or crunchy feeling when I spun it by hand no matter how I tried to make it. So I decided to avoid that can of worms for the time being. If it is bad, it'll rear its ugly head by the time this thing needs a clutch again. I'll save the new main roller bearing for some other occasion.

 

The main needle bearing had some play. Not much, but it was there. And when I spun it with my finger I could feel and hear it crunching, even though it still spun freely. Sounded kinda like it had dust in it. Not terrible, but it probably wouldn't be long before it failed completely. I put the new one on along with the seal.

 

I got some pics of the organized mess I made but I'm way too tired to post them now.

[lostinthe202]

Nice, sounds like the damage wasn't too extensive. Yeah those alignment pins on the rear section can be stuck good eh? I soaked mine a bunch I think, I but I got lucky and didn't have much of a problem getting the tail section off.

 

Will-

[Fairtax4me]

Well, I got everything cleaned up last night. Wanted to start putting it back together but I didn't have the torque specs with me.

I did find another bad bearing in the extension housing. This one doesn't require removal of the entire transmission to change, so I'll save it for an after work project sometime in the next few weeks. (on a lift, warm, mmmmm it'll be like heaven )

[Fairtax4me]

Car's back together. Everything went back in without a hitch, except 2 washers, a ground wire I found that I had broken during removal of the trans, and one of those bendy wire holders that I couldn't figure out where it went.

 

I read a ton of stories about having trouble getting the trans mated back up after a clutch job. I had no such trouble. It slid in like a hot knife in butter. So far no leaks. Time for bed though.

[Fairtax4me]

Seems like all is well. Clutch feels strong. The pedal feel is weaker than it was before but that could be because of the lack of grease on the old release lever. It does make a kinda squeaky noise when the clutch engages that I'm not sure about. As long as it doesn't get worse I don't care. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the way the flywheel was machined and will go away once it has broken in.

 

I did get a shiny new metal separator plate from Subaru and got that put in. Whatever sealer was used on the old one was hard as a rock. But it came off easy enough. Cleaned it and threw some anaerobic sealer on the new plate. Installed with some blue thread lock on the screws because two of the old screws were literally loose enough to unscrew with my fingers, and the rest were barely tight.

 

I usually change the rear main seal on an engine when I do a clutch, even if it's not leaking. This one was so clean, I didn't even dare get cleaner on it. I have never seen a rear seal that looked this good.

[Fairtax4me]

Pics!

 

Kinda tight work space. The shop is big but having two parts cars in there plus about a ton of wood that will eventually be constructed into a small room and a storage platform about 9 feet above the floor.

 

Buncha bolts. Always helps when you have several different sizes and lengths of bolts on a component to arrange them so you know where they go.

 

Hmmmm.... seems like somethings missing here

 

Here's the old pressure plate. See that rust ring I was talking about? Not real sure what was going on there. But the glaze pattern is beautiful!

 

Nice shiny flywheel.

 

Leaky separator plate. That black line under the rear seal is RTV.

 

 

The next project. Gonna throw a 3/4 ton rear end, granny 4 speed, and np205 in the soob! (wouldn't that be fun?!)

 

That's really about all I got. The few others that I took didn't turn out well. Just not enough light in there.

[lostinthe202]

Yeah, my clutch felt to "light" as well, don't worry it returns to normal pretty quickly:rolleyes: I feel like all the grease I put in there is already gone. Next one I do, I'm going to make a pivot post out of oilite and see how that does.

 

How's the trans shifting?

[Fairtax4me]

Shifts great. Not sure if its the new fluid or if it's because I cleaned the selector shaft when I had it out replacing the seal, but it feels good. It moves nice and easy in the morning when it's cold. Going into second gear for the first two or three times in the morning usually would get a quick crunch out of it. It's still a little stiff, but no more crunch.

 

I may end up putting a spring on the release lever to help with the feel. There's 2 inches or so of travel in the pedal between fully engaged and fully disengaged. In that area the pedal feel is fine, but beyond that going further towards the floor that last 2 inches or so of travel it's like the cable isn't even connected. Feels like there's nothing. It's hard for me to compensate for the change in resistance when I'm bringing the pedal back up. Once it hits that spot where that springiness of the pedal changes it kinda gets flung back.

[lostinthe202]

I wouldn't bother with the spring. It really won't long before it returns to what it felt like before.

[Fairtax4me]

Bolt fell out of the shift linkage today. Got stuck in 4th gear in lunch hour traffic on one of the busiest roads in town. Thankfully the guys at the Subaru dealership (where I was going) just so happened to have a spare bolt for the shift linkage laying around and were willing to give it away. The lesson learned? Make damn sure ALL of the bolts are tight when you reinstall a transmission.