easy clutch for the ultimate service manual

[WRX1AB]

I have no ramps, not jack, no air tools, no clutch alignment tool, and had a burned out clutch. 5 hours? here is how.

 

 

0 get car in air. I backed onto a curb (step) and went back a foot. then I launched the car at two spare wheels laying flat on the ground in front of the front wheels, (had to take a run up coz the clutch was wasted). wheels are good becuase the tires stope them from slipping. my valient can shove my ramps into teh back wall of my garage, but thats another story. Now all four wheels are in the air (but safelt on something!) we can take it all appart. watch closely!

 

1 take off y pipe

2 take off started (discon batery first)

3 unbolt pressure plate through starter hole

4 take off shifter linkage

6 drop carrier bearing or whole rear rear u joint if you have an unitereupted drive shaft

7 take off dog bone from fire wall to tranny.

8 drop some but not all of the tranny mount. if you have somthing to prop the tranny up, use it. THis will depend entirely on your model. the legacy has a good front brace that should be lft on. I thing the ea 81 has just one, but you can get away with just removing the rubber isolators.

9 unbolt bell housing and slide gearbox back. if you have some extra long bolts, you can put them in the top holes to help put it all back later, but I didnt have any. You should be able to get about 5-6 inches of gap depending on model. legacy has more.

10 slide out clutch disk, toss it, put new one on end of tranny input shaft. if needed, do pressure plate and bearings too. I am not keeping the legacy too much longer and I am broke, so it was just the driven disk.

11 slide on tranny close, leave about 3 inches

12 put pressure plate bolts on finger tight. dont drop them!

13 bolt tranny all the way on, leave the starter off

14 through the starter hole tighten all 6 pressure plate bolts. you will need a deep 12 mm socket on 3/8 drive. I used a wrench and a 1/2 drive, but I got it tight. it helps to ahve a breaker on the crank bolt.

16 -25 put it all back together (you don't need me to go through all that do you? we are over the hump now!!!)

 

OK the trick is the pressure plate gets tightened last so there are no alighnment issues. you do not have to take off the front drive shafts, there is enough play in the DOJ and the cv joint. no need to take off the clutch cable. I learned this trick from doing my valient which has entirely hte wrong flywheel and cluth and gearbox for a '63, and it all has to be assembled after it is in place. luckily there is a huge inspection hole under the valiant. The sube has the starter hole.

 

I did this on my ea81 wagon 5 years ago and managed to get off hte disk, plate, all the bearings, and the fly wheel so I could do a rear main seal. I just did it on my 92 legacy so this is aplicable on 79 through on up to I imagine 2000 plus. this time I only did the disk beucase I could only afford the disk.

 

it took me 3 hours with air tools jacks and ramps to do the ea 81 four years ago, and 5 hours this week. it would ahve been faster this week but my tool box sucks and I dropped a 12 mm into the bell houseing. I recon a fast pair of guys could do it in 1 hour with air tools.

 

Anyway, I have done it now, and its all good. I am sure if I had wanted to I could have done the standard operating proceedure clutch job (bearings, seals, disk, pressure plate, machining etc.) because there is more room in the legacy than in the ea81.

 

A shop quoted me $500 for a clutch on the legacy. I had to laugh.

 

ANy questions?? I should have taken photos but I was in a rush and my hands were FILTHY!

 

Chao

 

Richard

[brus brother]

Very resourceful and conservative of motion. Checked your profile... wish I lived near "global".

[kevinsUBARU]

you and miles fox should get together...sounds like a good team

[mattocs]

you and miles fox should get together...sounds like a good team

 

 

Haha. Nothing like some ghetto car-fixing to save time and money

[WRX1AB]

I lived in the SF bay area, but moved to england to finish my chemical engineering degree. my ea81 started out as a DL wagon and ended up as an EA81T with hte rx ea82t tranny (hi low range locking middle diff five speed) so I had to cut the driveshafts and weld them in the front to fit it all in.... SFshan has that cars internals.

 

Thanks for all your klind words!