Clutch Job: Pulling Engine vs Pulling Tranny

[codfizzle]

u should pick up 2 new retainer clips for the T-bearing to hold it on the clutch fork, they tend to brake or go missing.

the spring you are refering to is not for your car, only pull style clutchs have them, its to help return the fork and stop it from rataling against the slave cylinder rod.

I actually did go to the dealership and get 2 TOB clips. They charged me $4 apeice for them! Talk about an arm and a leg- I just paid $8 for two bobby pins!

[altron23]

when im referring to push or pull style clutch's im talking about what the throw out bearing is doing not the cable or slave cylinder, so if your car is a non turbo legacy is has a push style with a cable, and you do not need the spring that we are talking about.

[entirelyturbo]

Take everything lightly around here codfizzle. No one is deliberately trying to insult you.

I dropped my tranny to fix the throwout bearing that came off the fork. Clips were nowhere to be found. If you don't like paying for those clips, then you can always wire the throwout bearing to the fork... just make sure that it can move on the fork and is not too tight, because it needs to pivot on the fork to work properly.

If yours is a nonturbo, then you have a push-style clutch. Turbos have a pull-style. The push-or-pull designation refers to the force the throwout bearing exerts on the pressure plate when the clutch is disengaged. A nonturbo clutch pushes the pressure plate inwards, a turbo clutch pulls the pressure plate outwards.

So anyway, you can do it either way. The tranny has to be done from under the car, yes, and it can be a pain in the ass (and dangerous) to wrestle with a 250-lb hunk of metal.

But you don't need a cherry-picker to do it, only a floor jack. And you have a lot less wiring to mess with.

So pick whatever works best for you.

[codfizzle]

Hey everybody

I did the clutch job today. I found somebody to loan me an engine hoist for the day for free, so I pulled the engine, which was actually VERY easy. Had a little trouble pulling the A/C compressor out of that bracket, but other than that everything went very smoothly. Once I had it apart, I took the flywheel to Carquest, who resurfaced it for me for $26. Then I got some TOB retainer clips at the Subie dealership on the way home. The clutch kit I used was from Fort Wayne Clutch and Driveline, and it was very nice; looked good and sturdy. The only problem I had with it was that there was no "0" marking on the pressure plate, or any markings of any kind, so I wasn't quite sure where the residual unbalance point was. But I think that with the way those two little pins stick out of the flywheel surface, there's only one way for the pressure plate to go on and have both of those pins line up with their holes, so I think it should be OK.
The old TOB was TOAST! It pretty much flew apart into about 15 pieces, which were sprayed all over the inside of the bell housing (a TOB clip here, a chunk of ball bearing there). While I had the engine out, I replaced the valve cover gaskets and spark plugs, since they were right at eye level.
Then all I had to do was put everything back together. So with an extra set of hands from my wife, I lined up the bell housing bolts and viola! It slid right back together very nicely, not trouble at all. After reinstalling 3 of the bell housing bolts to keep it together, I took the tranny jack out and started to lower the engine. The motor mount bolts slid right into their slots in the front cross member on the first try. No aligning, nothing, just fell right into its place. So I put the nuts on the motor mounts and reconnected the exhaust with some new gaskets while I was under there.
Then I connected the clutch cable and jumped in to pump it a few times to see how it felt and THUD. The pedal went to the floor and stayed there. OH SHIT. What did I do wrong? Well then I remembered that I had loosened up the cable dramatically when I took it off. So I readjusted the cable (I had to tighten it A LOT) to get it to the proper level of snugness and then jumped in and tried again. SWEET. It felt awesome. It felt like...well... a brand new clutch. Then it got dark. So tomorrow all I have to do is reconnect all the wiring and hoses and fill and bleed the coolant system and I'll be ready for the road!

[cj91legss]

Man you're lucky, i try to get my girlfriend to help me when i do work on my car and she laughs at me...

I need me a good subie girl. does your wife have any good looking sisters?

As far as pulling the motor, the 2 coolant lines running to the heater core, i undo one off the firewall and one off the motor and swap lines to they both go to the opposite part on the car i.e. inlet on firewall to outlet on firewall and same for motor, then leave radiator connected to engine for minimal coolant leakage and then i don't have to buy coolant. but take the over flow resovoir nd fan off. ive done this several times now and it works out very well for me.

so for future reference, it's pretty easy to do that and better on time consumption.

[evolutionmovement]

Keeping the radiator attached. Hm. That's not a bad idea.

[cj91legss]

yeah i cant even count how many times ive done it, works terrific only coolant that gets spill is at the heater core. and if you're quick you wont even spill that much.

[codfizzle]

Damn guys, that's a pretty good idea. Too bad I didn't think of that before, because now the job's finished. And I just followed the Legacy Service Manual to the letter (except for un-doing the A/C hoses; I just took the compressor out of the bracket and flopped it over onto the wheel apron, like the power steering pump), which may have saved a little time but also may have taken a tad longer since I was stopping to glance at a damn book every few minutes. Either way, I got everything fully reassembled yesterday morning, got in, touched the ignition, and that baby fired right up; purred even nicer than it did before I ripped the engine out! Then I just bled all of the air out of the coolant system and gave her an oil change, and- sweet. Took her for a test drive and damn, that new clutch is sweet. Looking back, it was a pretty easy project, for somebody with only a driveway and very minimal tools (if you have a 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm wrench, you can pretty much throw everything else out for this job. Gotta love Subies!). I think it took me longer to scrub my stains off the landlord's driveway than it did to put the car back together. Thanks for the help everybody.

[kleinkid]

You used the Legacy Service Manual for a reference? Can you discuss that some more? What is it, where did you get it, etc.?

[codfizzle]

I believe the Subaru Legacy Service Manual is the manual that the mechanics at the Subie dealership have. It's made by Subaru and is known to be far more accurate of a guide than other abridged manuals (Chilton's, Haynes, etc). I think it is broken into 6 sections. There are scanned versions available online to download in pdf form, I think I got my link from another post somewhere on this website. But since I was only doing a clutch job, I only downloaded the engine section, which has detailed info on the easiest way to remove the engine, and the clutch section which tells in detail how to rebuild the clutch components once you do have it all apart.

[evolutionmovement]

IIRC, the 1991 FSM also gives the wrong spec for the pulley bolt. I got my set on ebay years ago for $50 or something - 6 books and a 1993 supplement.

So that's how multiple posts happen. You'd think 3 years with a Mac would get me off double clicking shit, but you'd be wrong.

[kleinkid]

The engine removal section and the clutch section are the ones I'd like to have available when I pull my engine and put in the rebuilt engine.