kimokalihi's 91 SS EJ20 Swap

[Legacy777]

That's pretty ingenious!

[kimokalihi]

[beatersubi]

Pull up your pants!
(damn kids)

[mike-tracy]

Gangsta! No new tranny to put in

[kimokalihi]

Picture is old. My pants were up! Just bent over. I don't sag my pants that shit is homo.

[NICO]

Pull up your pants!
(damn kids)

LOL every time im working late my crazy neighbour comes over and says that to me every F time !!

[mike-tracy]

Pull up your pants!
(damn kids)

LOL every time im working late my crazy neighbour comes over and says that to me every F time !!

Maybe you should wear a belt, lol

[kimokalihi]

Pull up your pants!
(damn kids)

LOL every time im working late my crazy neighbour comes over and says that to me every F time !!

Dang you must be gangstar! Lol

[NICO]

Pull up your pants!
(damn kids)

LOL every time im working late my crazy neighbour comes over and says that to me every F time !!

Maybe you should wear a belt, lol

lol i wear a belt, im going to wear a one piece mechanic suit next time !

Pull up your pants!
(damn kids)

LOL every time im working late my crazy neighbour comes over and says that to me every F time !!

Dang you must be gangstar! Lol

LOL no

[kimokalihi]

Finally worked on my car after it sat in the driveway for weeks. My friend came over and we pushed it into the garage with the help of my metro and got to work. Pulled the tranny in an hour and 45 mins. So much easier pulling the engine but I'm glad we did the tranny because it's in a bad way.

My friend works at a shop and got this sweet LED light that can hang on your hood like in this picture or you can set it on the ground on those same stands and it rotates all the way around to shine at any angle. Expensive light but very nice.







What happened was just as I suspected. The pivot pin in the clutch fork came out because I didn't tighten the threaded plug in all the way and it worked it's way out allowing the fork to move too much and must have collided with the pressure plate somehow which shattered part of the housing and broke a chunk out of the place where the pin rides in and cracked the other side too. It also mangled the pressure plate as you can see in the pictures below and bent the tabs on the throw out bearing. Crazy. Time for a new clutch kit and possibly new transmission. Sad face.














Amazingly enough, the clutch fork appears to have come out of all this unscathed. Interesting.

[kimokalihi]

Anybody know if the trans is salvageable? Could that be welded back together? I have the pieces that came from the inside hole that the pin slides in. Or should I start looking for a trans? Don't really want a different ratio tranny though which would mean a new diff as well. Need another 4.444 or a case that I could swap my gears into I guess. It does need a new input shaft bearing and could use new synchros as well.

[kimokalihi]

Looking at those pictures now baffles me. I don't understand what did the damage to the pressure plate and throw out bearing. The fork is not broken or notched. The pivot pin is in perfect shape and never came all the way out of the holes. WTF happened??

[Thesubielover]

Good job tearing it down! I'm going to be done with the swap tomorrow. I went to my local harware store and found a section of hot water heater hose that is reinforaced to hook up to my turbo inlet as my 90. Actually fits well and looks pretty clean. I'm going to be testing everything out tomorrow, but should bhe done in the evening. Feel free to come by for the night and take it for a spin!

[kimokalihi]

Haha maybe another time. I have plans tomorrow. Or today rather. Time for some sleep.

[Thesubielover]

Yeah me too in a few hours! I'll text you some pics

[PhyrraM]

I, personally, would not trust a repair because the force of using the clutch would be trying to pull the repairs apart again.

I would *guess* that the actual case is the same as the Legacy turbo one. Everything internal could be swapped over to a Legacy turbo case.

The other two choices would be to A) do the research and see if your internals can swap into a USDM WRX case or B) swap your internals into an early non-turbo case and use an aftermarket non-turbo flywheel and upgraded clutch.

IIRC, USDM Forester turbos had the 4.44 gears so if you can find one of those you can keep your rear-end.

[Legacy777]

I'd suggest looking for a new case to swap your internals into. A repair may work, but welding cast aluminum is definitely an art form, and unless you get someone that REALLY knows what their doing, I wouldn't trust the repair.

I think the clutch fork came out and may have hit the pressure plate, but cast iron is pretty hard stuff, so that may be why it doesn't look like there was any damage.

[kimokalihi]

Maybe but it's odd that there's damage in both holes that the pin sits in which tells me the pin was in both holes when the event occured so the clutch fork shouldn't have gone anywhere.

[Legacy777]

What likely happened is the pin worked itself loose and only a little bit was in contact with the opposite side of the case. With only a little bit of the pin in contact with the small piece of case, it couldn't support the load and cracked, which may have been enough to shift the pin out completely and cause all the mayhem.

[beatersubi]

That can be repaired. I helped whitefcdriter to remove and install his trans when the same thing happened a few months ago. He can get you in touch with the fellow in Tacoma that did the repairs for him. It was repaired with about twice the thickness of the stock piece, so I doubt it would fail. So long as the pin stays in place. Cast iron > aluminum.

[sqc151]

thats pretty crazy kimo. is the clutch still usable? the trans looks trashed cause it broke at the the 2 points where the fork rod goes in.
and yea, those clutch forks are strong as hell.

[kimokalihi]

Well if it can be fixed that would be cool. Any idea what that cost? I'm not reusing that clutch. Its mangled and may work but its not worth the possibility of having to do this job over again.

[jake15]

i wouldn't bother with fixing the transmission case. i had one fixed and it broke 6 months later, i still had to buy a new one and do all the work over again finding a matching transmission case and swapping everything over would probably be your cheapest and best bet.... easiest being swapping in a different transmission. An older turbo legacy case should work because it looks like your JDM forester transmission is a phase one transmission like the t-leggys. i used to have like 5 of these cases lying around but i sold them all when i got the 6 speed

[kimokalihi]

Man cj just told me he scrapped two cases last month! You guys are killing me. Kind of hard to find a 4.444 turbo trans.

[cj91legss]

I asked a friend i used to work for after you contacted me, he doesn't have any cases either...