Author: Gerry, UKCSi on 2005-04-09
Subject: Phoenix Restoration - Transmission Refit....(BIG!)
OK then my friends on the board. This is the post I have not been looking forward to, so here it is. You may notice that there are gaps in the pics between some stages. This is because I was on my own and doing both the install and the pics so I hope you appreciate that it was not really possible for me to pause mid-gearbow lift, (by hand I might add!!!) and take a pic of my sweating brow at the same time. Also I have had to take some pics "out-of-sinc" as it were, for similar reasons. So get yourself a large coffee, beer or whatever and enjoy.
My first job in the re-installation of the transmission was the replacement of the pilot bearing in the crank. Here I am using an internal bearing puller to extract the old bearing.
Followed by the installation of the new by tapping and seating gently with a socket.
Here we can see my completed, 12.5 lbs alloy flywheel ready to fit.
This has now been precision balanced with the mandrells I did a post on recently. Here you can see the small balancing hole required, located between the clutch locating dowel and the grade 10.9 clutch mounting bolt. At this point I washed my hands so no dirty fingerprints would put it back out of balance. :-))
Following the fire which occurred within the confines of the bellhousing after the shippers had a go at it, I had to clean off clutch friction material debris from the inside of the bellhousing and the rear face of the engine with a toothbrush sized wire brush and small, flat, blunt screwdriver, cans and cans of brake and clutch aerosol cleaner and finishing of with my girlfriends toothbrush! Then got brownie points for buying har a new one. I powder coated the clutch release arm and fitted a new pivot pin and arm retaining clip/spring/thingy!
I lightly copper greased the input shaft splines and fitted the new release/thrust bearing.
Here we have the clutch to be fitted.
This was also balanced as can be seen here with the single 6mm and 8mm holes.
I then cleaned off the gearbox externally, removing the powdery residue from alloy oxidation and then prepared it in a satin black, heat dissipating paint, replaced the corroding bolts with new stainless steel Allen bolts, lightly oiled, then drilled and lockwired the oil filler and drain bolts for extra security. I finished it off with a new "oil spec" label.
As I had everything out anyway, I decided to fit a new needle roller quickshift assembly. I have the choice of the chrome Schnitzer or the satin alloy Schnitzer shortshifter knob. Which shall I use?
With the new flywheel lifted into position and located on the single alignment dowel, the 9 new retaining bolts are fitted by hand.....
These are E39, M5 Torx bolts fitted with a gall plate to prevent the bolt heads digging into the alloy flywheel. These bolts are required because of the extra thickness of the new flywheel mounting flange.
The bolts are then torqued-up in a criss-cross pattern to 105 Nm
I then fitted the center-plate together with the clutch aligning tool.
Followed by the pressure plate.
Which is then secured with 6 new grade 10.9 mushroom head Allen bolts torqued to 34 Nm. (If grade 8.8 bolts are used the torque setting is 24 Nm.)
As the clutch and flywheel were balanced together,they need to be installed in the correct position, here the index marks can be seen in alignment.
The gearbox can now be lifted up, aligned with the clutch and slipped onto the back of the engine. Putting the gearbox in gear allows you to "jiggle" the output shaft to aid in the alignment of the splines. The gearbox is secured with 10 male Torx headed bolts, 2 @ M8X50, 4 @ M10X55 and 4 @ M10X65, 2 of which retain the starter motor with nuts and washers and 2 which are too long for the lower bellhousing mounts untill the exhaust bracket is fitted later. I however scrapped all these and replaced them with............yes, stainless steel Allen headed bolts with S/S locknuts on the starter.