winter project

[Meir]

hello guys.
continued with my project this weekend.
unlike last week, i woke up to an 80 degrees morning, with 90% humidity
not the perfect conditions to work in the garage, but definitely beats 30
started the day trading my neighbor storage room, for a break job on his 50 cc Yamaha scooter. toke me 10 minutes (let me know if someone needs the DIY ).
stored all the parts i previously removed from the car, and got back to the real deal.
started with removing the throttle body and plenum in order to gain access to the oil cooler.



the oil cooler is pretty easy to remove. just needed to disconnect the thin coolant hose on the top, and remove the 4 Allen screws that holds it in place.
once the bolts were out, i lifted it quick and removed it from the car. tried to do my best not to mix oil with coolant.

decided to leave the TB and plenum out of the car.
by the look of it, it will make my life easier when working on the AOS.




cleaned the surface carefully, and removed the old O-rings using this tool.
here in the picture you can see the tool with the old O-rings removed.



and here the old next to the new. the small ones are for the oil passages, and the large one for the coolant.



the new oil O-rings are green in color, so i guess they ware upgraded in some point (?).
put the new O-rings on (coated with a bit of oil) cleaned the cooler, and put it back on the engine.

[Meir]

after installing the oil cooler, it was time to start working on the transmission.
removed the rear bumper and exhaust.
removed the diagonal plate and support bars.
disconnected sway bar and axles and set aside.
disconnected the clutch slave cylinder and electric plug for reverse switch
lowered the car, and removed top bolt of transmission.



i had some problem to fit a large brake bar to release this bolt.
i manage to take it out, but i'm sure i'm going to have an issue to fit my torque wrench, when time comes to assemble the transmission.
will appreciate any suggestion of how to do it.
when the bolt was out, i noticed someone marked it with the number 4.



so the transmission was removed in the past, but i'm not sure for what purpose.
the previous owner (that is also my boss now) told me that the transmission was never removed while he owned the car. he bought the car with 55K miles and sold it to me 5 years later with 74K. he never did anything to the car except oil change every 5k, and one set of tires.
i guess the transmission was removed during the first ownership (i'm the third owner) but since i don't have any records, i cannot tell what was done.

when the top bolt is out, i mounted the engine bar.




i also covered the intake inlets with Nitrile Gloves to prevent little frogs from jumping in (from some reason they like to hang out in my garage).

raised the car back, and removed the rest of the transmission bolts.
mounted the bolts on a cardboard (courtesy of Wayne ) made by my wife.




at this point i was ready to call it a day.
this is a picture of my "shop" before closing

[Homeboy981]

[QUOTE=Meir;319339]
raised the car back, and removed the rest of the transmission bolts.
mounted the bolts on a cardboard (courtesy of Wayne ) made by my wife.



Gotta love a wife that DOES that! It is a REALLY GOOD idea…thank your wife for me! Now my wife can have some involvement too!

[Meir]

[QUOTE=Homeboy981;319349]

Originally Posted by Meir

raised the car back, and removed the rest of the transmission bolts.
mounted the bolts on a cardboard (courtesy of Wayne ) made by my wife.



Gotta love a wife that DOES that! It is a REALLY GOOD idea…thank your wife for me! Now my wife can have some involvement too!

ya. now i need to train the dog to do some wrenching, and my life will be perfect

[Meir]

with the clutch removed, i could see the RMS and IMS.



measured the distance between the RMS and crankshaft, ant it seats on 14 mm.
so i guess it was replaced before, and that is the reason for the previous transmission removal.
a little bit of clean up, and a closer look, and i can tell i need to get the single row bearing (deep dish)




some pics of the clutch disc and pressure plate:










will take some pics of the flywheel and will post it later.

the clutch disc looks like it still got some "meat" on it, but not too much.
never had slipping issue, but i hope once the new clutch is in, it will be much more soft.
wonder if someone can tell if its the original clutch or not.
the kit i got from eBay, looks exactly the same.

[Meir]

as i have only the transmission mounts holding the trans in place, i started the day early. started cleaning the garage and tools, putting everything in place so i can start fresh.
10 minutes after getting under the car, it was out.



first look at the clutch:





transmission:




no oil leaks, but a lot of dust, and every thing is very dry, so no grease ether.
especially on the transmission side. the throw out bearing slides hard and make funny noises. no wonder my clutch was so hard to press.

starting to remove the pressure plate bolts, i got to the last bolt, and guess what?
the bolt is rounded. at the beginning i thought to cut its head of with a Dremel, but the surface is not clear at that area.
then i remembered that i received the the "Quik Center" tool i ordered to remove the broken bolt from the oil pan. since i never removed a broken bolt in my life, i thought it would be a good opportunity to experiment on the clutch.
i'm going to replace all components including flywheel, so any damage that might occur, is not relevant.
so i started with fitting the correct "Quik Center" tool (6mm) and start drilling it with my battery power hand drill. at first i thought someting is wrong, the drill bit was going in as if i was drilling wood or plastic. i toke it out, and all is fine. metal shaving came out. kept on drilling a bit more, removed the tool, and this is what i got:



perfectly centered hole.

i found about this tool, from another post on this forum, that also recommended the use of irwin cobalt drill bits. thank you insite.
this tool is amazing, made in the USA, very high quality, and dose exactly what it supposed to.
this is how it looks like:



used the irwin left drill bit to enlarge the hole (same here, drilled it like butter).
topped the little thingy (that i don't know how its called, but it shows in the top raw in this picture), turned it counter clockwise, and the screw came out like a champ.




this is how it looks when the tool is still attached to the screw.



just needed to put the bolt in the vise, and twist the tool clock wise to extract it.
i know some of you are laughing right now (or smiling at the least). but for me it was a successful firs experience, and it build my confidence to tackle the broken bolt in the oil sump. no room for mistakes there.