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Gearbox Removal

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poeticjustice88
Posts: 281
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:24 am
Location: gold coast, queensland

Gearbox Removal

Post by poeticjustice88 »

Firstly, jack up car and place on axle stands.

On the bottom side of the gearbox, directly underneath the passenger side CV shaft is a square lug. Using a ½” drive ratchet, remove this lug and catch the oil, this is the drain plug. While you are under here you may also want to remove the wires that go to the passenger side of the gearbox which power your reverse lights

Remove both the left and right side wheels.
Where the shock absorber meets the brake calliper assembly, there are two 17mm bolts, remove these two bolts and let the brake assembly rest on the lower control arm.

Using a long flat blade screwdriver, or a pry bar, reach underneath the gearbox and GENTLY slip the screwdriver tip between the CV joint and the gearbox and twist, this will remove the CV shaft from the gearbox. Do this on both sides. (Sidenote : When doing this on my car, the drivers side CV shaft was relatively difficult to manoeuvre out of the wheel hub, you can push down on the wheel hub as the lower control arms do have a fair bit of give)

At the back of the gearbox there is a cable, this is your speedometer cable, simply unscrew and remove it from the gearbox
Now remove the two 14mm bolts holding the Starter Motor. These can sometimes be a hassle to get to with the amount of pipes around, so use of a flex joint on your ratchet may benefit.
Swing the Starter motor out of your way.

Underneath the distributor, there are two 12mm bolts, remove them.
You will also need to loosen the clutch adjuster and remove it from the fork the cable sits on.

Now slide under the car. You will see Two gear linkage shafts connected from the gear stick in the cabin to the gearbox, remove these. You will need a 10mm and 12mm spanner.
One of the gear linkages connect directly to the selector of the gearbox, the other to the bottom/rear engine mount. With a 14mm spanner and a 14mm socket, reach up behind the engine and there is a small shock absorber/dampener, you only need to remove the bolt from the bottom of this dampener.

Where this engine mount meets the gearbox, there will be two 14mm nuts and one 14mm bolt, remove these. Then remove the three 17mm bolts that hold the engine mount to the body of the car. My exhaust pipe had been modded to use this engine mount as an exhaust mount aswell which made it somewhat of a hassle to remove the mount from the car, but with the right jiggle, and holding your tongue the right way, it will come out.
On the bottom of the gearbox there is a small 12mm bolt that holds a plate onto the box, remove it.

While you are under there you can also remove the 12mm bolt from the front engine mount that goes into the gearbox. Also on this front engine mount is a long steel beam that runs from the gearbox to the mount, although you shouldn’t, i simply unbolted this 12mm bolt and slightly bent the beam out of the way. If you do not want to bend this beam, then you will need to remove the entire front engine mount. Alot easier to just bend it :S

Get a jack and a piece of hard wood, and put the jack under the engine. Do the jack up until you can just see the engine move up so you can take the weight off of the engine mounts

Now back up to the top of the engine. If you are doing this yourself be careful with the next part. You can use an old seatbelt, or i used a small ratchet strap (not the ratchet mechanism just the strap) and wrap it around the gearbox. Then throw a strap around your back, the gearbox is maybe 30kg’s so be careful.

The front engine mount is a 14mm bolt with a 14mm nut, simply undo the nut and remove it, leaving the bolt in the engine mount. If you try and remove the bolt it should be really hard to do as the engine and gearbox are pulling down on it. So what you do is you jack up the jack under your engine a couple of turns at a time, then check to see if the bolt pops out without restriction. Keep adjusting the jack until it does.

Once you remove that last bolt, the gearbox will only be held in by the input shaft, you do not want the gearbox to sit here like this in case it damages some components, which is why before you remove the bolt, you should take up all the slack weight of the gearbox on the straps i mentioned earlier.

Remove the bolt and wriggle the gearbox LIGHTLY, shimmying it towards the passenger side of the car o release the input shaft from the clutch disk.
Once the input shaft is clear of the clutch disk, the gearbox will drop, so make sure there is not enough slack in your straps to let it drop a little bit and pull on the straps, this could cause serious injury. Take all the slack out of the straps and you should be good as gold. However, try and have someone help you, it just makes shit easier.

VOILA, one gearbox. If you know what you are doing, and are handy with your tools. Without rushing should take about 3 hours. This was only my second time removing one (first time doing it by myself) and i got it done in an hour and 20 minutes. So its not an all day job
I will post up pictures shortly
Michael
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tassuperkart
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Post by tassuperkart »

Nice writeup Mike.
I need to do a completed artical on gearbox removal based on a couple of articals already written.

However, PIX PIX PIX!!!

Oracle
Forcd4 wrote:Oh fuk no dude it's you a again, the oracle.
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poeticjustice88
Posts: 281
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:24 am
Location: gold coast, queensland

Post by poeticjustice88 »

haha cheers man, i was just running off of memory, so if there is anything i may have missed feel free to fill me in.

i will be putting the pics up as soon as i get good internet. I am house sitting at the moment and the internet at the house is useless, cant upload ANYTHING!!! i am posting this off my phone as it is faster !!!!

i will see if i can do it at work :)

Michael
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