Transmission installation

#1

I’m in the middle of putting my transmission back in. New pilot bearing, lined up the clutch disc with the tool…

This @%^(@$^(^ transmission will not go in. I have about a 1/2" to go, and it will NOT line up on the dowels. Been out there struggling with it for 8 hours now. Been screwing around with depth gauges and everything I know of to check and make sure things are right.

I have jiggled, pryed, slammed, etc and it won’t go. I even took the whole thing back apart again 3 times to realign the disc to make sure it was right.

I’m done for today unless someone has a light bulb idea that can help. If not, I’m taking the trans back out and taking it to a shop and have them screw with it.

#2

Assume you checked the pilot bearing before putting the trans in? Assume you have the TO bearing oriented correctly and not sitting on the shoulder of the arm? Assume you put clutch disk on splines to verify fit? Assume you put into gear and moved guibo back and forth to insure spline alignment.

If yes to all the above, use big bolts to pull in slowly.

#3

Pilot bearing…checked

I just thought about the TO bearing like 2 seconds ago…hmmm, that could be an issue if it managed to work its way out of the perfect alignment when I first slid it in there.

It slides on the splines for sure

Put in gear, and cannot move anything, so splines must be engaged.

I will then check the bearing next week and try one more time. Thanks.

#4

FWIW I just did this a couple of weekends ago. I went out and bought a couple of long M12 bolts at Ace, cut the heads off of them, slotted the ends, and screwed these into the holes with the guides. Then I slid the tranny onto the studs and used them to guide it onto the locating dowels. This keeps the weight off of the input shaft (as I didn’t have a tranny jack that would fit under the car so was having some alignment difficulties) and helps with the alignment. Then I used a flat blade to unscrew the studs. It did take two tries to get it right. Hope this helps.

#5

Rhodes. ingenuity at it’s finest. NICE!

#6

RRhodes, that is a great tip anyone can use. OP, sometimes stepping away for awhile is the secret, so hopefully it will slide right in when you try again today.

Recheck the centering of the clutch (make sure the alignment tool is completely engaging the pilot bearing), also use pinky to check inside of pilot bearing for burrs (not likely but could be the problem).

Put a a thin coating of anti-seize on the nose of the input shaft and the splines, if you didn’t already.

Make double sure the TOB is properly oriented and nestled within the throwout fork, and be careful not to jostle the transmission too much (working alone and w/o trans jack this could easily be happening) such that the TOB could get dislodged.

Use the RRodes cut-down bolt to create guides as well. Clean up the threads after you cut the end so that you can spin nuts onto each guide bolt. (May need these later)

When you have it close enough (make sure trans is in gear first), so that the output shaft doesn’t spin anymore, you know the splines are engaged. Sight up the side of the transmission mating surface to make sure it is parallel with the engine.

If, after all that, it won’t slide home, spin a pair of nuts onto the cut-down guide bolts you have, as Baader suggests, and gently pull it in. A mix of tighten, wiggle, tighten, wiggle may get the last 1/4" by hand.

#7

I had a replace transmission where the input shaft after going through the pilot bearing actually hit the back of the crank and would not seat. Never figured out why the shaft was long, moved on to a different tranny. Might want compare your new one with the old one if you still have it…

#8

One other thing I though of: Make sure the alignment collars are on each side and not on both…don’t ask!!!

#9

One other feature of the studs is that they were only partially threaded. The idea being that after you get the tranny onto the dowels, you can remove the studs and replace them with the Torx bolts to help pull the tranny in.

#10

As near as I can tell, the last half inch is engagement of the input shaft into the pilot bearing. If the alignment of the clutch disk is off, even a little, or the bell housing is not parallel to the engine, the transmission will hang a half inch off.

Using bolts to evenly pull the transmission into place works. It should not take much torque on the bolts to accomplish that. If it does, pull the transmission back out and figure out what is wrong.

#11

I do it the Rhodes way, using a long 12mm bolts on top and spare 8-10mm bolts on the side instead of his 12mm dowels.

The guys that are really good simply “press” the tranny in. That’s press as in bench press or military press. I’ve seen Scott, the fabulous Lako/Walsh mechanic several times pop the tranny in place in one single motion by simply lifting the tranny up and “putting” it in place. His “single motion” is approx 10k motions less than I go thru as I mate the tranny to engine with agonizing care.

Using those 12mm and 8-10mm “locator) bolts I inch the tranny and engine thru that last 1/2” by tightening the bolts. By looking up at the tranny face and the various vertical reference lines like the flywheel, I can keep everything pretty much aligned.

There’s been a couple times tho that the clutch was not aligned well enough. That cost me a lot of sanity, so now I’m kinda obsessive about perfect clutch disk alignment. The clutch alignment tool needs to be slide in and out easily.