March 4, 2006 - Clutch Removal, Intake
Install, and Part 1 of Tackling the Rear Suspension (2)
On Saturday March 4 I had in my hands a clutch setup that I was
happy with and I wanted to install it.
Before we could, though, we needed to get the worn stock clutch out
of there. I really beat the hell out of that thing when the
transmission went. I had no choice but to ride the clutch
hard to get the car moving in third gear, I'm sure that took
its toll on the stock unit. In fact, I know it did because I
could smell it several times and I smoked it twice when I tried to
get the car moving from a stop on
two different slight inclines while limping the car back home.
After we got the intake install as far along as we could we shimmied
under the car again and took a look at the stock clutch.
Here's what we saw:
Removing it was really a piece of cake. There are 6 bolts
that hold the pressure plate to the flywheel and they weren't overly
tight (evidence that I was dealing with the stock unit because we
all know that the lil mom n pop shop that rebuilt and installed the
transmission loved to over-tighten stuff). Having never
removed a pressure plate before I didn't really know what to expect,
and I was afraid that the pressure plate would just flop off after I
removed the 6th bolt. That's not the case though, and I kind
of chuckle when I think about how Dad was supporting the pressure
plate while I was working on the bolts... better safe than sorry
though. Now we know that the good folks at Ford used
dowels to keep the pressure plate from just falling off when the bolts are out. It took
a couple of tugs on a pry bar to get the pressure plate off of the
dowels, but it wasn't anything outrageous. When the pressure
plate flopped off the clutch disc came clambering down with it and
the flywheel was revealed. There are 8 bolts that hold the
flywheel to the crank and they came off without a hitch.
Here's a picture of the pressure plate and clutch disc after they were
removed. It's about time, wouldn't ya say?
With the clutch out of the way we set our sights on the pilot
bearing. We'd seen varying methods of removal mentioned on the
web from stuffing soap and grease into the cavity until the bearing
pops out to using a pilot bearing puller. Some people claimed
that a bearing puller wouldn't work, but to be completely honest we
didn't believe it. We've always thought using the right tool
gets the jobs done quickest so we grabbed the bearing puller and
slid under the car yet again, dead-set on proving those nay-sayers
wrong. At first look we thought the three fingers of the
puller wouldn't fit inside the bearing, but we got them in by
tilting the puller. It really seemed like we had to get it
just right for the fingers to fit in. We grabbed onto the
inner lip of the bearing and began backing out the puller. We
were really happy with the way it came out and couldn't believe how
all those people on the net messed up that removal. Here's a
picture of the crank and pilot bearing after we removed what we
thought was all of the pilot bearing, followed by what we took out
with the bearing puller.
We didn't know it at the time but that wasn't the whole pilot
bearing. We should have known better, and I think both of us
had a feeling that there should be more to it than what I held in my
hand, chalk it up as a rookie mistake. The first time you do
something on one of these cars you're bound to make a mistake or
three.
