RE: Stuck [transmission]!

["Paul Novak" <spammit@domain.elided>]

I just put a new clutch in my '73 spider a few weeks ago (and then had to
pull the gearbox again this week for a bad bearing and maybe more) so here
are a few tips which might be helpful, although your situation may differ.
I left the engine in place as you did.  I had to wiggle the transmission to
get it in, but I definitely would not use a BFH to force it home.

1) I left the studs in place.  I think they do help with alignment, which is
tricky.

2)  As far as I could tell, the engine *must* tilt to get the just-right
angle between the engine and transmission.  The way that I tilted mine was
to loosen the engine mounts on both sides.  Specifically, the fasteners that
connect the engine mounts to the cross member, not the ones that go to
engine.  There are two on each mount, one lower on the mount and closer to
the centerline of the car and another higher and towards the outside.  I
removed the upper bolts and loosened the lower ones.  These are notoriously
difficult to reach on the passenger side.  However, I did not have that much
trouble.  Perhaps the Bosch FI gets in the way on series III cars, or
sagging engine mounts make it harder to get in there.  My mounts are in good
shape (thank you PO) and I found that a "stubby" 13mm combination wrench was
the ticket to reaching the lower/inner nut on the passenger side mount.

3)  a) If you removed the exhaust at the header (if you have a cat, you
might have had to already to remove it to get the gearbox out), then you
should be able to tilt the engine with a gentle lift on the front of the oil
pan.  Perhaps with a block of wood and a jack on the front of the oil pan.
I do not have a fan shroud, if you do, you probably have to remove it to
keep from breaking it.  Also, keep an eye on the back of the cylinder head
to make sure you are not crushing or breaking something against the
firewall.  You could stick a scrap of 2x4 in there too.  Make sure that
tilting the engine is not crushing/breaking something else.

    b) I do not have a cat and was able to leave the exhaust header
attached.  Instead, I separated the rear muffler from the tailpipe at the
flange and  hanger and then supported it on an old milk crate that happened
to be the right height.  This tilted the engine back just enough since the
exhaust pipes were still attached to the header and the engine.  I am not
sure if this would work with a cat in place because the cat might interfere
with the gearbox.  I was a little worried about putting too much stress on
the headers, so I handled it pretty gingerly.

4)  It helps to have the car up pretty high.  I think I had mine about 24"
off the ground at the jacking points.

5)  Since I do not have anything like the upper-body strength of Arnold
Schwarzenegger, I used a transmission jack to get the transmission in and
out.  I got a "adapter" from Harbor Freight for about $50 that fit on my
trolley jack.  It has adjustable brackets and adjustable tilt.  You probably
don't have time to wait for Harbor Freight to send you something, but you
could probably get a transmission jack at the local tool-rental outfit.  I
found that I had to adjust the angle and position in small increments and
wiggle the gearbox back and forth until it finally went in.  I seem to
remember that the last inch or half inch took some additional tilting and
wiggling, so there is something that needs to line up just so at that point.
But once you get it, it should go in without any excessive use of force, and
definitely without hammering.

6)  I did not remove the center tie rod since I could not get the tie rod
ends apart, but I found that I did not need to.  If your engine mounts are
sagging, you might find that the tie rod is in the way of tilting the engine
enough.  In any case, careful you don't tilt the engine so far as to bend
the tie rod.

	BTW, when you refill the gearbox, be sure to fill it slowly.  I am
currently dismantling my gearbox to find at least one bad bearing.  My
current working theory is that I underfilled the transmission after I did
the clutch.  I pumped oil into the fill hole until it dripped back out.  I
think I was doing it too fast so the oil dripped back out before the box was
really full of oil.  Then while I was enjoying my new clutch, I destroyed at
least one bearing that made a heck of a racket in or out of gear--except
second gear, for some reason.  My backup theory is that the bearing was
ready to go anyway, and the timing was just cooincidence.  After I examine
the internals, I'll post the post-mortem to the digest.

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