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  1. #1
    Overworked/Underpaid


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    Peter Alpiger
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    1996 Trans Am WS6; 1994 Corvette [GS Clone]
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    Default Clutch replacement how-to guide

    Alrighty, so this is me getting around to posting up pics and my experience with the clutch install and how we did it. To start, I read through this guide (http://www.mightyquick.cz28.com/custom.html) and watched a few YouTube videos related to clutch replacement/install on a 4th gen F-Body to get an idea of what I was getting into. After familiarizing myself with the process and going over those steps, as well as after collecting all the necessary parts, my dad and I headed out to a local place called Jack Junkies, a DIY rent-a-lift place. Let me tell you, renting out a 2-post lift to do this job was a LIFE SAVER! I would not want to attempt this on the ground using jackstands, no sir. Also, highly recommended: get a buddy to help you do this job, solo would be a nightmare.

    The plan for this was to do a full driveline maintenance all at once, since we were going to have everything torn apart anyway. Not everyone will feel like replacing everything at once, but I like opening brand new shiny parts and putting them on the car, so sue me.

    Parts list:
    Rear Main Seal
    Clutch Pilot Bearing
    Flywheel
    ARP Flywheel Bolts w/ Loctite
    Clutch Disk
    Pressure Plate
    Throwout Bearing
    1 gallon of transmission fluid (for flush)
    Transmission output shaft seal
    New greasable U-joints for the driveshaft
    New differential cover gasket
    2 quarts of Differential gear oil
    4 oz. GM differential additive
    A few cans of brake cleaner to get everything nice and clean
    Paper towels to wipe it all down
    And some of that red lubricant gunk for inside the pilot bearing for the input shaft (forget what it's called at the moment, I'm a noob lol)
    A few small blocks of wood

    Tools rented:
    Pilot bearing removal tool
    5 lb. slide hammer

    Everything else my dad already owns, so we packed up 2 toolboxes and a duffel bag with everything we could possibly need, loaded up his truck, took an extra table with us, and packed a quick lunch and drinks. Autobots, roll out!

    We lucked out and had the whole place at Jack Junkies to ourselves basically the entire day, and by that, I mean the owner had to leave and take his kid to a golf tournament and left us there to watch over the place, so we were literally the only ones there lol. I pulled the car into the lift bay and we put 2 blocks on the rear lift arms so as to not hit my side skirts (the front arms cleared them fine) and raised the car up to about 6 ft.

    20130929_143418.jpg

    Now the night previously, I had pulled the center console out and threw it in the back seat to speed things up. Once we got the car in the air and all our tools laid out on the tables, we went to work. First we unplugged everything on the wiring harness going to the trans. Then, we undid the cross brace over the torque arm and exhaust and removed the torque arm and driveshaft. Luckily about a month ago, my mom's Suburban had to have the transmission in it replaced, so we kept the white plastic plug that keeps the rear of the trans from leaking, so we corked my trans with that after removing the DS. Here, we grabbed one of the owner's transmission jacks and got it into place securely under the trans. Got another pole jack and put a block of wood on it to put under the oil pan to keep the engine from moving at all once everything was undone. We undid all the cross bracing holding the transmission in and unbolted the slave cylinder. I set it aside on the LCA so it wouldn't hang by the line on it. Removed the little housing piece around the clutch fork, then unbolted the trans from the bellhouse. It was at this point that we unsuccessfully started trying to push the trans back from the bellhouse and I remembered that I forgot to remove the shifter assembly from the topside in the car. Luckily, I can climb like a monkey and shimmied my way up the lift and into the car to undo the shifter assembly and set it aside.

    20130929_143450.jpg

    Pro tip: remove the shifter BEFORE you lift the car!

    Once that was off, we carefully wiggled the trans loose and pushed it back to separate the input shaft from the clutch assembly. Once it was part of the way out, we had to unbolt the clutch fork from the trans to remove it from the TOB. Once off, we pulled the trans the rest of the way out and pushed it aside for later.

    20130929_145116.jpg

    Back under the car, unbolted the starter and shoved it toward the front of the car to get it out of the way. Removed the dust shield from the front of the bellhouse, then removed the bellhouse from the block. Next comes undoing the pressure plate bolts. While my dad undid the bolts, I stood hands-ready under the PP and clutch to hold it all together so nothing came falling out when the last bolt was removed. I set that all aside, then we undid the flywheel bolts - same thing, one unbolting, one to hold it in place so nothing falls. Removed it and set it aside as well. That brings us to this point in the process:

    20130929_142840.jpg20130929_142853.jpg

    Time to pull out the old rear main seal and put in the new:

    20130929_142907.jpg

    New Fel-Pro rear main seal came with a white plastic sleeve in the middle of the seal to keep it round (after talking with Rodolfo aka @rdx, he said his didn't come with one, but in the event yours does, don't remove it from the seal... I took it out not thinking and then we spent a few minutes wasting time trying to figure out which way the sleeve was in the seal before we could install it. The sleeve goes around the hub on the crank and allows you to tap the seal in and prevent the inner lip from folding in on itself. The sleeve pops itself out as you tap the seal in. At this point, I started opening up all the new shiny goodies to install.

    The old flywheel:
    20130929_152404.jpg

    The new flywheel, direct from GM:
    20130924_072302.jpg20130924_072340.jpg20130924_072350.jpg20130924_072409.jpg

    The old pressure plate:
    20130929_152032.jpg

    The new pressure plate:
    20130929_152103.jpg

    The old clutch disk, as you can see with the worn ring around the outer edge:
    20130929_152026.jpg

    The shiny new Spec 3+ clutch disk, all carbon metallic friction material :
    20130929_152309.jpg

    We grabbed the pilot bearing removal tool and used a trick I saw on YouTube to get it into the pilot bearing quick and easy. Use a hammer and a small punch to knock the pin out of one of the arms on the tool, then put the tool and the extra arm into the pilot bearing and put the arm and pin back together while inside the bearing. Attach slide hammer and give it a couple good knocks, came out in 3 hits for me lol. Here, we used brake cleaner sprayed onto paper towel to wipe down the new flywheel and pressure plate to get the film off. Mounted the TOB to the PP with the clip, and then it was lunch time - 5 minute break, eat fast, clock's ticking and that lift is by the hour!

    Now, time to reassemble everything in reverse fashion!
    Tap in new pilot bearing and put a little bit of that red grease/lubricant gunk in the center for the trans input shaft. Mount new flywheel on the pin, dab loctite on all the ARP bolts and put them in, tighten to 75 ft-lbs. Stick clutch alignment tool in the center and mount clutch disk, then mount pressure plate and get it aligned to the flywheel and bolt on. You may/may not have to make some slight adjustment to the clutch disk and pressure plate once bolted down and tightened on (we used 25 ft-lbs. for the PP). The first time we tightened it down, the alignment tool didn't come out very easily, so we stuck it back in and tweaked it till it was nice and easy to slide the tool in and out of the hole. This will save you extra time trying to stab the transmission later, so get it right before you move on! Now we bolt up the bellhousing (cleaned up), reattach the dust shield (cleaned up), and bolt the starter back into place. That gets you to here:

    20130929_161008.jpg

    Now, we flushed the transmission fluid (was way overdue on mine), replaced the output shaft seal on the rear of the trans, and filled it back up to the fill hole. Pushed the trans back under the car and lined it up ready to bolt back to the bellhouse and ever so carefully stabbed the input shaft back through the clutch assembly. Because we got the alignment on it perfect before getting to this step, it stabbed in beautifully and without issue. Now before shoving the whole thing back flush, you have to remember to get the clutch fork back on the TOB. You're going to need to leave about an inch and a half or so of space between the trans and the bellhouse to get the clutch fork in and bolted up. We discovered a little trick that helped in our case in getting the stupid bolt to go back into the trans housing. Take the 2 nuts that hold the slave cylinder on and thread them both onto the lower bolt for the slave cylinder. Tighten them against each other and seat your wrench over both bolts (half and half) and unscrew the bolt from the bellhouse. This will give you more room to play with the clutch fork and get it seated right and aligned. Use a flexible head ratcheting wrench on the head of the bolt and use a pry bar to push the bolt into the bolt hole on the trans housing (we found that without applying pressure to it, it wasn't threading and going in). As you tighten it down, make sure the square nut on the backside of the clutch fork seats properly into the square hole on the trans housing (you'll see what I'm talking about when you do this).

    20130929_163906.jpg

    Get that tightened down and finish pushing the trans up flush to the bellhouse. Bolt it all back together, put the cover back over the clutch fork, and bolt the slave cylinder back into place. Plug all the connectors back into their respective plugs on the trans and get the trans brace bolted back up to hold it in place. At this point, we were able to remove all the jacks from under the car and free up our movement space to get things going quickly. We would have finished up with the U-joints and the rear end flush at this point, but Jack Junkies was closing, so we had to quickly get everything put back together to get the car on the ground and moving. We put the driveshaft back in and then had a fun time trying to get the damn torque arm to align with the rear end... I didn't weigh enough to torque it back down, so my dad, who has a good 50-60 lbs. on me, had to hang from the DS to bring the rear end down while I put the bolts back through the TA. Once that was on, it was smooth sailing. Bolt TA back to trans tail, put cross brace back in place, and finish double checking over everything to make sure we didn't miss anything. Brought the car down to a few inches off the ground and I put the shifter assembly back in place and bolted down, then put the center console all back into place. Fired it up and went through a couple gears in the air to make sure the wheels spun, then killed it and brought her to the ground. Everything was a go! Cleaned up everything and packed up the truck and headed home. Out of a 20 mile trip home, I managed to only stall the car once, a half mile from the house. Now just working on breaking in the clutch so I can go back to having fun with it.
    96 Trans Am WS6 LT1 M6: 10/7/11 - current: 245.7 RWHP / 266.2 RWTQ - 14.462s @ 98.28 MPH
    94 Corvette LT1 A4: 4/12/13 - current: No dyno #s yet - 9.547s @ 75.11 MPH (1/8 mile)
    92 Lumina Euro 3.4L LQ1 A4: 1/15/06 - current: The beater car that refuses to die...

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  3. #2
    "The Rock"


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    Default

    very nice....stickied.

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  5. #3
    Long Live the Opti


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    Default

    Nice job on the write up.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ryan Stout View Post
    I would try to work my neck muscles but I'm not invited to the LS guy parties.

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  7. #4
    10 Second N/A Club


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    Default

    Nice job my only addition is if the car is going to be raced with sticky tires do not use greaseable U-joints get the solid ones. That really doesn't pertain to the clutch swap wright up though!
    -Josh
    co-owner of BDBRacing.com
    NMCA OC 9004
    96, N/A 385, Holley EFI, Faceplated M6, AI TFS heads, LE SR cam, MWC Fab 9
    10.16 @ 136 1.50 60'........still workin on that 60' shootin for 1.4's!

  8. #5
    Overworked/Underpaid


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    Peter Alpiger
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by 96LT1355Z28 View Post
    Nice job my only addition is if the car is going to be raced with sticky tires do not use greaseable U-joints get the solid ones. That really doesn't pertain to the clutch swap wright up though!
    Oh really? What's the difference in the greased and non-greased U-joints in a race application? And are you talking drag race or road race?
    96 Trans Am WS6 LT1 M6: 10/7/11 - current: 245.7 RWHP / 266.2 RWTQ - 14.462s @ 98.28 MPH
    94 Corvette LT1 A4: 4/12/13 - current: No dyno #s yet - 9.547s @ 75.11 MPH (1/8 mile)
    92 Lumina Euro 3.4L LQ1 A4: 1/15/06 - current: The beater car that refuses to die...

  9. #6
    10 Second N/A Club


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    Drag race, the greaseable U-joints are hollow in the center which makes them weaker and more prone to breaking from drive line shock. Non serviceable or solid U joints are stronger and will hold up to the abuse longer.
    -Josh
    co-owner of BDBRacing.com
    NMCA OC 9004
    96, N/A 385, Holley EFI, Faceplated M6, AI TFS heads, LE SR cam, MWC Fab 9
    10.16 @ 136 1.50 60'........still workin on that 60' shootin for 1.4's!

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  11. #7
    Overworked/Underpaid


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    Peter Alpiger
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by 96LT1355Z28 View Post
    Drag race, the greaseable U-joints are hollow in the center which makes them weaker and more prone to breaking from drive line shock. Non serviceable or solid U joints are stronger and will hold up to the abuse longer.
    Ah, thank you! Guess I should return these before I install them then.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Xparent Red Tapatalk 2
    96 Trans Am WS6 LT1 M6: 10/7/11 - current: 245.7 RWHP / 266.2 RWTQ - 14.462s @ 98.28 MPH
    94 Corvette LT1 A4: 4/12/13 - current: No dyno #s yet - 9.547s @ 75.11 MPH (1/8 mile)
    92 Lumina Euro 3.4L LQ1 A4: 1/15/06 - current: The beater car that refuses to die...

  12. #8
    my 3 little angels


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    Default

    Great info man! I can't seem to find any rental places around me though, knowing what you know now would you recommend doing this alone on jack stands in the carport?

    JASON.C '97'm6,pro 5.0,k&ncai,bbk52mm w/bypass,magnaflow cats,flowmaster c/back,strano springs,kyb agx shocks, lca relocate brackets,hounds tooth 30th interior,70k

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