How in the !@#$ do you put the gearbox back on?

Simba

New member
Well, day three in my quest for a twin plate clutch. Went smoothly enough up to the point of putting the damn gearbox back on. I've followed the BGB as closely as one can with a ~350 pound lump of metal, using two engine hoists, a floor dolly, and all manner of physical pain. Damn if I can get it back on.

Who has some pointers, and hopefully photos of the correct angles involved?

First person with meaningful insight gets a case of beer. Anyone in the tri-state who wants to put the #@$%@ing thing back on for me gets $500. (Yes, I'm serious).
 

RWDragoon

New member
Well iv never done a alltrac myself yet, but I have done many other types. Make sure the clutch discs are totally aligned and that you can install the alignment tool without any difficulties and that it will go smoothly in and out. If you attempt to install the transaxle and fail it can slightly move one of the discs and stop the trans from going in so check after every attempt to make sure everything is aligned(I assume your clutch came with an alignment tool) apply a small amount of grease or anti-size to both the internal splines of the clutch discs and the external splines of the tranny hub this will aid in installation as well as keep things freely moving while in use (don't use alot though or you will contaminate the clutch disc's) The actual installation is always a tricky ordeal. 9/10 you should be able to fully install the transaxle to the engine without using bolts to "suck it up" by just man power.Lots of wiggling and pushing are required. There are the occasional times in which I have used bolts but only do it if the only thing stopping complete engagement is the dowel pints but use extreme caution if this method is done incorrectly you will damage something!

Another trick I have used is to use cut off bolts or studs to "hang" the transaxle. Use long like 4-6" studs and install into the engine bellhousing to help align .

Hopefully this helps but its very hard to describe. Doing them is definitly an experience based ordeal.
 
We needed 3 people to get mine on, but 2 would have been plenty IF we
had checked to make sure that the clutch disk slides easily onto the input
shaft of the transmission before installing the clutch onto the engine. Ended
up having to lightly file the splines of the clutch disk so it would slide on. Then it took 2 minutes to do. Of course two of the people helping me were
mechanics and weighed more then 135 lbs (ie.. I kept the motor in place
while they lifted the tranny).
 

sikx5

New member
Ive done this a few times on my car now. The twin plate really is a bitch to line up, no other word to describe it.

Ive done it with two other people + myself. Engine on engine hoist, situated on flat and straight, so its dangling there perfectly straight and upright.

I first used my old clutch spline from my destroyed gearbox to perfectly line the plates together. Worked like a charm. Then two mates picked up the gearbox, while i held the engine in place, it just simple slipped on. It required a few love tap from a rubber hammer, but as the plates were aligned perfectly i had nothing to worry about.

Too bad im not in in your area :lol: otherwise im sure i can get that badboy on.

What clutch did you go for btw?

Goodluck!
 

turbo4wd

Moderator
Provided you already have the engine / tranny lined up on the shaft already..

With the engine in the car,and hanging off the passenger side mount, I had a friend on the floor bench press the tranny up and down while I was kicking it in from the side. Took some doing, but it worked like a charm.

With the engine out of the car and on a hoist, I basically did the same thing by pulling the tranny up with my hands while at the same time pushing it into the engine with my body. This was much harder since youve got the engine moving along with the hoist, but it was the only way I could do it.
 

saved_1992

New member
well the best way i have found to do it is

put the engine on end straight up and down (crank pulley flat on the floor with the flywheel pointing up, then the tranny comes down from the top.
gravity will be your best friend, have done this way 3 times, has worked like a charm every time
 

Denver_whiteST185

New member
saved_1992":3nk5ow98 said:
well the best way i have found to do it is

put the engine on end straight up and down (crank pulley flat on the floor with the flywheel pointing up, then the tranny comes down from the top.
gravity will be your best friend, have done this way 3 times, has worked like a charm every time

+1. did it this way, and it works so much easier. it was a pain in the ass anyways, but it worked
 

Sifu

New member
fit.jpg

Missle silo time!
fit2.jpg

Other angle.
fit3.jpg

This is the hardest part. Making sure that this clears. As you can see there was a lot of fighting w/ all that scraping and getting stuck. You should try to twist and be very careful not to have any fingers getting pinched.

Basically let gravity do the work. Put a piece of carpet on the ground and lay the engine flat on the cam cover side. Take off your powersteering idle valve/bypass valve as those are made of plastic and break easily (replacement is like $80 for the bypass valve, you know, Toyota prices). Carefully lift up the tranny and manuever it over the tranny shaft.

Drop it and twist. Sometimes it's easy to get some rope and put it in the screw holes so you can angle that but I've always been able to drop it onto it w/ no problems. When you can get a screw through the bolting points then do so leaving some slack. Manuever that beast carefully and slowly. It will drop into place.
 

etantshi

Moderator
etantshi":25r09dhe said:
Unfortunately no. I live in GA.

I had written this long post about how to help getting the engine and tranny lined up, but it was deleted after the board crashed. So I'll try it again.

If they're having problems getting the tranny and motor mated up then they should do a couple of things I learned when I used to pull this motor.

1st: make sure all brackets have been removed from the back side of the motor. This includes the motor to tranny brace near the knock sensor and the pass axel area brace near the ps pump. If you leave these on it will make it near impossible to line up the tranny and motor as they will get int the way.

2nd: the way I evenutally learned how to do this was to allow the tranny to lay flat in it's natural position on an elevated platform. Something like a dolly or a crate or something that will keep the tranny flat (tranny jack works great), but keep it off the ground. About 8" of clearance or so should be enough to allow you to move the motor around and get it in the position you need without worrying about the motor hitting the ground and giving you more range of motion when trying to line things up.

3rd: when go to put them together I lower the motor down to meet the tranny. This seems to be easier for me because as the motor slowly lowers you can move it left to right to get it around the xfer case. I use a cherry picker to lower the motor and slide it towards the tranny.

4th: once the clutch assembly is in the general area of the imput shaft of the tranny I run a smal but strong nylon rope through the front side bolt hole of the block and the corresponding hole in the tranny. kinda hard to explain, but you put the rope in just like you were putting in the bolt that holds the tranny and motor together. tie one end of the rope in a loop and thread the other end through that loop. The idea is when you pull the rope tight, it'll pull the tranny and motor closer together and help get it lined up properly. As you pull the rope, you can jack the motor back up, wiggle the tranny (since it's not fully on the ground, but on an elevated platform), and evenutally it'll get close enought to where you can thread one of those long bolts in. Once you get one bolt started, you're good to go.

Hope that helps. I've perfected this method and have gone from mating the tranny in 5 hours to mating it up in about 20 minutes.
 

Simba

New member
Jeeez. Four hours later, using the "missile silo" method, I finally got the bitch on. One caveat for multi-plate clutches is that the splines in the disk hub are much longer, and hence have to be aligned perfectly, or no go. The spec I put in a year or so ago was far, far easier.

For those who were wondering, it's a HKS:

hksclutch1.jpg


hksclutch2.jpg
 

Sifu

New member
Snap Simba. You're making me envious since I've yet to install my HKS twin disk. BTW if I send you a pic of the throw out bearing can you confirm it? It seems that HKS isn't helping me much. Looks great man and hell yah nice shop!

You know you're in good shape w/ a crowd like that...

And yeah, when you're the only person wiggling, wrasslin', drop kickin' it then you should be happy that it's not going to break if it's mishandled a bit...
 

Simba

New member
stevo27":a7qaliom said:
um yea that is awsome is that yours??? :shock: :shock:

Nope, belongs to a few friends of mine, though I do a fair bit of work there. Just a bunch of boring non-rally cars in there, anyway. :D
 

Simba

New member
Sifu":syqtln9j said:
BTW if I send you a pic of the throw out bearing can you confirm it?

It's a fairly standard looking bearing. Silver disk, black rear portion, yellow dot on one side. It's significantly thicker than a "normal" bearing, and at least in my case, needed to have its tabs widened slightly to fit over the fork.
 

muneo

New member
Man, all this talk about tranny and motor assembly just drudged up a lot of bad memories. :doh:
It always took that one last desperate attempt to get each step further to pulling and reinstalling that friggen motor and tranny. Whenever we were ready to throw in the towel and quit, the flywheel bolt would loosen up, the tranny would pop in, the motor mount would become dislodged, the downpipe would wiggle out, the spark plug would thread in, the oil cooler gaskets would finally seal properly, the rusty stripped bolt would finally come out, the metal oil line for the turbo would line up,...the list goes on and on. The bitch fought me every step of the way... It must be true love for me to endure such an abusive relationship
 

Corey

Active member
I'm a bit confused on what needs to be removed to allow the engine to sit on its cam cover side.

What is it resting on exactly?

Thanks

Corey
 
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