ok guys. i removed the gearbox on my car today. and ill attempt to write up a tutorial and throw in some BLURRY BLURRY pics. (sorry, used to my camera which has antishake, forgot my sisters didn't, and on the small 1.8" screen you cant tell they are so blurry.
ok first up, im not saying my way is the only way, nor the best way but is how i did it today. so if i leave anything important out, please make a note, but don't flame me plz! :P
first up, i will list teh tools i used.
Jack Jackstands (never work under a jack)
a GOOD socket set. a cheap one will NOT do, i will soon show why. and you will need basically every socket from 10-24 and also a 32mm socket too.
a lot of the work tho, is for suspension and mounts etc, which tends to be of the 17mm variant. spanner set,ratchet spanners would be an absolute GODSEND. but unfortunately, many of use arent made of money so cant. Breaker Bar
Pliers: long nose preferred vise gripsengine crane (not entirely needed, but if your doing it by urself like me. it makes life a lot easier, plus a gearbox weighs 60kg or something. engine stabiliser:i didnt use one, but i have a totally stuffed engine mount (timing case side) which im replacing, so i dont care how dead it is, but if ur not replacing it, use a stabiliser, or an extra jack under the sump with a piece of wood to balance, otherwise you WILL ruin the mount.
a lot of time: for me it took me about 3 hours today with taking lots of photos, and also orgnaising the nuts and bolts for future sakes, i put it back on last time iwht others without them organised, and it wasnt too hard, but just takes longer. plus it also helps not to do it on a 36 degree day!!
oh and this is why i say to use good tools. i have a good socket set (about $250) but also have a few spares that have been passed down the family tree which i use occasionaly when i need multiples of the same thing.
this was one of the spares, which was junk. that is undoing the hub nut (requires a breaker bar!)
Step 1: loosen wheel nuts and hub nuts. (both sides)
if you cant remove a wheel. press the backspace button on your keyboard now. if your doing this by yourself. its required to do this before you jack the car, or else your wheel will spin, if friends helping, get em to sit on the brake. the hub nut requires a 32mm socket, and use the breaker bar as an extension to the standard ratchet or breaker bar you get with a socket set.
step 2: jack car up, put jack stands underneath (both sides) and take off wheels, but leave the hub nuts on finger tight. i will tell you why later.
step 3: remove cooler piping and afm. i know not every pipe is needed to be removed. but i suggest so anyway, its really not difficult to put back on, if you struggle with that, take a photo before you take it off so you can see where it all goes.
with the afm. look after it, don't throw it around.
step 4: take out battery, and take off the nuts holding the fuse box down, just so it can be moved around a bit.
battery has two nuts on top of the rods, take the nuts off, remove the rods, remove the battery, then also remove the two 10mm bolts holding the battery tray in, and remove that too.
step 5: remove control arms & sway bar links (driver and passenger side)
ok, with the control arms, there are two main 17mm nuts, that mount the control arm to the k Frame. remove the nuts, push the bolt that the nuts go on out, and after this, you can drop that end of the control arm. leave the ball joint end (brake end) till last, just makes it easier i find.
now the fat end of the control arm is hanging down, with your 12mm ratchet, and also a 12mm spanner, take off the sway bar link. its easy enough, but remember in which order the washers and bushes go if you cant figure it out.
once the sway bar link is off you can then remove the ball join end of the control arm that holds it to the strut. just remove the 14mm nut and bolt, and pull it out, i prefer having the other end of the control arm already down so u dont pull it and sandwhich your hand on the ground.
step 5: remove crossmember. this is basically a strengthening beam that goes from k frame to kframe. it has 4 15mm(i think) bolts holding it on (2 on each side) and is very easy to remove.
this photo only shows one end of the crossmember bolted to a kframe. which shows the 2 bolts on each side.
step 6: speedo cable removal: remove the whole speedo drive gear from the gearbox, just remove the 10mm bolt holding it to the gearbox, also unplug the plug coming from it (i presume 4ws only, for speed sensoring)
but when removing the bolt be careful, if its at all tight, use wd40, snapping it loose can cause it to break the mount for the speedo drive gear in which it would leak oil from.
to remove the drive gear from teh gearbox, simply give it a tiny wiggle and pull it straight out, it really shouldnt be a problem but if its tight, be careful again, because you will break the mount.
step 7: drop gearbox oil. theres a bolt/plug on the bottom of the gearbox, its like a size 22 or something remove that slwoly, and when its about to come out, remove it by hand so you can pull it out quickly before you get it all over you/ground.
step 8: remove clutch line, and slave cylinder.
im very very sorry guys, but i didnt get a picture of this stuff, i totally forgot and only remembered it then. but there should be a metal line that goes from your clutch master cylinder to your clutch slave cylinder, and is bolted to your gearbox in 2 places along the way.
VISE GRIPS are needed for this. as the clutch line nuts are made of very very soft metal, and even the right size spanner will round it off, so to remove it please use vise grips. it saves a lot of heartache. reomve the clutch line from where it first gets to the firewall, and then undo the mounts for it along the gearbox. then when it gets to the slave cylinder, you will have 2 X 12mm (i think) bolts that holds the slave cylinder to the gearbox so it can push the clutch fork. remove these bolts, and remove the slave and line together or apart.
step 9: remove driveshafts. (both sides. dont listen to cam22. he reckons you can do it without driverside shaft being removed, but i call his bluff! :P hehehe j/k hes just obviously a much better gbox remeover than i and can do it, but i had problems getting the box off, so had to come back to this, and remove driver side [img]images/smilies/pissed.gif[/img] which because of the mounting bracket to the block, i didnt want to do.)
this is why i suggested you leave the hub nut on the dirvesahft where it goes through the wheel hub finger tight before. reason why, its a lot easier to pull the driveshaft out of the gearbox by just holding the rotor and pulling that, than taking the shaft out of the hub, and the pulling on the shaft itself to pull it out of the box. this way also helps prevent bruises, and cuts!
note this picture shows teh shaft/outer cv out of the wheel hub, its just for illustation purposes. that shaft goes into the hub, hub not then screws on, and pull. shouldnt need to pull that hard.
do this BOTH sides (:P craig)
step 10: remove shifter linkages.
theres two linkages. dont listen to some people when they say one linkage is for forward and back, and one is for side to side. one of the linkages does all, and the other just bolts to a bolt hanging out of the box as a sort of strengthening/stabilising rod.
put them as far as you can to the driver side once removed. as you dont want them in the way when your dropping the box.
step 11: remove starter motor. there are 3 or 4 bolts for this. undo them all, and then pull it back, some of the bolts are tricky to get to, and by memory, may require a spanner to get to [img]images/smilies/frown.gif[/img]
step 12: remove electrical wires. from underneath your car, you will be able to see some wires that are grounded to the gearbox. follow them, they will goto plugs at the passenger side headlight assembly, remove them now. also remove any other earths or wires to the box, as dropping it will mean fixing it! :P
step 13: put in engine stabiliser bar/ jack with a large bit of wood under sump. this is to whole the engine straight as when you undo the gearbox mounts, you dont want the whole weight hnanging off one mount!
i didnt do this coz my mount is already stuffed.
step 14: put engine crane in, if you cant have access to this, a trolley jack holding up the gearbox should do. but is rdangerous!
for the engine crane, the way i got it holding to the gearbox, was a seatbelt through the ventilation holes in the gearbox (remove both rubber vents first :P) do a doublt knot in the seatbelt, and then put the cranes clip in so it picks the gearbox up by the seatbelt. many other ways can be used to do this, but this is what i had at home, so this is what i used! :P
sorry, i forgot to take a picture of this, and this pic is showing the gearbox half hanging off.
step 15: remove bolts on bottom half of gearbox: theres a couple of 10mm bolts at the inspection plate, and a couple of 17mm bolts also.
step 16: remove k-frame. and undo all engine mounts. the rear engine mount is on the kframe itself. remove the 2 bolts holding the mount to the gearbox, and the bracket that the bolts screw into will automatcially fall off. you dont need to remove this mount from the kframe, as when u remove the frame, it willcome off aswell.
front mount: the front gbox mount at the radiator, is done by removing all bolts to the gearbox, but leave it mounted to the radiator support frame, its fine there.
the top gearbox mount at the strut tower, remove the 3 17mm nuts on the gearbox, and remove the nut and bolt holding the mount to the braket which is held by the body. try to now remove this mount, but if you cant, you may have to wait till the box is lowered a little to get it off.
now remove the k frame. i thinks theres only 4X bolts (17mm again i think) and 1 17mm nut 2 at the rear mount end, and 3 holding it to the radiator suppot.
remember only does this stage after supporting the engine and gearbox, else you WILL die!
this is basically a photo of the rear mount on the kframe. but a very sucky photo.
also, theres a hose that is mounted to the kframe itself, this is what you will need the pliers for. to get the clamp off it.
step 17: remove 5 main bolts holding on gearbox. tehres five main bolts holding on the gearbox at the top. 2short ones, 2 long ones, and 1 medium length one, all wiht the same thread and all 17mm.
remove them all, but then put the 2 largest bolts into the position of the 2 smallest bolts, this is so when you pull the gearbox apart from the engine, it wont fly straight into your strut tower, it will only come out as far as those longer bolts! (thanks cam22 for this advice)
step 18: with the gearbox supported, stand at passnger side guard, and pull the gearbox off, by pulling it towards you, or towards teh guard, this is because you need the primrary shaft to come out from the clutch friction plate. do not drop the box without doing so or you will mostlikely kill your clutch, and possibly do damage to your primrary shaft, and flywheel.
if you cant get the gearbox seperated from the engine itself, you may need to get out a flat head screwdriver to pry it apart physically.
step 19: slowly lower the gearbox onto something like a skateboard, matt etc. i like the skateboard idea, because they can easily take the wieght, and its an easy way to roll 60kg of gearbox out from under the car.
mmmm 2500lbs of rx7 pressure plate goodness :P
and VOULA!
gearbox is out! hooray.
there you go guys. hopefully that may help you guys with your troubles or ventures.
im sure i have forgotten to put in a lot. so please add to this. and i will try to edit it along the way. also i know my spelling is shocking in this thread. its taken my 3 hours to do this writeup so dont whinge! :P
also, as a tip. when you remove nuts/bolts, put them on pieces of paper to label what they were from. it will make your life easier when putting it back on. but really its not that hard, you can generally work out what is needed.
just hard to find something with a bunch of about 100 nuts/bolts and another 100 washers! :P
please guys dont be silly with this, allow yourself a weekend if youve never done something close to this big before. it can be a little daunting.
a couple guys to thank are cam22: spent quite a long time on the phone with him, hes given me some very good advice, except for the dont take out driver side shaft :P ahahaha
sabbai: helping me put the box back on last time. and also stealing my coil today when he cam around for 1/2 an hour on his lunch break! :P
zorb rules. helped with installation last time!
oh and guys n gals. this is about 1/4 of the crap i have lying on the floor in my garage. its really quite daunting to look at! :P
well if you know it you don't need to know which is which cause u already know it in your head if your not smart, you use snap lock bags and label the bag, i.e. outer main gearbox bolts. u might wanna pay attention when someone shows you and tells you how to do it all. lastly you wanna be a smart ass, thats fine, things come back ten fold.
The only reason we removed it was casue the box was still stuffed. I drove it before it was repaired, and I drove it when we got the box in. Same thing. Not fixed.
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PARTING A LOT OF 2g STUFF
