[XfactorSTi]

Originally Posted by ChristianCGM

I got the fork pin out. I kept looking at it thinking how is that a plug. Removed it and the fork pin came right out with the 6mm screw.

now the tranny should come right out..

[InfamousDX]

Ahhh that damn pin... my first couple of trans pulls I kept forgetting. Now it's like protocol.

[KiTsuNe]

yep! haha you have no clue how pissed i was when i unbolted the clutch pulled the tranny and noticed there was that pin.

[ChristianCGM]

How long did it take you, once everything was off, to get the tranny case seperated from the engine?

[XfactorSTi]

hope you got some muscles cause that tranny is really heavy compared to a WRX one.

[KiTsuNe]

it shouldnt be hard to seperate the two, you might have to take a whack at it with a rubber mallet though.

[ChristianCGM]

We only did a couple of hours tonight, but we got the tranny case off. We took look at the clutch and it was worn all the way down to the rivets. I could see where it wore on the flywheel.

kitsune - did you use the special tool to torque the flywheel down? Or was there another way that you did it? Also some of the directions say that you have to balance the flywheel 120 degrees or something close to that. What does that mean? Did you just put on the flywheel and torque it down?

[ChristianCGM]

Bump for last question needing an answer.

[ChristianCGM]

It took three days to break it down and 8 hours to put it back together. If I had to say what the worst part was it was taking out the axels and putting them back in. The RPS organic disk is grabbing very quickly which can be adjusted in the engagement point with the pedal. Thanks to everyone that gave input, especially kitsune. Thanks man.

[WolfPlayer]

Originally Posted by ChristianCGM

It took three days to break it down and 8 hours to put it back together. If I had to say what the worst part was it was taking out the axels and putting them back in. The RPS organic disk is grabbing very quickly which can be adjusted in the engagement point with the pedal. Thanks to everyone that gave input, especially kitsune. Thanks man.

Why was the worst part taking out the axles and putting them back in? Can you go into more detail? What would you do differently? What complications did you have and how did you get over that?

t

[ChristianCGM]

The problem with taking the axels out is that you cannot just remove the ball joint, you also have to take out the top camber bolt and the bottom bolt from the strut, I did not mark the top camber bolt with a marker or white out so my camber is just a bit off so make sure that you do this. The ball joint is especially hard since I live in Ohio where salt is liberaly distributed throughout the city making things corode (sp?) faster than normal. So my ball joints were rusted, nothing a little sand paper and grease can help for now. Please do not confuse these with the CV boot joint as ball joints. I am talking about the ball joint on the control arm that comes up through the bottom of the hub. Removing the ball joint was by far the biggest PITA (2 hours each and a crowbar to pry it off), but not as bad as installing it again. Before anyone asks, I had to take the hub off of the strut and the ball joint. I tried several ways, just removing the strut and letting the axel fall out as the top of the brake rotor leaned towards the outside of the car, did not work. Reinstalling the strut bolts and just removing the ball joint, did not work. Either way there was not enough room to pull the axel out, so it is a must to take both out of the equation, this will give you enough room to set the axels out of the way when you start to take the transmission off.

To install it you first have to get the axel back into the transmission, which is not easy because you have to line up the splines on the axel with that in the transmission, while trying not to messup the rubber that helps seal the axel and fouling your axel splines. When you are doing this you have the ball joint constantly trying to wedge itself back in its home the wrong way and also the strut (if you have not removed it by now) getting in the way by snagging on the brake line, while having a rotor that does not want to stay in one place. Once you have the axel in you have to pull up on the hub/rotor assembly and pull down on the control arm to seperate the ball joint from the hole again and adjust it so that it wil go straight in. We first tried to use a scissor jack to force it in but it kept lifting the car off the jack stands. We were left with a 5lb sledge hammer as our alternate choice, which worked out fine since we were able to line the ball joint with its hole correctly and a little grease to help it into place. During this whole procedure be careful not to damage your CV boot. Those are much less fun to do.

A couple of other things that I noticed during the assembly last night was that you have to put the clutch slave cylinder back on the transmission before you out the starter on. The starter gets in the way of the bolts that attach the slave cylinder to the transmission. Also when you are ready to torque down the flywheel many of the instructions say that you need a "special tool". That is not true. I used a 22mm socket on the end of a 18" breaker bar that I attached to the crank pulley. My friend held the crank pulley while I sat under the car to torque the flywheel down. This works because the torque specs on the crank pulley are 90 lb.ft or 130 while the flywheel is much less than that....I think about 50 lb.ft......I cannot remember correctly, I was up till 3am. If you can do the math it works out nicely.

Hope that helps. I just finished doing this last night so if you have any more questions now is the time.....while it is still fresh in my mind.

christian

[KiTsuNe]

The axels came out on my 04 easily, if i remember right they're different for 04 and 05.

[ChristianCGM]

I don't know if they are different, but I know they were not easy. I have been driving for the past two days and no transmission fluid has been leaking; so I am pretty happy about that.

[WolfPlayer]

Any info on the clutch would be cool too

I saw you post a little bit about this clutch ... but, overall I would like to hear your impressions of this clutch, how you feel about it, ... pretty much any thoughts at all with regard to that clutch.

t

[ChristianCGM]

I am doing a 400 mile break-in right now. I think that RPS recomends only 250 miles, but I have always heard that 400-500 is good. I got the pressure plate that is capable of holding 500 ft.lbs of crank torque, most for any of their organic disks. There are others that are not as much, but I figured that it would be enough. Right away I noticed that the engagement was very early in the clutch pedal travel, but that can be adjusted. Don't ask me how becasue I dont know, but I think there is a how-to on here. If you thought your stock clutch was a little stiff when you got it compared to other cars that you have driven; this is kind of like a step above the stock clutch in terms of pedal rigidity, but you should expect this, right? I will post more this weekend after I have done the break-in and tell you how well it holds up the several 6k launches in a row and if it feels like it is fading due to heat or anything else that comes to mind at the time.

The clutch came with a throw-out bearing, new pilot bearing for the flywheel (I bought a stock one from the local subaru parts store), pressure plate and clutch.

I did the TiC bodacious bushing bundle for the shifter as well, I am very happy with this. While it did not reduce the in gear horizontal play much(which I don't mind) it did make shifting more crisp and precise (this is what I was going for).

One thing that I wanted to mention. When you have the transmission case removed and are getting ready to take off the pressure plate/clutch and finally the flywheel. You will notice that the throwout bearing is attached to the pressure plate. Some of the instructions say that you have to remove the throwout bearing before removing the pressure plate/clutch, but that is not necessary. The throwout bearing has a lip that engages into the pressure plate by a bearing(I dont know what else to call it) that is in the center of the pressure plate. You will notice that during the install the instructions say to put the throwout bearing on the power take off shaft on the transmission and engage it with the clutch fork(there is one hook on each side of the throwout bearing that the clutch fork slides into); make sure that there is a layer of grease on the throwout bearing and the PTO shaft because you dont want that thing to rattle and eventually replace it, but make sure that the pressure plate/clutch/flywheel are free of grease so that you dont burn up your clutch. After you have the transmission back on the car and are buttoning everything up(transmission case is torqued down at this point), you will have to push the clutch fork back towards the firewall. This will engage the throwout bearing lip to the bearing that is on the pressure plate. I wish that I would have taken some pictures of this, but was more concrened with getting everything back together the right way.

christian