Bell housing bolts

[Igol]

Sunday will be my second attempt to swap the clutch out on the truck and I'm wondering if I'm mising something?

I've followed Les's fantastic little guide and got to the point where I should be able to separate the bell housing from the transmission.

I can get about a 1cm crack at the bottom and thats as much movement as it'll give me so I'm wondering if tucked away at the top where my fingers wont reach theres more fastenings?

Currently i've got 10 assorted nuts and bolts, though from the searches I've done there could be 14 - though the pic that went with that one showed the 4 bolts where the bracing is and I dont need to remove those.

So to separate the bell housing from the engine how many bolts/flanged nuts should I have sat in my little tray?

[Bowie69]

You don't say which engine, but a 300TDI seems to have 12: http://www.glencoyne.co.uk/images/tdiback.jpg

[JeffR]

I suspect you've missed the ones at the top of the bell housing (won't say how many there are as it depends on how many were replaced/left off by previous owners) also if you feel along the strengthening webs of the bell housing there are a couple of nuts which are pretty well hidden.

[Boydie]

If they are at the top the tools needed are a short 2" long 1/2" knuckle joint and a 500-600 mm long extension, a good cordless 1/2" drive rattle gun really makes life easy, buy or hire one. With the long extension and the socket on the knuckle joint you can get to the little suckers quite easily.

I found the whole exercise easier with the engine and gearbox mounts removed, the rear prop shaft disconnected - the engine sitting on a 4" x 2" wooden block on the front axle and the gearbox supported safely on a trolley jack, then just lower the gearbox down a tad to make more access space.

[Igol]

Thanks for that. I cant imagine 4 more tucked away in the small gap but another then again, I'll have a good probe tomorrow and see what others could be tucked away and then Boydies suggestion mat be coming into play.

And its a 300TDi so weel done for finding that pic on Google Bowie, spent ages and never got an end shot.

i knocked up a wooden cradle for the transmission that I then realised didnt allow for the cross member so supported it lovely - but didnt allow any movement So that could be used as an engine support.

[Boydie]

There is one further advantage of "dropping" the engine, you gain far better articulation to angle the engine down, this makes it a lot easier when you come to playing around with the clutch and refitting the gearbox, just ensure that you protect the alloy front cover with a block of wood, don't locate the jack directly on it as it may crack, and never put the jack on the harmonic balancer as it will turn and roll off the jack !

[Igol]

Turned out that the hard to reach 2 at the top I'd gotten off originally but missed a nut on the passenger side so never had to touch the engine mounts and the box split with ease. There then followed various overly complex methods to get the transmission to slide back enough to gain access to the clutch until i removed the single bolt that was holding the exhaust bracket.

The new clutch and release fork are in and I've a nice shot of the ball pushed throught the release fork that I'll have to stick on here.

Due to my messing about with moving the box back I ran out of light before I could get it mated together again, managed to get it to the point the lower studs were flush with the outside of the bellhousing but then moved the jack and the bloody thing promptly slipped off and scared the hell out of my assistant.

Plan today is get to the same point and then use threaded bar and nuts to pull it forward; I'm on a rough concrete drive and even with a board for the jack to roll on it wont overcome the friction.

[Boydie]

Well done you :-)

[Les Henson]

Be sure that the input shaft has located in the clutch plate before you try threaded bar to pull it on. The gearbox usually goes to within 15mm of the engine. The bell housing bolts will then pull it the rest of the way.

Les

[Maverik]

to compliment Led, make sure the truck is out of gear and if it's going together with difficulty, something is wrong, back off and try again, there should be no real resistance of the box and engine coming together.

[Igol]

Thanks all.

With some jiggling and jacking up and down and only a bit of brute force it slid on enough for me to start pulling it on with the nuts and bolts.

Ok the very top one isn't on as I could feel the stud but getting the nut to the same point with fat fingers in the way wasnt happening.

Clutch cylinders were re-bled and I went for the block of wood on the pedal and leave overnight to see if it'd firm up more and it was lovely and firm this morning.

Freshly charged battery installed and fired her up.

In to first and slowly off the clutch......Nothing!

Reverse was the same and revving the tits off it still didnt coax her to pull at all.

So I sat in the cab looking at the transmission through the hole and wondered what could have gone wrong and more importantly how much of 'a look' was I going to get from the wife and much fun it was going to be to strip it all out again.

Then inspiration.

I gave the diflock a good oiling yesterday and loosened it up. With that in the right spot suddenly I had all those nice gears again.

Mind you its on a sorn since the start of the month and if you ask me the time taken to do the reasonably simple though heavy job......well it went wrong at the start of December.