mating engine and trans issues...yes i searched
 

Ok for the fourth time I will be attempting this. Let me know if I am missing anything here, three bolts acting as guidepins, greased inputshaft, new pilot bearing and seal, new throwout bearing.
Tranny up against top of tranny tunnel, and motor tilted pulley side up moreso than flywheel side.
Everytime, makes it to nearly an inch or so away from mating and then nothing.

Now, before I am told to just keep trying I want to make sure my setup is alright. S5 jspec motor w/ s5 os giken twin plate/flywheel/counterweight, s4 manifolds, & s4 transmission. Will this slide together?
Tranny is in car and shall stay in car if I can help it, limited workspace.

As always any and all help is appreciated, thanks for your time,
dave

Hang the tailshaft thru the shifter hole (use a rope and as close to the floor board as possible).

bench press the tranny @ bellhousing

use your knees to lift the tranny to find the right angle.

Also, if the disc's spline (center) section is painted, spray it with brake cleaner to remove excess paint.

I had the same problem, just couldn't get the splines ti line up or something. It was since I was benching the tranny with my knees and elbows while I tried to slide it on. I got sick of it and pulled the engine out put them together and put it all back in as one piece.

make sure the splines line up

Keep pushin! Either that or you didn't push the pilot bearing in all the way.

It helps if you have someone to push the engine towards the tranny. The more angled the engine is, the easier it usually goes is.

dont be gental....
have hope
it took me 2 hours to get my flywhell off one night. by the tiem i dented the thing up i decided to whale on it with a rubber mallet and it finaly poped off.

man handle that bitch till she lines up!!!

^^ need more girls like this

I've never heard of using bolts as guide pins. I can only see that making things harder.

- use a load leveler on the engine hoist, you may also want to loop a rope around the pulley and up to the hoist to tilt the engine backwards
- align the clutch disk (with tool, or better: measure distance to clutch from flywheel teeth and make even all around)
- put a jack under the transmission so you can change it's angle
- be patient... once it gets close, thread a couple bolts in finger tight and work it the rest of the way in by hand

ok I aligned it using the proper alignment tool and I have a buddy as an extra set of hands and just to help with angling approprietly. But it still seems to not want to go in.

CAN ANYONE ASSURE ME THAT THIS IS NOT MECHANICAL? s4 trans, s5 engine and clutch. I just want to be sure. And FYI I have been manhandling it as little as possible. I already kind of marred the pilot bearing seal so I want to avoid that as much as possible.

ALSO, this is my first experience with a twinplate clutch, I'll take pictures If I still can't get it. Worse comes to worse I'll pull tranny, but given my space constraints I would really rather not.

edit satanic mechanic, this is a possibility, I believe its in all the way but I will double check asap.

I'm just throwing this out there, but did you get the right flywheel for this setup? I've been looking at thier site and not all the flywheels are the same. Perhaps you have a flywheel for a single clutch disc and it's too thick with the dual disc setup. Just a thought as I can't expand thier pictures.

yes the flywheel is for the os giken clutch, although this clutch setup was on the motor when bought. it could be wrong, but it seems correct for what that's worth. its got more of a cage to hold the discs, very different from teh stock flywheel which is on the blow oil control ring motor that came out.

There is no reason that the engine and trans combo should not mate. Your clutch combo might have something to do with it, but I doubt it if it was run in an rx-7 before w.o problem.

You probably just don't have the disc lined up well enough. Those plastic tools have way too much play to get it right.

Are is the gap the same all the way around the bellhousing/engine when it gets close? Are the holes and dowels lining up?

It took me like 5 hours to do this on my GTU when me and a friend changed the clutch about 8 months ago. If I could go back and do it again, I would buy a proper transmission jack. Benchpressing the tranny can be really dangerous if you are having trouble and your arms start getting tired. My friend almost got hurt.

A good tranny jack will allow you to move the transmission in and align it along the several axes that need to match up

The dowels line up, but are still nearly a 1/4 inch or better from mating, and the holes are definitely lined up as I have three bolts acting as guidepins. the gap is roughly the same all around, i say roughly because it moves as we try to get in further.

I shall try realigning again with the clutch tool and see if that goes well, this gets my vote at the moment. I think those damn things just have too much play and the fact that the twin disc has two plates of splines to line up I feel the closer one to the motor may be holding us back whilst we breeze through the first plate. I shall try this tomorrow when daylight provides.

Bro U have this thing man handling you. Nothing can really be damaged if everything is installed properly.

I had the tranny in gear when I did this. I lined up the splines for the engine. I had the drive shaft in the tranny and pushed the tranny fwd while I slightly turned the driveshaft.

If u got a 1/4 left just bolt and tighten. Just make sure you listen and feel to make sure nothing is crushing or being damaged.

You are never supposed to pull it together using the bolts. If it is not sliding in, then something is not aligned and tightening the bolts is going to break something.

exactly, ive mated countless fwd trannies from my honda days and its ALWAYS been a slide in slide out affair.

on the motor
find something so you can lean the motor to the firewall

thats it.

I've found that the plastic clutch alignment tools can flex enough to cause problems.
I was having trouble mating up the bellhousing with the motor out.
When I sighted the clutch spline to the pilot bearing it was out of line just enough to hang on the edge of the pilot bearing.
I re-aligned it by eye & it went right on.

Get a mirror and flashlight, and sight through the spline to the pilot bearing.

SOooooooo. What happen. Did he die?

While offering the transmission up to the engine, have your buddy slooooowly rotate the front pulley. That might help the splines align instead of butting each against each other.

Plus all the stuff advised above that relate to a transmission being attached to the engine with the engine already in the car.

not dead, i just thought bumps were no good in tech section.

thank you all for your time, but we all know from sentence one that this was mainly just a matter of time and elbow grease.
got the motor in easier myself than with a buddy. removed guidepins, which actually hurt more than they helped i think, as it slid right in. but I also had realigned hte clutch for the third time and also double checked to make sure the pilot bearing had seated all the way.
in short, alls well that ends well, sat on my radiator, grabbed the oil pan and the casting on the front cover, lifted and slid that fugger in.