i took my 5sp out to change my clutch, now when reinstalling it, it gets about 1/2" from the motor and wont go any further. ive raised motor, lowered motor, manhandled the tranny but nothing. any idears

 

Did you use the clutch alignment tool? Sometimes it's a bitch.. You have to keep pushing. Have a person turn you motor by hand.. That might help.

 

Its tough by yourself, When I did mine I hade a buddy work the jack and I crawled under from the front and lifted the bellhousing into place while my buddy shoved it...went right in the first try.

 

yea i used the alignment tool, its not possible it came unaligned is it? as far in as it is right now im pretty sure the shaft is thru the clutch so its gotta be something else.

 

Did you pack the pilot bearing and bore with a lot of grease?

Have you tried starting and tightening the upper tranny bolts to see if it pulls it in any more? Note, don't try to tighten them any more if the tranny won't move while they're being tightened...

 

Did you change the pilot bearing? I had the same problem on a 1970 Firebeird after I installed a new clutch. The problem I had was that I did not get the pilot bearing in all of the way and it was not seated properly. Your pilot bearing not seated properly could be causing the 1/2' gap.

 

i left the pilot bearing alone. should i shove a bunch of grease in the shaft anyways?

 

It sounds like the bolt that remains in the engine (on top right behind the UIM) is blocking you from getting the tranny aligned correctly. Check to see how far the engine shifted forward without the tranny attached. You might need to have a second person push on the engine toward the rear of the car or just apply weight to the rear of the UIM to try and level the engine back out so the input shaft will align correctly as well as that bolt. Once aligned and all the teeth on the input shaft mesh the tranny should slide right up to the engine.

This may or may not be your issue but it sounds very similar to an issue I had a while back. Try it and post whether this helped or not.

 

No, other way around- if you pack a bunch of grease in there, and have a good grease seal installed, you're fighting trying to push the input shaft into the now almost airtight pilot bore. You can actually feel it- the tranny will "bounce" back at you a little each time you try to shove it home...

Can you get any of the upper bolts started?

 

its a hair too far off to start the bolts. i think its the stud up top, im thinking maybe it bent and the hole in the bellhousing is catching on it. how important you think that stud is to the securing of the bellhousing to the motor?

 

i have the same problem last week doing my clutch ... it was the pilot bearing the problem , make sure you replace the pilot bearing and the seal
eddy

 

well im gonna go wrestle with it some more, ill be back in a few minutes so keep the ideas coming.

 

Last time I did mine I had to wrestle with it, and I got it started like you and just gave it a good shove/kick with my feet then it went right in

 

Turn the pully on the engine, rotate it around and it will just slide in. We used to manhandle it in and then my friend got a job at a shop and they told us how to do it right. We can change out the clutch in the 86 corolla in about an hour now.

 

Its harder to do it by yourself, but it is possible. Its all in the angle of the dangle. If you are laying on your back holding the tranny up, slightly wiggle it around in a circle while pushing toward the engine. Thats how I got mine to go. Sometimes it goes right away, sometimes you gotta mess with it for 15 minutes. Not much else to tell you. Someone already mentioned that you don't want the pilot bearing to be full of grease, else the tranny input shaft will not slid in because the grease is being compacted and taking up all the room.

 

ive tried it all and no luck

 

Welll you need to change that pilot bearing while its out. That is a very cheap....expensive mistake. Cheap to change/Expensive if it goes out and you have to pull the tranny again

 

This may sound stupid but i had no help while completing the auto to 5-sp swap on my 87gxl ,im 6'1 150 lbs and skinny. what i did was used a jack to get it up on the tranny shaft the got under it put one foot on each side on the bellhousing lifted up with my hands on the rear end of it and wiggled it around and proceeded to kick it until i beat it into submission! it will go in you just have to apply enough force at the right time, took me about three times before i felt it slide in.

 

When I did it just by myself, I bought a longer bolt for the driver side upper bolt. Then tried tighten it just a little by little. When I was sure that they aligned and I could go further, I replaced the longer one w/ stock bolt and started tightening them.

 

I had a fit the first time I replaced my transmission, and finally ended up renting a transmission jack.

I ended up cutting the heads off some long bolts that fit the mounting holes, grinding their head end to a dome shape, and cutting screwdriver slots in them. Now I screw in these bolts I made and use them as guide rails to rest and slide the transmission on. They keep the transmission aligned and help avoid damage to the pilot bearing, so that I can just turn the output shaft and push until the input shaft engages. Then I use the screwdriver slot to remove the guide pins and replace them with the proper mounting bolts. That method saves a lot of frustration for me.

 

Damn good idea, buttsjim...

I just pull the whole damn engine/tranny out of the car to do tranny work now. Got it down to a science, lol...

Screw that crawling under the car crap

 

yea im figuring at this point that i probably toasted my pilot bearing from all the wrestling ive been doing with the tranny. guess im gonna drop it back down and spend a few hours trying to get that flywheel off.

 

^^^once you back off and look at what was happening (when the tranny is back on the floor) you'll see what was going wrong.

 

wait, i dont have to remove the flywheel to change the pilot bearing, is that correct??