[toolapcfan]

When I did mine in the XE, I found that even after all the bolts were out, the tranny held tight because of two alignment pins. So you might have to put a wedge in on one side while you work the other loose and back and forth like that. The tranny's really light, so you don't need a tranny jack, almost anything will do. Make sure you put the new clutch disc in, in the right direction, easiest way to tell, is note which side of the disc has more of the springs on it when you take the old one out. You'd have to try to put it in backward though, it really only fits one way, with the springs having more offset on the side that you'll see through the PP. Drain the tranny before you pull the shafts out, you'll have less mess to clean up. If you've never taken shafts out before, buy a nice pickle fork to pop the lower ball joints loose, or just smack the lower control arm with a mallet near the joint, that works as well. You disconnect the sway bar from the lower control arm as well, so you don't have to fight against it to get the lower joint out of the spindle. Then just swing the spindle away enough that you can slide the shaft out of the spindle first, then pull it out of the tranny. Use a large screwdriver or pry bar to pop the shaft out of the tranny. To make electical connector hookup easier when you're done, because you'll be tired by that point, you might consider writing numbers on masking tape and putting in on each half of the connectors, 1 connects to 1, 2 connects to 2, etc. Instead of trying to get the clutch cable off of that big ass bracket where it adjusts, I just removed that bracket. It helps to have a 24" extension to get the backside motor mount bolts out. And be sure to draw a little map of the engine to tranny bolt locations because they're not the same lengths and you can waste a lot of time trying to ge the right ones back where they're supposed to go. Also, grease the shit out of the throwout bearing and the lever that the throwout bearing connects to. I cleaned the inside of the housing out with brake cleaner. I really cleaned the shaft of that lever out good and filled that lower hole where it sets with grease and then pushed in back down in. Spend the extra money for full synthetic grease, it's only a few bucks for a can of it. I also put in full synthetic tranny grease as well. I couldn't beleive how much clutch pressure I used to have and now, the gas pedal has more pressure than the clutch. You can depress the clutch with your pinky practically. If your cv boots are split, just put in new shafts while they're out, new boots won't last. Plus the shafts are only like $60 each after core at Auto Zone. Ok, now I'm getting long winded. It's time consuming but really pretty easy and you'll save yourself about $200. Good luck.

 

[toolapcfan]

Thanks, I try to do my bes tto help and enjoy doing it. Besides, GA16 guys get a bad rap from SE-R guys, and having been on both sides of that, I have a soft spot for them. I agree about the smacking of the lower control arm. I'd only do that If I'd had the joints loose previously that year. I did my shafts about two months before I did my clutch, and to get the lower joints loose the first time I did just like you said, cranked the wheel all the way one way, pulled the shaft out as far as I could after I'd loosened the bal joint nut as far as I could, and I layed a 3/8" breaker bar vertically onto the nut. Smacked it with a maul and it worked well since you can't get a good smack on the thing with the shaft still in place. Something else that I know remember, when putting the ball joints back in, they wanted to spin when I tried to tighten the nut, so I put the floor jack under the ball joint and lifted up until the car was almost off the jack stand, so all the weight as on that joint. It didn't spin anymore and I was able to get the nut on far enough to put the pin back in.