There has been several post relating to the difficulty in pulling the transmission or changing the clutch. I just finished pulling the clutch and transmission. I have done this before when I was in a hurry, however, this time I had no schedule and was able to think my way thru the process. Maybe the following will help someone in the future.
1. In my opinion if you do not have a lift and transmission jack, have someone else do the job.
2. The driveshaft u-joint straps can be difficult to remove due to access angle of the bolts on the top side. Remove the bolts on the bottom, use a jack plate and lift the rear wheels, rotate the drive shaft and remove the other two bolts. Both the straps and bolts cannot be reused, order these ahead of time.
3. There is some dispute on whether the transmission and bell housing should be removed together. This is the case because several people have had trouble dropping the transmission by itself. I also had difficulty dropping the transmission the first time. Looking back, I believe the reason was that my transmission jack's (TJ) support plate was almost as wide as the space between the frame rails. This time I put a 2 x 6 on the TJ plate so that the plate did not have clearance problems (it lowered the plate relative to the rails) with the rail.
It dropped right down, almost like magic. The key is to angle the tail shaft down, drop the jack a little and keep repeating the process till the trans is at approximately a 15-20 degree angle - it comes right out. There is no need to pull the bell housing till after the trans is out.
It also helps if you have a three foot extension to remove the upper transmission bolts. A tool to disconnect the slave cylinder line is also handy. Be caeful, do not just let the engine hang, especially if you have aftermarket headers, they could end up supporting the engine. Use the oem jack and a jack plate to support the rear of the oil pan. Use a 6" piece of 2 x 4 between the jack and the pan. Do this prior to pulling the cross member.
4. The clutch is pretty straight forward, however, if you have hotspots or checkering in the flywhjeel you will have to replace it. There are some suprises here. I do not believe you can get the flywheel bolts off without a good impact tool. They also have to be replaced. The loctite really fouls them up. They use a lot of loctite so that the bolts do not leak oil. Even with the locktite one of my bolts was leaking a small amount of oil. After seeing this, maybe some of the rear main seal leaks could be the crank flange bolts leaking. Make sure to preorder these also before starting the job.
For those of you that have a hard time hitting second or third gear when you are running slicks. I have talked to several clutch manufacturers and here is the problem. The viper clutch will always slip to some degree when launched hard with stickies. There is only .030 clearance between the plate and disk (when fully depressed), the slippage causes the disk material to expand and it will not disengage. The better you stick the worse the problem will be. That is why on the street there is not an issue in shifting with the same car.
1. In my opinion if you do not have a lift and transmission jack, have someone else do the job.
2. The driveshaft u-joint straps can be difficult to remove due to access angle of the bolts on the top side. Remove the bolts on the bottom, use a jack plate and lift the rear wheels, rotate the drive shaft and remove the other two bolts. Both the straps and bolts cannot be reused, order these ahead of time.
3. There is some dispute on whether the transmission and bell housing should be removed together. This is the case because several people have had trouble dropping the transmission by itself. I also had difficulty dropping the transmission the first time. Looking back, I believe the reason was that my transmission jack's (TJ) support plate was almost as wide as the space between the frame rails. This time I put a 2 x 6 on the TJ plate so that the plate did not have clearance problems (it lowered the plate relative to the rails) with the rail.
It dropped right down, almost like magic. The key is to angle the tail shaft down, drop the jack a little and keep repeating the process till the trans is at approximately a 15-20 degree angle - it comes right out. There is no need to pull the bell housing till after the trans is out.
It also helps if you have a three foot extension to remove the upper transmission bolts. A tool to disconnect the slave cylinder line is also handy. Be caeful, do not just let the engine hang, especially if you have aftermarket headers, they could end up supporting the engine. Use the oem jack and a jack plate to support the rear of the oil pan. Use a 6" piece of 2 x 4 between the jack and the pan. Do this prior to pulling the cross member.
4. The clutch is pretty straight forward, however, if you have hotspots or checkering in the flywhjeel you will have to replace it. There are some suprises here. I do not believe you can get the flywheel bolts off without a good impact tool. They also have to be replaced. The loctite really fouls them up. They use a lot of loctite so that the bolts do not leak oil. Even with the locktite one of my bolts was leaking a small amount of oil. After seeing this, maybe some of the rear main seal leaks could be the crank flange bolts leaking. Make sure to preorder these also before starting the job.
For those of you that have a hard time hitting second or third gear when you are running slicks. I have talked to several clutch manufacturers and here is the problem. The viper clutch will always slip to some degree when launched hard with stickies. There is only .030 clearance between the plate and disk (when fully depressed), the slippage causes the disk material to expand and it will not disengage. The better you stick the worse the problem will be. That is why on the street there is not an issue in shifting with the same car.
