mccorry

I've done two of these now... not a bad job at all. The vice-grip trick works like a charm.

On both jobs, I've had to replace an idler pulley.... a different one each time.

The red car.

Doh... dunno... I'll try to find out from the guy.

Mccorry what rims are those.

Yep... RE30's in Mercury Silver.

a) The studs should be perpendicular to the bolt hole in the rear struts.

b) Yeah.. the spring will sit cockeyed until you get the top hat bolted on.

You don't *need* the TSK3. I believe the concern for wear/damage on the snout is as the TOB ages and stops performing to specs. And I imagine you would have to do quite a lot of driving with a failing TOB for that to happen. For about the past month or so, I would get a shuddering in the tranny when slipping the clutch from a stop with a certain amount of throttle. A little more/less slip or more/less throttle would prevent the shuddering, so most of the time I was able to avoid it. I noticed no damage to my snout.

 

That said, I installed it. I don't plan on going in there again and given the PITA nature of pulling the tranny, I didn't want to have to. But, I am someone who tends to be more conservative with such things. Just my nature.

 

You can use the 06-07 Flywheel with a stock clutch just fine. As I mentioned, order the standard hex flywheel bolts with it. That said, this guy is selling a NIB dual mass FW for really cheap. You can't resurface the dual mass when it comes time to change the clutch again, where you will probably be able to resurface the single mass, but you get to keep any of the NVH-reducing properties of the dual mass FW.

 

Also consider your long term plans for the car. If you're keeping it stock, the stock setup will do fine. If you might go to stage 2 (exhaust + tune), but you drive conservatively, then the stock setup will also do fine. But if you drive aggressively, track the car, or plan on swapping turbo's, you probably don't want to invest in a stock clutch. A few hundred more bucks buys you setup that will stand up to abuse and hold higher power levels.

 

I likely won't end up going past stage 2, but what cinched it for me was this: with a stock clutch on stage 2, even a brand new one, I would still have to be careful even trying to take off quickly (much less "launching") that I didn't smoke the clutch. As we all know, it's a bit of an act trying to slip the clutch just enough to avoid bogging the engine without revving/slipping too much. The stock clutch gives up really easily in that situation and I didn't want to have to deal with that.

Very well said.

Nope.... we still all have the issue...

Nobody has found a cure for it.

Several years of it making the noise and not failure to report.... so it appears just to be a nuisance.

If you have decent tools and a way to lock the drivers side cams it's fairly straight forward

now that I have done it.

 

Max... how DID you lock the drivers side cams?

3.5 years after the fact and this thread is still helping people out. I have the chilton manual but these pictures are way better. Its good to read about the breaker bar / impact gun issues. Doesn't sound fun but at least I'll know what to expect this weekend.

 

Thanks

I'm glad it's still helping you all out.

How did you get the front bottom bolts alligned when installing the new strut? I need to compress the strut to align the holes but can't figure out how. How did you do it?

With a floor jack... and push down slightly on the hub.....

In the Spec section you mentioned the dual-mass flywheel couldn't be resurfaced...

I had mine resurfaced by Bully. It does require a special setup so you may have to look around for a shop that can do it if you plan to go that route.

BTW: my Stage 1 clutch & PP, #15-0331 in Oct/09 was $562 CDN (before tax & shipping)

How do you like your SPEC Stage 1 Clutch? Any feedback?

http://www.111emergency.co.nz/FIRE-Vintage/FG1773.JPG

Hint... license plate....

^ Yes, they are.

 

Btw, update, even with the cold weather and 300 whp I never noticed the noise again. With and without lowered suspension.

 

I am running now: Group N enigne mounts, Group N tranny mount, Group N diff bushings (all four) and SpecB trailing arm bushings (in SpecB trailing arms).

DO you think the Group N diff bushings were the fix?