Just Finished DIY RMS Replacement

[c928jon]

Here's how the thought process went:

£800 for a mechanic to change the RMS, £10 for the parts!

Is a day of my time worth £800.....HELL YES! Even if it only lasts 5000miles I can change it 80 times, that's 400000miles!!!!

If you've got the manuals or alldatadiy and the tsb's its all pretty straightforward.

Obviously I was lacking the specialist service tools, but had a ramp. A piece of steel across the ramps with a bit of threaded bar and an old bit of axle stand reproduces the engine restraining bar nicely.

My main worry was inserting the new seal without damage to the micro sealing lip and ensuring it was aligned correctly. To be honest if I have to do this again I'll buy or beg the installation tool. I used the old seal (flat face to flat face) and turned down and old timing wheel and drilled it to suit three flywheel bolts. My main concern was starting the seal squarely and sliding the lip over the crank journal. To be honest when I offered it up it slipped over so readilly I wasn't concerned. I then wound it in turn by turn checking with a tyre depth guage that all was square, I started with verniers but the tyre guage was good to .25mm and so much easier to use.

I'd been advised to push the seal 2mm past flush, so that's what I did. When chatting with the local main dealer he said "the installation tool is a faff! We just drift them in with a bit of copper" I wonder why these keep failing??? :unsure:

My car is a C2 and removal of the gearbox and clutch was very simple, there was loads of room and I didn't even have to drop the engine by the 25mm recommended, I guess I have long arms!

The only two areas that are a little tricky are the removal of the clutch retaining pins, soft allen key heads and the clutch slave cylinder. A gentle shock to the pins eases removal.

The clutch slave cylinder is a swine, I missed the location on the first attempt and had a ***** getting it all in, If anyone has any ideas of a good way to install this let me know.

I'll keep a note of mileage and if the car stays dry, if anyone want's a diy let me know.

Have fun

[my996]

Did you take pictures of the process and/or document the process? - I know many would be interested in this record when the time comes.

[Scouser]

Impressive!

I am interested in this as I was going to attempt it myself months back but chickened out.

Couple of questions:

How high are your ramps?

How did you retain the weight of the gearbox? Did you have to shift it back if so how, also how much room did you have to play with considering the clutch and flywheel had to come off too. Or did you drop the gearbox entirely and if so how it's blody heavy!

How did you splice the clutch back in and align the gearbox back?

Don;t suppose you took any pics of the procedure?

Cheers

[c928jon]

To be honest, now it's all finished I kinda wished i'd taken photos, on saturday it was positively the last thing on my mind:-)

I am lucky enough to have access to a friends four post ramp so could get the car way off the ground, in some respects this made things a little harder as your quite right that gearbox is ermm quite heavy!!!!! and it was a long way down! Had it been about a foot off the ground a trolley jack under the casing would have been much easier...at one point I tried to bribe my victim (willing helper) to go and buy a gearbox lift..no joy though.

It is heavy but if you've ever done a similar procedure on a golf or other fwd car it is soooo much easier, lots of room around the box, it just slipped back and down. And in good old haynes speak, installation is the reverse of removal, now all you have to do is find a way of reversing gravity! We put another steel across the ramps to rest it on once disengaged, this worked well putting it back in, brute force to lift it up, rest it on the steel, then lift and pack with scrap timber until level then wiggle and wiggle and wiggle, I think it engaged third wiggle. It's obviously critical to align the clutch plate correctly, there is a special tool, we had a commercially available universal clutch centering kit which was exactly the same.

One thing that was interesting, whilst working in the area I could smell gearbox Oil, for some reason it makes me want to vomit so there is no mistaking it for me. When the box was off, a little gear oil had passed the seal, it seemed strange as there is no pressure here and I didn't expect this to leak, fear took hold that the oil leak was infact gearbox oil and I'd been running the box dry since the last service (If it has ever been checked!!! I'm loosing faith in dealer servicing daily!)

I took the drain plug out and it was like a coke bottle, full of pressure, it turns out the small breather on top of the box had been blocked with road crud, if you're ever up there give it a spin! This allowed the box to pressurise and force a little oil past the seal.

The workshop manual is pretty good at the technical detail, I think what I may do is utilise this and add my practical comments to it, enhancing comments like install clutch slave cylinder to:

1, take mind altering chemical substances (I wish I had!)

2, spend two hours re re re re installing clutch slave cylinder.

3, wash up and get changed

4, attempt ot drive off

5, experience the sinking feeling of clutch peddle dropping to the floor

6, Fish various bits of fluid soaked clutch cylinder out and rebuild

7, Whilst rebuilding explain to recently aquired 24yr old female that dinner is off, suggest use of text message, swear words aren't in predictive text so hopefully she won't bother typing them.

8, re re re re re install clutch slave cylinder

9, bleed clutch system, using lots of tubing and aid of gravity as helper has long since given in to the call of his other half

10, check prior to getting changed as you don't expect it to work

11, get changed and wipe off greasy hand prints caused by your lack of faith!

12, test drive c/w oil guage paranoia

13 return home, slide a piece of white card under the car so you can show everyone what a smarty pants you are in the morning

14 consume too much red wine

9, check before getting changed this time

10