I love you guys, and I understand how you make a living, but lately these blurbs sound a little like Ricky Bobby after a race.
After lots of hard use, our SVT Focus was due for a clutch. Ignore the cat–he loves "helping" in the garage.
Step one: remove everything on the driver's side of the engine bay.
Special thanks to Shane, a local car guy who's always willing to lend a hand.
After a few nights in the garage, the transmission was out. Also pictured is our homemade, wooden engine support. The idea came from a forum. Yes, it worked. No, we weren't comfortable working under it. We later bought the proper tool.
The old clutch disc was worn down to the rivets. Eww.
Ford increased the size of SVT clutch disks shortly after our car was made. Our clutch and flywheel had never been updated, meaning this could have been the original clutch.
The hot setup on these cars is supposedly a light flywheel and pressure plate. For now, we're sticking to the stock components.
Need to remember where all of your bell housing bolts go? Just draw a picture.
We keep an old computer in the garage, as these days repair information is never more than a click away.
We used old screwdrivers to keep our transmission aligned.
While we were under the car, we noticed a broken exhaust bracket. We welded it up real quick.
Don't forget to drain the transmission before pulling the axles out–otherwise you'll get very oily very fast. We refilled ours with Redline fluid.
It's not necessary to drain the engine oil, but we changed it while the car was up on jack stands. Prolong Super Lubricants sent us a box of oil.
We’d used our Focus as a daily driver. We’d dyno tested it. We’d taken it on a full-fledged road course. And, in our last update, we rallycrossed the poor thing.
Finally, mercifully, we pulled it into the garage and changed the clutch. Our 250,000 mile daily driver was long overdue, but we just couldn’t stop driving it long enough to pull the transmission out.
For now, we replaced the stock clutch and flywheel with a Luk replacement kit bought on eBay Motors. We’ll probably upgrade to aftermarket parts eventually, but for now we wanted to stay in the stock Rallycross class.
And, since this is GRM, we did the whole job in our one-car garage at home. It doesn’t take a million-dollar shop to perform major surgery on your car; it takes patience and simple hand tools. While the car was up on jack stands, we also welded up a busted exhaust hangar, and changed the oil with Prolong Super Lubricants.
After we were done, we went for a spin around the block. Long story short, our Focus has a clutch again! We can’t wait to get back on track with it.
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I love you guys, and I understand how you make a living, but lately these blurbs sound a little like Ricky Bobby after a race.
mazdeuce wrote: I love you guys, and I understand how you make a living, but lately these blurbs sound a little like Ricky Bobby after a race.
Ditto. Though for the sake of all that is good, please do not start hashtagging E36 M3.
Why would I need a clutch if I have a torque converter? Jeez, let's try entering the 20th century with transmission technology...
In reply to Knurled:
Death before slushbox. 
I have actually been reading less of the GRM staff posts because of the "Rickey Bobby" like content.
I don't understand the negative reference here. I see a short statement that the project car's clutch has been replaced with a link to some pictures. Nice idea about keeping track of the bellhousing bolts by the way.
Yes I agree on the "no hashtagging" thing however.
Appleseed wrote: In reply to Knurled: Death before slushbox.
Damn right!
since when is putting a clutch in a fwd econobox considered "major surgery" by car people?
you pop the axles out, drop the trans, take out the old clutch bits, put the new clutch bits in, put the trans back in, put the axles back in..
Not everyone is a superdork; some folks actually need encouragement that they can do big mechanical jobs on their own in basic workspaces.
This is the kind of E36 M3 that turns newcomers off to the car hobby, not to mention you look like trolls sitting in the corner of someone else's restaurant drinking the free coffee and bitching about how bad it is.
Margie
novaderrik wrote: since when is putting a clutch in a fwd econobox considered "major surgery" by car people? you pop the axles out, drop the trans, take out the old clutch bits, put the new clutch bits in, put the trans back in, put the axles back in..
I'm sure you've done it a ton of times, and can knock out the job in a few hours. To the rest of us it's a major undertaking that could take an entire weekend. Wrestling a FWD trans out of a car, on your back with no help is the very definition of PITA.
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