Okay kids! Can anybody tell me what time is it?! It's Stooge Time!!! Today we are gonna see how to remove the clutch from a 348 ..... Stooge style. Since you guys have been bustin my balls about getting my car back on the road http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=293205, I FIIIIINALLY decided to get off my but and gitt-er-dun. To give you a little back ground on what the problem was, I was having an issue with the clutch not disengaging. At first I thought it was a blown throw out bearing, but after I limped the car back home, I found that there was nothing leaking?!?!?! So I bled the clutch line for about an hour, and still no dice. The clutch peddle would go to the floor when the bleed nipple was opened, but when it was closed the clutch peddle was hard as a rock, and would not disengage. Meaning that I could not get the car in and out of gear when I was driving. So I just let the car sit since the fall of last year, until you jokers started busting my chops about getting it fixed. What follows is how I removed my clutch and what I found. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show boys.
Okay first things first. Since the front wheels don't have parking breaks, I blocked the car from rolling away with some wheel chalks. Image Unavailable, Please Login
With that taken care of I went around back and positioned my floorjack under the subframe and lifted the car off the ground. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Be sure to put some jack stands under the frame, so that the car doesn't fall and split your dome open. Safety first kids. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Next I removed the wheels, and the wheel well liners, from both sides of the car. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
With the wheels and the liners out of the way we now have access to the side retaining bolts for the bumper. We'll go ahead and remove the two nuts on each side of the bumper. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now you're gonna need to remove the four bolts that hold the bumper to the rear frame of the car. They are located on either side of the muffler. Since I have the battery in the left rear of my car, I took the battery heat shield out of the way so I had better access to the nuts. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now that I have more room to work with I reached up and took the nuts off. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now all you need to do is wiggle the bumper off. But do it S L O W L Y!!!! The reason is because you DON"T wanna rip the side marker lights out of the bumper. It's much easier to take the side markers lights out once the bumper is off. So once you have the bumper ready to come of REMEMBER to remove the side marker lights. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Since I have a 348 with the heavyass dual can muffler I'm gonna need to get it out of the way. And since I like having plenty of room to work with I'm gonna get the air box out of the way. First remove the intake tubes from the rear of the box. Then disconnect the secondary air injection tube from the bottom front of the air box. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I then removed the four retaining nuts holding my air box in place, disconnected the MAFs from the front of the box, and removed it. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Next I remove the heat shield retaining nuts. Get the shields out of the way. And now the top can is exposed. Is that thing ugly lookin, or what! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Since these mufflers are heavy, (35/lbs+ EACH) I supported the weight of the muffler by putting my floorjack under it, and lifting it just until it made contact with the bottom of the can. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now that I have the bottom can supported I can go ahead and disconnect everything. Looking in between the top and bottom can you can see it's a straight shot to the bolts holding the catalytic converter to the top muffler. So I decided to disconnect these first. You don't have to, but like I said, I like to have PLENTY of room to work with. That and my Gothspeed Exhaust System needs to get put in when I'm done. Even though it's a straight shot to the bolts, in between the cans, you will still need to hold the nuts still with a wrench on the other side. Other wise the bolt will just spin and never come undone. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Next I crawled under the car, reached up, and disconnected the retaining bolts holding the bottom can to the top can. Again, you will need to have a wrench holding the nut still so that is doesn't spin while you are loosening the bolt. For those of you that don't have the dual can exhaust you won't need to do this. Image Unavailable, Please Login
And wouldn't you know it. The last nut I was removing was rusted so bad that I popped the nut off with the top of the bolt. Nice. See Rick you aren't the only one who likes to just twist things until they just rip off. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Okay now double check to make sure you have everything disconnected from the cats, and the cans. Everything looks good, so now I remove the nuts, and bolts from the brackets holding the two mufflers together. Then lower the heavyass can down using the floorjack. You don't really need to lower it with the floorjack, but you do need the floorjack supporting the weight while you diconnecting everything. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
At this point I could have stopped, but like I said I have a Goth Muffler weighting to be installed, and I like having plenty of room. So last on the list is to disconnect the top can from the mounting brackets, holding it to the frame of the car. When you do this you will need to feed a wrench inside the slot of the bracket, welded to the side of the can, to get it on the bolt. Then you can go ahead and put a ratchet on the nut and remove it, other wise it will just spin. It can be a bit of a pain getting the wrench to stay on the bolt, once it's back inside the bracket, but can be head in place. Once the retaining bolts are remove from the mounting brackets the only thing holding the top can in place is the connection to the cats. You don't want the cats supporting the weight of the can because they are connected to the headers, and we don't want bent headers. So get a hold of the top muffler, wiggle it off the cats, and out of the car. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Had me a peek inside the cats, and they still look okay. For those of you that don't know. The probe you can see sticking inside the catalytic converter is the thermocouple. That is what sends the signal to the cat ecu's telling them the temperature of the cat. The honeycomb looking squares is the ceramic matrix, coated with precious metals, which have a chemical reaction with the unburned fuel, causing the matrix to get read hot and burn off the excess fuel, or most of it anyway. It has an operating temperature range, which the thermocouple monitors and reports to the cat ecu. When you have a cat that has gone bad the matrix will be destroyed, melted, or even completely burned out, causing you to fail emissions. Which when is WORKS AS IT'S SUPPOSED TO...........the cat ecu's will tell you the matrix is to hot, and you are running the risk of burning up the cat. Anyway, mine still looked okay. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Okay back to removing the clutch. The bleed line doesn't need to completely removed. It's attached to the gear box housing, and not the bell housing (a.k.a the pumpkin). It only needs to be disconnected from the clamp holding it to the bell housing. So remove the nut, and rotate the clamp out of the way. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Next we remove the six nuts, and two bolts, holding the flywheel/clutch bellhousing to the gearbox. You will notice that I only removed the to bolts holding the the housing to the box, and left the one bolt in place that holds the starter to the gearbox (I'm pointing to the bolt that stay in place with the tip of the bolt that gets removed)bottom pic). Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Next remove the inspection plate cover from the bottom of the bell housing and the box. (sorry fells, I forget to take a pic of that). Now that you have that off, I used a ratchet to put inside the slot on the housing, to help separate it from the box. You don't need to use a lot of force to get the housing to separate from the box. Just some nudging on both sides, and even in the top slot. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Once it's loose, slide the the clutch off and out. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
