Pumpkin removal etc for Dummies

I coated the plastic with WD-40. I think it worked well enough I'm going to re shoot it with a real video camera



step 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bevGUmktIek

step 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB9zyu19rHY

step 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXUw5Ov12I

step 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1oBI8wz78g

last step http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD1Wtyi1Fyc

 

SUWEETness!!!

And I'll bet Ferrari has a tool they'll sell you for a $bazillion$ dollars, when a strip of rolled up plastic will do the job just fine.

Nice work bro!!!

 

as far as the thrust bering rebuild.. I only did the seals.. I wasn't enough to warrent picking up the camera.

Hold bearing in hand, pull out old seal with toothpick and pop the new one in. They are soft rubber. Total time to change both seals 45 seconds.. you could have your 5 yr old do this while you are doing something else....

The clutch bleed actualy went well. All you need is a little patience. I bought a mighty vac since i was doing it alone. I decided to PRE bleed before putting the pumpkin back on.

Hooked up mighty vac and pumped it up to put some vacuum on the bleeder. Cracked the bleeder open. no air or fluid came out right away but the vacuum pressure held.

next step, light cigar. after about 10 minutes some fluid started dripping into the vacuum pump. I pumped the clutch pedal a couple times with my hand gently since the pumpkin was off I didn't want to snap the pin that holds the T/O bearing on. few more pumps on the vac to bring the vac pressure back up and waited another 5 minutes.. reached in with my hand and pushed the clutch 3 or 4 more times. decent amount of fluid coming through now. couple more quick pushes on the clutch pedal and a couple pumps on the mighty vac. Re-lit cigar.. after 5 minutes good fluid flowing from pump. Clutch pedal now had some firmness. pushed 2 or 3 more times, pumped the vac a couple times and now had solid stream of fluid. Closed the bleeder screw and felt the clutch. Pedal felt 90% I'll finish bleeding with the pumpkin on so I don't risk shooting the T/O bearing right out the back of the car.

I did NOT have the rear of the car jacked up and had NO clutch pedal before I started. Seems like the vac worked great but it takes time.. Put some vacuum pressure and walk away and let it do it's job.

 

Great method, Ben! My new seals were really tight when new, and required a lot of force to get them on, but I'll try the plastic next time. Thanks for posting the vids.

 

Can anyone chime in on how to get the pumpkin back on??????? I wrestled with it for 2 hours tonight and i'm stumped. It will go on just far enough one set of splines engages and the flywheel no longer spins free but it stops there with about an inch away from being all the way on. It simply will not go on any further..

 

The top left pumpkin bolt that connects through the ground strap is longer than the other bolts. Take off the ground strap and/or clutch bleed *bracket* that the long bolt goes through.

Now see if your long bolt can go in far enough to catch. If so, tighten it to move the pumpkin in where the other bolts are then long enough to catch. Then back out the long bolt, put the ground/clutch bleed bracket back on, and then put the long bolt in again. Tighten them all down and you are good to go.


...but...if your long bolt isn't long enough to catch when you've pushed the pumpkin in as far as you can, try lubing the clutch spline area with brake fluid and spinning the starter ring by hand as you push in the pumpkin. That's a cheap/dirty way to align the clutch components with the tranny shaft spline...the starter ring will stop spinning in the right position if you push the pumpkin in fast enough as the starter ring is spinning.

That, plus the brake fluid as spline lube should let you push the pumpkin in far enough to get the long bolt to catch, per the above.

 

i'm just far enough away even the starter bolt is a mm or 2 away from catching (just the bolt without the starter in place) the splines engage but i'm still an inch away.. I thought maybe the T/O bearing being in the fully "out" position was stopping me but I think i'm still a few mm away from touching that too.

 

You pushed in the spline after replacing the triple seals, yes?


I had to twist/rotate mine about 45 degrees before it would go in fully.

 

yep,

 

What ND said, and I'll add the following:

Get the pumpkin on as far on as you can, grabbing the left and right sides and rocking it from side to side while applying forward pressure, then grabbing the top and bottom doing the same. Either the longer bolt on the left for the clutch bleed bracket or one of the longer bolts for the starter motor on the top right will catch.

Once one of those bolts catches, slowly tighten and tamp down on the opposite side with a rubber mallet. Once a few threads have caught on one of the longer bolts, one next to it will be able to catch and so on, and you can work your way around the pumpkin housing. Just don't tighten down any one bolt too tightly so as not to bind the housing while it slides onto the spline.

 

FBB's easy way no force no sweat is to put the assembled flywheel pack on the shafts right up to the throwout bearing. Then put the pumkin on and nail it all down tight with your airgun on the pumpkin stake ring.

 

The pumpkin is ON.... I only hope making a complete fool of myself here will help someone in the future. The trick for getting it back on was pretty simple. The small splines on the end of the output shaft engage first. The larger splines are what was giving me trouble. There is a very very tiny amount of play where the output shaft will turn in relation to the outer shaft. once the pumpkin engages the small splines a little pressure was required on the starter ring to get them to align. The pumpkin then slid on with 2 fingers worth of pressure. I think I have the whole thing buttoned up. The only remaining quesion was on the exhaust flange. Do they have to be in any certain direction. If I recall from disassembly they were 1 bolt up at the 12 oclock position and the other at the 6 oclock position. As long as the positioning of those bolts is not critical I'm done. I didn't expect to finish it this morning so i didn't even have the key with me. Looking forward to a quick spin in the morning.

If I could do this job with my obvious lack of mechanical skill. I don't see why anyone with a socket set and a couple wrenchs should't be able to do it.

Ben

 

Nice tip! Wish I had known it.

Exhaust flange bolt positions are not critical. I do know that much!