to have the car back on the road.

I had to pull the driveline to replace an incorrectly installed pilot bearing which was causing me to not be able to shift into 1st or reverse. The car was on jackstands in my garage for about 3 weeks while I get everything apart and then back together again. I know that seems like a long time for a bearing replacement but it was my first time pulling the trans in one of these things and there is a slight 'learning curve'. Plus I really like to take my time and make sure everything is done correctly. In total I probably spent about 20hrs working on the car over the 3 week period. With the tricks I learned along the way I could do it in a weekend no problem.

While everything was apart some of the major things I replaced were the pilot bearing, clutch slave cylinder & clutch master cylinder. I also heat wrapped my clutch line and did some other 'while your in there' stuff.

I'm very happy to report the car shifts better now then when I originally bought it . Just in time to as the weather this week is PERFECT!!!!

Here are a couple of pics of the teardown and the damn pilot bearing, I'll have pics of the car back on the road later tonight after I give her a good bath, she's pretty dirty.

McLeod twin disk clutch:





out the car and all cleaned up:



driveline:



the demon pilot bearing, if you have an eagle crank you might need an oversized bearing... I did.









notice how I could remove it with just my finger. I was just sitting on the input shaft instead of in the journal like it shoud have been, bad bearing.

Bench bleeding the new McLeod MC and hydraulics:



Old slave vs. new slave:



drilled out the slave cylinder:



Reinstalling the clutch and checking clearances between discs with a feeler gauge.





Using a spare input shaft my local speed shop had laying around makes a great clutch alignment tool!



Thats most of the dirty pics. I snap some clean ones tonight
I just wanted to share how happy I am that the car is back on the road and driving better then ever.

 

Nice job...bet it even feels better that you were able to complete the task yourself...

 

Awesome... you should have wrapped everything though... I recently replaced my clutch hydraulc master. Wrapped it w/ header wrap then DEI cool tape over that.

 

ohh yeah I wrapped everything. I used DEI thermo-tech wrap on the clutch MC line and the SC line and I just used tin foil on the gravity line going to the fluid resevior.

 

Great Job! Thanks for sharing the pictures!

 

Nice work!

What kind of clutch are you using and did you have a helper for the heavy stuff?

 

I have a McLeod street twin disc in the car.

A couple of buds stopped by here and there to check it out. All the lifting & lowering of heavy driveline parts was done on the floor with jacks by myself. Its amazing how simple the c5 driveline comes out, it basically fell out of the car on its own, lol.

 

Well, I've put just over 100 miles on the car since Monday. I've been driving to and from work and running errands, even driving it in the rain . I'll find any excuse just to take it out now.

Shifting with the B&M ripper now is effortless. It goes in every gear with rifle-bolt like action. First and reverse are a breeze. The clutch pedal used to be numb, like an on/off switch with the McLeod twin disc. Now the clutch pedal actually has feeling, I can tell when its grabbing and modulate the pedal accordingly.

The car is SO much more fun to drive now

 

I will be installing a new clutch soon as well as a new forged short block so if you could pass along any "watch out for" tid-bits, it would be much appreciated.

 

Very nicely done!

 

sure thing. The best advise I can give you is to use the detailed write-ups done by members Dope & Cajundude. Both are excellent.

 

thank you guys for the complements.

 

Marc, congrats on doing it yourself

It always takes longer the first time you do something. Thanks for posting the pix.