Replacing a clutch disc and pressure plate is probably on your “take it to the mechanic” list. It shouldn’t be -- replacing a whole clutch assembly is something the skilled DIYer can do in a home garage or, as YouTube mechanic ChrisFix shows, a driveway. Now, it’s worth mentioning that replacing your clutch without a lift means dropping your transmission without a lift, which is not exactly as easy as the video makes it out to be -- though, it’s mostly just heavy and awkward.
After you get the transmission out of the way, you can get a good look at all the pieces that allow the power to travel from your engine to your transmission. Basically, you’ll see a pressure plate bolted to a flywheel. On the transmission, you’ll still see your clutch arm and clutch release bearing -- often called a throw-out bearing. Obviously, there are different styles of clutch release bearings, many of which now have the hydraulic slave cylinder built into the release bearing itself. On older external slave cylinder hydraulic clutch systems, you’ll probably want to replace that too. Though, on even older mechanical clutch linkages, you’ll just want to replace your throw-out bearing and inspect the clutch linkage. Clutch Hydraulic Slave Cylinder
As ChrisFix shows, hiding behind that pressure plate is your clutch disc -- the common culprit in clutch problems. You’ll also have a better look at your flywheel friction surface and pilot bearing. The pilot bearing, or bushing, is what the input shaft of your transmission rides on after it slips into the back of your engine’s crankshaft. These are always a good idea to replace, but heavily worn bushings or failed bearings could be a sign of a tired transmission. Spoiler alert: ChrisFix finds this out later in his video, which leads him to replace the transmission. In the video, ChrisFix also shows how you can replace the pilot bearing with a special tool or by forcing it out with grease and bread. The tool is far, far cleaner.
From there, you can remove the flywheel. Now, ChrisFix shows a way to get by with just hand tools and locks his flywheel with a wrench fighting a pair of loosely screwed-in bolts. That’s definitely a way to break the flywheel bolts loose -- or, you can just buy a flywheel turner, which locks into the ring gear and holds your flywheel steady and doesn’t risk breaking a bolt into your old flywheel or engine block. After you drop your flywheel, you’ll want to inspect it before resurfacing it -- that means you'll need to check for cracks. Or you could do as ChrisFix does and just replace it.
ChrisFix also notes that this is a great time to replace your engine’s rear main seal. With modern one-piece seals, that’s true. Although, it can open a can of worms if you’re trying to replace a vintage engine’s rope rear main seal.
After that, it’s about as straightforward as a job can be -- basically just replace all of your wear parts: flywheel, pressure plate, clutch disc, pilot bearing and throw-out bearing. With new parts, you’ll want to reference a service manual for all of the proper torque figures. Yeah, that means dusting off the torque wrench you bought a few years back and using it instead of just relying on your internal torque gauge.
The video is about 30 minutes long, so it’s longer than that episode of “Friends” that you were probably going to watch, but you’ll learn that replacing your clutch isn’t more than a day-long job if you have all the parts handy.
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