cgt clutch change (long)

[Alan Pritchard]

ok the time came for the clutch change, i got a sachs clutch from german and
swedish for £89 +vat, that included drive plate, friction plate and release
bearing.

followed the haynes manual -

remove airbox
disconnect and remove downpipe
disconnect track rods from joining bracket (not exact words so i didnt
understand and left that)
unbolt and slide driveshafts out of the way
disconnect reverse light switch
support front of engine (cant see any reason why so i wont bother)
disconnect clutch cable
unbolt gearchange mechanism
unbolt top gearbox bolts
unbolt and push to one side gearbox steady and remove mount
unbolt lower gearbox bolts

ok the gearbox is now free, easy peasy you think.  well so far i have
snapped a downpipe stud, so inlet manifold off, then exhaust manifold
off.........

so now its just a case of sliding the box back, ok put a jack under the box,
and pull back...... 10mm of movement and stop,  ok wiggle gearbox....... no
more....... crow bar gearbox,  ok weve got about an inch and a half of
movement, stuck

looking ontop of the box i find out what the manual was talking about when
it mentioned the track rod brackety thingy... the gearbox wont move because
it is now hitting this bracket DOH!!!! ok its easier to shift that out of
the way before you move the box, but, lesson learned.

wiggle and lever some more and its almost free, then stuck again, after much
messing i constructed a 'table' out of bricks and a sheet of ply about an
inch below the gearbox, got to large crowbars and forced the gearbox to
drop, it worked!!!.

upon examining the release bearing i realised what the spring was that i
found lodged between the front gearbox cover and the gearbox, several months
before, it was on of the springs of the release bearing, so the release
bearing always slid back crooked.

my friends-girlfriend's-brother came round and told me he could do this job
in four hours!! this is after 12 maybe....  apparently it helps if you jacke
the front of the engine up,

LESSON 2

anyway sorry about the long email just a bit of info for anyone wanting to
do something like this