My new clutch is on it's way and I'm looking for a brief summary on the clutch swap process from those who have done the job themselves. I've done more tranny/clutch work than I care to remember - but it's all been on RWD cars. I'm looking for some simple steps to follow, tricks and tips concerning the job on a Protege (LX if it matters). I searched the forum, but the process is never documented. I also have a haynes manual on the way- but that's not the same as borrowing on somebody else's experience. thanks- rob

 

i did a search for "clutch" and found some decent info - just not thoroughly documented as you said.
i'm no 'expert' but the axle nuts and speedo gear can be a potential pain...and naturally its easier to refill the trans and take out/replace the speedo gear while the trans is *out* of the car.

also not sure...but seems like i remember something about being careful that the differential doesn't 'fall' - change position??

bty...nice Mazda`s and very nice Pro
any special plans for it??

 

Thanks for the input- just confirms my thoughts on the process. I did the shafts on the 626 - one hub/axle nut came off with just the breaker bar, but the other one required a five foot piece of pipe slid over the breaker bar to break it loose.

As for the Protege- for now it will stay "as-is". I'm putting a 2.0 Mazda FE3 in my Miata and topping it off with an M62 eaton supercharger and a/a intercooler. It's going to require a lot of work as I've got to fab up the manifold, header, cooling system, tranny, motor mounts... the list goes on. Once that project is complete I'll have a "leftover" M45 eaton supercharger (it's on the Miata 1.6 now) and I'd love nothing more than to put it on the Protege. There's a company making eaton supercharger manifolds that replace the factory intake manifold and it looks as though it'd work perfect for the Protege. Check it out. and installed. This should produce some awesome throttle response since the throttle volume is less than stock and the torque on these blowers feels like a big motor. It may have to wait though- as it depends on just how poor the Miata project makes me. - rob

 

Rob - very nice Pro dude! Of course, I'm a little partial to black '94 LX's .

 

thanks Scott- my Pro looks like your LX's ugly twin (your LX is prime- mine spent five years on a college campus and it's riddled with door dings). Nonetheless it's a keeper- just what I was looking for- but I wouldn't have minded a sunroof. - rob

 

Step by step procedure (sorry for the english him from Quebec)

Take out the batterie and the rack under it, four 10mm bolts,ake out the airbox. On the rear of the transmission there's a sensor with a cable screw in you can either unsrew the 10 mm bolt that hold the speed sensor in the transmission or unscrew the cable from the sensor. Remove the 2 12mm bolts that hold the starter to the transmission they are near the speed sensor. There's 2 14mm bolts on top of the transmission that bolt in the motor remove them. Unscrew the 3 17mm bolt of the support on top of the transmission the transmission his going to fall down don't worry. place the car on jack stand remove the wheel remove the nuts of the axles may be difficult remove the 2 17mm bolt that hold the balljoint to the table bry the spindle to remove the axles from the spindle. unscrew the 3 12mm bolt that hold the right axles to the engine (1.8 dohc) and remove the axles from the transmission (use a pry bar between the transmission and the axles) take a piece of cartboard roll it and put it in the transmission has far has the shaft of the axles went this will prevent the side gear from falling do not remove the cartboard until you reassemble the transmission and the left axles his in place. on top of the car if you look to the rear you will see the left axles take youre pry bar between the transmission and axles and pry the axles off. Take a floor jack and put it under the transmission to support it remove the 4 17mm bolts that hold the crossmember in place then remove the 4 14mm bolts that attach to the front and rear support take the crossmember out place a piece of wood and put it between the crankshaft pulley and the frame then lower the transmission until the piece of wood doesn't move but don't let the transmission weigth off the jack. remove the last bolt that hold the starter in place remove the bolts that hold the shift linkage in place and the other bar that just beside it. remove the rest of the bellhousing bolts. have someone help you to remove the transmission from the motor when the transmission his out to get the bearing out just pull on the fork there's a spring behind it that hold it to a sphere on the transmission. To reinstall just follow the instruction backward.

That's all the information i could give you there may be some info missing put you should be habble to manege the rest.
It's not such a difficult job but then it's what i do everyday at work so him use to it, just be carefull to not harm yourself and take youre time that the most important thing

 

Thanks Atila! you rock! I pick up the flywheel at lunch and will start the project in the morning. - rob

 

thanks- this is the kind of stuff I'm looking for - not something I'd be familiar with only having done the job on rwd. - rob

 

the cartboard piece in my reply his there exactly for that reason except i call it the side gear not the spider gear. It's almoste the same thing has a rwd the only difference his that it's all jam back in the front

 

M2,

Don't take the hub off, just detach the "spindle" (whole brake disc & cv) from the front strut. You will have to pry out the ball joint and remove the vertical bar with the blue uerathane bushings (sorry don't know what it's call, and would prob. get flammed on this board for saying the wrong name). You should be able to slide out the whole axle and "spindle" assembly. Saved me a lot of time. Good luck!

 

you don't have to remove everything just remove the nut of the axles remove the ball joint turn the spindle and pull on it the axles will get out of the spindle. Personnaly i never removed the entire spindle assembly to get the axles off the car don't know any car that you have to remove the entire assembly. The spline of the axles are sometime stuck in the spindle but just put the nut back on until the nut his equal to the tip of the outer axles shaft then use a hamer to get it out of the spline of the spindle. A pneumatic hamer works great for that. When youre going to install it back put bearing grease on the spline of the axles it will make the job easeyer next time you have to remove them. It's really important that you grease the bolt that hold the crossmember in place. Every Mazda with a crossmember has that default the nut get stuck in the rust and you cannot heat them has the nuts are in the frame of the car for the 2 front bolts. Happen often at the job that we have to cut those 2 bolts and we have to cut a hole in the frame to put knew nuts in place.

 

Success- the clutch, pp and flywheel are in. That said, it wasn't easy. Atila- you've got my respect if you do this every day.

Starting the job off, I couldn't bust the wheel nuts loose with my impact wrench or my 1/2" breaker bar with a 5ft. pipe on the end. Actually bent the breaker bar. So I disconnected the hub from the strut along with the steering rack ball joint. That worked. The rest of the disconnecting process was simple and due to the sideways mounting of the motor, made most of the stuff easy to get to.

Unlike the Miata, there's not much room in there to slide the tranny out and in. Taking it out, gravity is on 'your' side, so it sort of falls out (though not without some manipulating). Putting it in is a different story. The biggest hangup was the shift linkage stabilizer bar stud. That damn thing was hanging up on everything. If I do it again, I'm taking that off in the beginning. The upper driver's side engine mount came out since it was removed in seconds with the impact wrench, and "opened up" that area. Though we did have a previously rounded motor mount nut there. I welded a larger nut to the top of the rounded nut so we could break it loose.

Once the tranny was out, I noticed the clutch disk that was in their had rubber bushing inserts rather than real springs. Two of the six rubber bushings were missing - at least missing in sense of their original form. They'd been pulverized into a nice rubber powder that was then mixed with the oil from the leaking rear main seal to form a wonderful rubberized undercoating throughout the entire bellhousing. IMO- the rubber bushing clutch disks are a bad idea. That was fun to clean up- NOT. Also learned that PepBoys thinks the rear main seal should sell fro $58.96! I got one from AutoZone for $15.

I'll report back on later on the stage II CapClutch set up after it's broken in. As far as doing a clutch job on a Protege- it's not technically difficult, just grueling physical work for the "first-timer". If you'd rather spend a long day on your weekend doing something else, and can spare $350, pay the mechanic. I will say that I spent about an hour and a half cleaning oil, dirt and grease off of parts. It was pretty nasty and I preferred not stick my hands back in the crud on reassembly- or leave the crud in the bellhousing.

Thanks again to all who provided some input. - rob

 

When you get use to it it's really easy and i have the tools that make the job easyer also.

 

m2cupcar -
my clutch also had 2 of the rubber bushings missing; i believe IdentityX also noticed the same thing. so i'm thinking it originally came that way...? whatever the case, mine lasted forever...replaced it at ~192K. the mechanic who did it was surprised that it was a Daiken clutch.

also - since you've been in the Miata scene - when i got my clutch replaced, i was going to have them install a 1.6 Fidanza Miata flywheel and a www.capclutch.com kit as well. but *they* didn't think it would work and so it wasn't installed
the pro's 1.8 flywheel has 'heftier' risers than even the Miata's 1.8 flywheel - and of course the Miata's 1.6 flywheel has no risers at all.....less weight where it counts - around the perimeter.
anyways, to sum it up, the mechanic was thinking that the stock throwout bearing would not contact the diaphram spring on the 1.6 pressure plate.

 

atila- I know it'd be easier the second time around, and I'm sure you've got it down to a science. I'm just saying it's a MAJOR job in itself, and if somebody hasn't done a clutch job before (or any mechanical job that big) they're in for a weekend learning experience. Too bad I couldn't have spent an hour watching you do the job- that would have cut my time in half and saved me a few hours including the lesson.

protejay - the deal with the 1.6 and 1.8 miata clutch assemblies is that they're both the same total height, but you can NOT mix and match their parts. I've got a 1.8 flywheel, pp and clutch on my 1.6 Miata right now. Why? Because the 1.8 set up has more surface area - it's an 8-7/8" disk set up vs. the 1.6's which is an inch smaller. This is the same on the dohc Pro vs. the sohc. And the difference between the 1.8 Miata and the dohc Pro is that the stacked height of the assembly is taller on the Pro. That means that if you put the Miata stuff on the Pro you'd then have to go in and either find a throwout bearing to make up the difference or modify the fork. Both of which are going to change the clutch release geometry- for the worse no doubt. And to top it off the Miata stuff (at least the stuff I was shopping for - mid grade) wasn't any cheaper. (Unless of course you're me and have the Miata stuff sitting on the shelf. ) Oh well, maybe I can get that Miata blower to fit on the protege...
-rob