I went to help a friend do a clutch install for his 240 sx. It was the biggest pain in the a## ever. when he did his friends it took him half a day. It took us 2. Has anyone else ever done one because i want to know if it is just the car cause there is no way i would do the z if it was that hard. Half the bolts we couldn't get to and had to do crazy angels, had to spin the trany upside down to get it out cause it wouldn't just slide out. Hammered all around the firewall of the trany to get it bigger. Getting it back in took 4 hours or so of us trying to jack it in on all sides and finally geting in by putting it back upside down and pushing and twisting to get it in. even the drive shaft we got frustrated and used a jack to force it in the transmission cause it woud just not connect. Is this usual on the z. I thought it would be just unbolt the trans and slide it out on a jack? Maybe him having a 240 with a engine swap for a japan turbo one (sr20 it thinks it is?) had something to do with the placement of where the engine sits. we even had to use another jack to push up on what i thought was the power stearing unit to tilt the engine to point lower to the ground. Sry for the length, just venting and now releived it is all together

 

It is pretty normal for it to be a big job on most RWD cars. Especially without a lift, and a lot of tools.

 

my buddy has done it enough times to be able to completely swap out an engine in a 240 in two hours, tranny prob. a bit less.

240s are fairly simple cars to work on, i miss mine still, the simplicity of it compared to our Zs.

 

I swapped clutches on a 240...it was a pain, but not THAT bad. It took a long time, but the hardest part was just getting the transmission back in.

 

I made it easy on myself and just removed the tranny with the engine and did it on the ground.. doesnt take long to remove engine

 

I have done it a few times, both on S13 and S14 chassis....

what you described seemed more of lack of experience - not talking smack...just saying - my first tranny job on an S chassis took some time......its more of a patience kinda thing.

but the 2nd and third, etc were pieces of cakes!!

As for bolts, we removed the bolts from the top first with the car on the ground and the hood removed...

you do have to pull the tranny back, turn it and wiggle to get it out...room is limited. just like you described, thats normal, it wont come out with out tilting and turning the bell housing.

read the how to section for the Z. i have a jwt clutch install how to i posted.

the Z has WAY more room!! TONS MORE! and the tranny pull for the Z is a piece of cake over the 240's.......and i think the 240 tranny pull really isnt that hard...

350Z:
with the Z, start by removing the bolts on the top from the engine bay before you jack up the car.

then remove the shifter, etc inside the car.

jack up car.... i lifted the entire car on jack stands...used my larger truck jack stands up front so the car was kinda pointing up nose first, but not to crazy high, wanna keep things even and not let the car falll on you.

we then removed the drive shaft....piece of cake....gotta remove one bolt, turn the shaft, have someone put the car in gear so the drive shaft wont turn when your wrenching on the bolts, then take the car out of gear, turn it to get to the next bolt......and so on...

then removed the tranny bell housing bolts and rock and roll from there...disconnect wiring clips...etc...

really not hard at all.
-j

 

book time.....3.3 hrs EDIT:no hammering involved

 

OMG... all you had to do was take two seconds and look around. Disconnect all of the exhaust hangers, from the muffler to the manifold, and the weight of the exhaust system will angle the engine downwards. You'd of had plenty of clearance. The 240sx is one of the easiest clutch jobs I've ever done.

 

I did it twice. Why you may ask? Clutchnet sent me the wrong pressure plate and it felt softer than OEM. SOOO... here's what the day was:

6am: install clutch, done by 10am. Go out to lunch, thank my friend.
Drive it . I'm totally pissed. Luckily my buddy had an extra pressure plate from his ACT that was still good.
Swap #2 started at 4:30pm, done by 10:30pm because we were so tired/fed up, so we were working slow.

 

Jeez! I can do a clutch job on a 240 in about an hour with hand tools and a jack. Even less with power tools and a lift. Ive seen my mechanic at nissan take off and put back on a Z tranny in less than 30 minutes for a clutch job.

 

well you guys were lucky. I dont know what it was the bolts were easy to do it was mainly getting it back in that wasnt working. LIke i said i dont know if it being a s13 chassie had anything to do with my friend having a s14 sr20det engine in it. Today i just found out that when we couldnt get his drive shaft to go in and he used a jack to ram it into it place, he told me his car sounds like the drive shaf is giong to blow up think he broke the drive shaft

 

 

For a 240 I could do it in about 45 min. Ive done a couple of 350z and g35 clutch changes in about 1.5hrs

 

nice image lawn dart lol, thats how we both felt.

 

Like lawn dart said.. the whole trick is to be able to rock the engine back with the exhaust, and then it's all easy.

And .. how do you even shove the drive shaft with a jack.. and which direction? The driveshaft should slide in like butter, if not maybe pull it back out a tiny bit, rotate and go in again. A little wiggling at the most, but there should *never* be a good reason to get a jack in there for the driveshaft.. If something on the transmission doesn't go in with some good wiggling/shifting/rotating, then forcing it is just going to cause problems! If the driveshaft slid into the transmission but then he couldn't get the carrier bearing brackets on without the jack, then he has them on upside down.