greasemonkey

As per header, trying to separate Phase 2 gearbox from block and having a devil of a time, never seen one like this before.

Aluminium surfaces (and/or dowels) seem to have formed a terrific corrosion bond, and none of the usual pushing or shoving will separate them.

Any of the weekend crowd have any magic answers?

*Sonic*

Hammer & Chisel ?

Dunno what to suggest really, other than what you might have already tried, I helped with one a few months back (95 wrx) and the only problem we had, was we had left the gearstick on, but it still came out

greasemonkey

I've tried gently separating it with a hammer and chisel. Opened it up round the top but it's still stuck fast along the non-turbo side. It's peeing down at the moment so I've sprayed some WD40 down it and left it to penetrate. With a bit of luck life will be easier when the rain stops.

Bats-Wrx

iTrader: (1)

A friend and i had the same trouble on his MY93 Impreza. In the end with a good bit of prying with a rather large crow bar it came off.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

GM, As you know we do dozens of rebuilds and there is no simple answer. They do stick tight and the only way, is to [carefully] butcher away with screwdriver and so on and keep prising away evenly. Nothing to break, just keep at it. release fluid helps but it's the reaction of the steel dowels-to-the-alloy-block-electrolysis deal.

Copperslip everywhere when you rebuild it all will last a VERY long time.

David API

dij

Have you tried re-tightening the bolt(s) on the opposite end of the bell housing(after spraying oil or grease in the gap)?

I had something like this on a supra,we eventualy got it off by wedging a pry bar close as possible to the dowel and tightening the bolts opposite untill it popped open.

Jolly Green Monster

iTrader: (4)

I used cheese wedges of metal on mine to keep the pressure even..

Tapped them in the top one edge side and then tapped one each side from underneath until it let go and then I remembered the clutch fork

Simon

Katana

Brute force and ignorance is sometimes the only way to go. As others say, keep prying it open with a screw driver and hammer but if you can get a friend to pull at the same time and lift it then its easier. I've never solo'ed when it comes to removing gearboxes before and always have someone to help me.

Leslie

As David says, it is usually the fault of the dowels and just takes patience and steady work at it.

Les

RON

Just a crazy thought, what about reconnecting the clutch slave cylinder and pushing on the clutch pedal, surely that should push them apart, or at least apply pressure anyway, obviosly you'd need more than one person on the job, but it could help, or have I totally lost the plot this time??

Ron.

Katana

Nah wont work mate.

dij

Not so crazy though.It does work on many cars,but probably not on something thats taking more than a good bit of hammering and levering.

Mind you its probably off by now anyway, isnt it?

RON

It was only a thought, I just figured it would apply the pressure directly to the centre of the bellhousing, and not to one side, therefore the dowels would not be getting bent, if you see what I mean??

Andy.F

Good idea on most cars Ron but the scoob has a 'pull type' clutch so you would only pull box and engine tighter together

Andy

Shropshire-Guy

Had same problem on my clutch change last week. Turned out to be bottom right stud corroded to gearbox (near down pipe). 2 hrs it took to get it off, and we damaged stud in process. So it had to be redrilled and tapped. When u do part it. Get some emmery paper and polish dowels. We even dropped drill bit through dowel holes to clean them up, and liberal amounts of copperslip when u put it back together

Katana

To be honest, the hardest bit is ironically the downpipe nuts. These tend to get b*ggered easily due to the heat from the turbo (especially if they use the same material for nuts and studs as they'll "weld" themselves together) and the only way to get it off is a nut splitter which means new metric studs.

Theres no "secret way" of removing the gearbox from the bellhousing. You can try to take the engine off from its mounting which I find to be the same amount of work but again you need 2 people to do it easily(ish). The hardest bit in the whole process is mating the box to the bellhousing.

dij

Good idea.You can have 1 person inside pressing the clutch,whilst another can lever inbetween each press.
It must be off by now,then again its propper crappy weather right now.Prefer to sit in the warm house with a hot cup of tea.

Katana

Hehe I've got to sort my vacuum leak myself but its sooooo much easier to just be an "armchair" mechanic.

andy-type r

iTrader: (1)

Try punching the dowels out with a pin punch, sure drivers will come out all together. Same problem happened to me.