Memorial Day Weekend 2008 Progress

So, where am I now? Since the best wife in the world agreed to spending the money to get the B back on the road, I've pulled the engine and am preparing it for a new clutch and a general refreshing.

Here's a picture of the engine coming out of the car. It was easier than anticipated. I hope getting it all back together proves to be as easy as taking it apart!

The biggest part of the job was making sure all of the wires were disconnected and then labeled so I would know where they go when the engine goes back in.

The rest of the job was pretty easy. It's important to remember to let the tools do the work they are designed for and to be patient.

Notice how nasty the engine is. That will be changing soon.


Here's the engine mounted to the engine stand sans transmission. To get it to this point I had to remove the transmission, the clutch, the flywheel, and the engine backing plate. Removing the flywheel was a challenge. It required liberal doses of PB'laster and alot of pounding away with the impact wrench.

I went to Lowes to find some bolts long enough to fit through the engine stand sleeves and into the engine plate mounting holes on the back of the engine. Lovely wife proved to be good at searching through the bins of bolts at Lowes for fine threaded 3/8 inch hex-head bolts. I was proud.

Notice again how incredibly nasty it is. I'm looking forward to posting pictures after I have it cleaned and painted.

This is why the clutch stopped working. It wasn't the clutch itself that had worn out, it was the release (aka throw-out) bearing.

When the clutch pedal is pressed, the release bearing presses against the center of a flexible rotating diaphragm. As the center is pressed towards the engine, the outer edges, which are attached to the clutch pressure plate, are pulled away from the engine, acting as a lever. This disengages the rotating flywheel from the transmission.

The bearing had likely become brittle from sitting for several years and couldn't handle the stress of being used again and broke into several tiny bits.

This pile of what looks like greasy gravels is the remains of the carbon bearing. It's greasy because the inside of the transmission bellhousing was coated in about 1/4 inch of grease and oil.


More to come...