Felicia gearbox clutch removal

[TnT]

I thought that some folks on here might find this useful, a bit of a how not to guide for removing a gearbox and clutch, some might just find it amusing.

So, one inherited Skoda 1.3LxiPlus – not sure what the Plus is for? Maybe someone can enlighten me at some point? Anyway, it is in dire need of a clutch, and is currently sat outside down a track more suited to the WRC Rally Cars. So, off we go with a chain, a Xantia estate to pick it up. Discover rear wheel drum is seized, jack car up, get out wheel brace, spin wheel, and that freed it up. Push car back into a straight line, connect chain, prep wife for towing a car and off we set.

Not a bad tow really apart from a strange smell coming from the front drivers side wheel, once we stop outside the house the smell produces smoke, which then produces flames, so before we even get the car in the garage it’s two buckets of water over the wheel, and later I discover that the overhaul of the braking system was done without cleaning the callipers up, or putting the important blob of copper grease on the back of the pads in order for them to slide!

Day two, wife away working, suit up, start removal of gearbox, remove rocker cover, de-gunge, polish with wire wool, clean filler cap, clean nuts and washers, replace. Stand back and admire the shiny rocker cover. Right, clutch, can’t be that difficult, plenty of room in there, so I started by wire brushing all the muck of it, cleaned all threads, lubricated all the nuts that were going to be undone by me.

Disconnect the battery, and the negative lead that is attached to gearbox. Undo any other wiring in the way, handy to label if you can’t remember what’s what. Jack the car up, place on axel stands, remove wheels (you might want to slacken nuts of first, especially the drive shafts, handy hint, get someone to stick their foot on the brake, other wise you’ll spend much wasted time putting wheels back on, lowering car, wheel spinning the front wheel, trying to chock it, wheel spinning again, and seeing how great the suspension is!!!!!!)

I later set about undoing all the nuts, and surprisingly they all came off with ease, later it was undoing the gear linkage, and a strange bar thing next to the gear linkage. Remove the wires from the reversing light switch, break electrode from switch, and later thing, darn I read about that on that forum – hey ho, new switch needed at some point!

Day Three - Drive shaft time, what fun this will be, remove calliper, nice and easy with two bolts holding it on, tie calliper to spring out the way, not undoing brake pipes, no point, plus don’t want to have to bleed brakes, check everything else is undone as back is now starting to play up. Clutch cable would be good (doh!) nice and easy to remove though!

Right, with the nut of the drive shaft, it was a case of…..oh bugger, the nut and bolt holding in the ball joint has rounded off, so what to do? Grinder, and a Dremel, and a drill, and a nice thin bar to punch and hammer it, finally it comes out, and comes off. Drive shaft removal from the gearbox, won’t budge by hand, pry bar, ping, out it comes, oh as does some gear box oil, quickly find an empty marg carton, and it fills up. As for the other side? Are you kidding me? Not after that, I’ll remove the drive shaft from the gearbox later!

Mountings, the one under the car is dead easy, just undo it, pull the bolt out. Impressed with the ease of this, I start on the upper mounting, socket goes on, bolt undoes, socket gets stuck, wind bolt back in, remove socket, find spanner, bolt can’t pull out? Daft? In fact the first little daft thing I’ve found on this little green car. How the hell are you meant to get the bolt out? After much pondering, I grabbed the Dremel, cut a nice neat hole just the right size for the bolt to slide out.

So, quick check, nothing else attached, wires off, nuts off, eep, starter motor, thread comes out, joy, undo wires, will sort that out when it’s off the car.

Stand to stretch one aching back, congratulate yourself on achievement so far, realise the gearbox is actually suspended on a jack with nothing else holding it on, and set back to work. Grab rubber dolly hammer, hit gearbox, just enough to get a gap, grab pry bar, waggle bigger gap and even it out. Become rather excited at the eventual removal of the gearbox. Re-evaluate the situation, wing in way, gearbox and engine needs to be on a tilt, lower jack, get another jack for the engine, slide gearbox out slowly and onto the floor. (It wasn't quite that easy, but if I'd thought about it first off, this is how it would have played out) Grab pry bar, remove other drive shaft from gearbox. Say expletive word, realise you’ve forgotten to remove speedo cable, grab mole grips undo speedo cable. Phew. Wow, gear box on floor, move gearbox out the way, grab 12mm socket, and hammer, knock off the bolts undo them and one face plate removed. Clutch? Wow, totally and utterly completely destroyed. One of the best destroyed clutches I have ever seen.

Impressed by the destruction of the clutch, and full of pride of removal of the gearbox with a rather basic tool kit, walk up to house to show wife, wife not impressed, moans about state of overalls, hands, face, asks why I’m holding some that resembles a carbony mess, and shouts that I should get in and remove a spider for her. :confused:

Disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm from wife, phone father, a proper mechanic with a real garage, albeit 800 miles away, impress dad with description of destroyed clutch, a flywheel that still looks ok, along with the thrust bearing, but the gearbox and surrounding area filled with black mess, dust and gunge, remainders of clutch.

All done, and with only one useful arm (ripped my tendons in my right wrist, and yes I’m right handed).

I love this little car, I have no idea why, I quite like my Xantia, it’s big, posh, and full of gadgets, but there’s something about this little green Felicia, and it’s beyond me? Also, it’s the most fun I’ve had dismantling a car, there were many laughs, very few swear words, and no real major awkward issues. I’m well impressed. Although, to note, this is probably not the best way to remove a gearbox, I certainly recommend WD40, a wire brush maybe a nut splitter, large hammers, a 15mm spanner would have come in handy (for some reason I don’t have one), oh, and much easier to do with both hands and wrists functioning.

I'm in the process of cleaning gunge out of the gearbox and cleaning the flywheel up.

I guess at some point now, I ought to order a clutch kit

Not sure if the putting back together is going to be as much fun, it might be? I guess you're all going to have to wait - oh, any tips and pointers would be much appreciated!

[TeflonTom]

pry bar, ping, out it comes, oh as does some gear box oil

haha! i've done that too and got an ear full of gearbox oil

well done!!

i know it's a bit late to tell you this but it's not necessary to unbolt the driveshafts from the hubs, you can leave them attached, and when you release the ball joint from the hub there is enough play to take them out of the gearbox.

you should remove the negative terminal form the battery too, especially if you have left removed the started motor, if the lead you removed from the gearbox touches the body of the car at the same time as the started motor wire the battery will probably go bang

make sure the cirlcip off the inner cv joints haven't fallen into the differential!!

[anewman]

We need to get Haynes to employ you to write some manuals

[TnT]

That would be a fun job to have Still, things like this are just a huge learning curve, never having removed a gearbox or replaced a clutch on car (still got to do the replacement thing) it's a new experience, and has been great fun to do, mistakes were made, but unless you make them, and unless you spot them, you'll never learn from them. I'm the type of person who reads a Haynes manual just for bed time reading, but currently I don't have one, so it's a case of breaking things down bit by bit, learning and enjoying the challenge.

The biggest problem I'm faced with is my wife, her Pug 306 was a nice car, had a few problems, and to her, it's her new car, that's just over a year old, well, it's on an L plate with 180k - which for a 1.9D isn't too bad. It's in need of new top suspension mountings, wheel bearings 4 tyres, a heater relay, a ton of unknown electrical work, the diesel pump seal is starting to go, and to take that into a garage we're looking at £600+ that we don't wish to spend, the cars not worth that - so it's my job to get this lovley little Skoda back on the road

[anewman]

Yeah I guess when it comes to the crunch and faced with maybe £250 for a garage to do it, or scrap car and get another, mayaswell attempt the job first. Even if it gets weighed in for scrap with the gearbox in the boot at least you tried

I'm sure your post will be very helpful for people in a similar situation.

Impressed with how clean and shiny the rocker cover came up.

Thanks very much for the post and pics. Looking forward to the putting it back together phase if possible - you may also wish to get the Felicia section on the Briskipedia Main Page - BriskodaWiki rolling by posting it there too.

[TnT]

Impressed with how clean and shiny the rocker cover came up.

Tis amazing what one can do with some wire wool - I look at it like this, I'm the only one who's going to be working in that engine bay, I get shouted at for getting dirty, therefore if I clean the engine bay, and clean the engine, it looks nice to look at, it's cleaner to handle, and I get less grief, and we save on washing

Plus, this is fun, and I love this little green car, it's never been looked after, or serviced properly - if ever! So it's done well to last, so once the clutch is in, and I've flushed the engine, new plugs, oils, filters etc. It should be a nice little car, it drove fine before the clutch went, so I'm expecting after a good service and a little tlc for it to be even better

[KenONeill]

Well, I only saw one mistake in that. WD40 is an electical waterproofing compound, not a dismantling lubricant.

Get yourself a can of PlusGas. Mine cost me £8, and paid for itself in time saved and knuckles not scraped the first time I used it!

[TnT]

Normally I use duck oil - brilliant stuff, 3 in 1 is also good, but WD40 is all I had at hand at the time, not the best, but did it's job for what I needed

[TnT]

Well today has been a bit of a part hunting day, but as like buses, you get nothing then they all come at once

However, the gear box has been cleaned, so most of the dust and rubbish that was in it is now not. Oh and I found the little bung hole everyone goes on about with oil going up speedo cables etc.

Not sure how it's meant to work, it is very bung like and a tight fit! :confused: Wonder if you can use it to fill it up with oil with a small enough pipe?

A little cleaner inside there now - disamantled the thrust / release bearing, and clutch control bar thing - I'm sure someone can provide a nice technical name for it somewhere?

Something that to be seems odd, is the horse shoe shaped thing that holds the release bearing and housing seems to have a roll pin on the top, and nothing at the bottom, is this normal? Is it meant to look like that? Who knows? Still, it's been working, and there is even wear on the pressure plate, so I'm guessing Skoda knew what they were doing with the design.

Whilst admiring the lack of dust and dirt, it occured to me that wouldn't it be nice to grease everything back up and put it back together, then my brain had a to grease or not to grease debate. Clutch dust, mixed with grease, it surley going to create something that resembles grinding paste? A bit like the stuff you use to seat shiney new valves. However, a lack of grease is going to cause play and issues. So after a long argument with myself, I've decided the covered areas can have some high temperature grease, I've got some in a tube that'll do just the trick, although I wonder if magnatech oil would do the same thing? Nah too runny, - ere we go again!

With the argument over, it was time to lie down and get all the dust clear from the flywheel, and make it look pretty much like this.

It's a shame really, in real life it looks all silver and shiney, but for some reason it seems to be reflecting the large amounts of rust, still, it's not scored, it looks ok, no excessive wear, no damage, and it's dust free which is the main thing.

Need to order parts next!

Nothing to do with the clutch, but spent all afternoon stripping down and freeing off the front brakes - and this is a car that's just had £300 spent on the brakes - on what is what I would like to know! No new pipes, hoses, clyinders, calipers, new pads - and the discs, well sort of new, but way too much wear on there for under 200 miles. Still, this could be a rant (post) all by itself - another time maybe...........now, parts.............

[jeffers]

great read mate, i love reading peoples diaries about how they have done something albeit not quite the right way

by the way ive got a haynes manual for sale as i dont need it any more you can have it for a tenner posted, just drop me a pm if you want it

[TnT]

I have the better half keeping an eye on one, the odd thing is, I keep refering to my C15 Haynes manual :confused: or the father who I'm sure by now is fed up of my Skoda questions, still he is sending me some nice new NGK spark plugs, two 15mm spanners, and a clutch alignment tool I shall have the dream tool kit once he or if he ever retires!

Still, if we miss out on this Haynes, you'll have a PM soon enough Cheers!

[jeffers]

my dad lends me all his tools as well...he doesnt want to but he should get a locked box in the garage then!

also read you had a 306, if you end up scrapping it and breaking it for spares im on a 306 owners site and could advertise it for you if you like

looking forard to any more updates

[TnT]

now there's a thought for the 306 - apart from both top suspension mountings, the tyres, sender unit, fan relay, exhaust, some wiring, it's fine Shall have a nose round and think about that, cause that could raise some extra pennies for the Skoda

Cheers

[jeffers]

Thats practically mint condition compared to the one i had to drive he other day to hep my mate break it, windows didnt work, central locking was knackered, brakes didnt work, head gasket failure, radiator dead, and hes already made £200 off it! there might be a few parts i could do with - the whole fuel system if its the right sort - anyway enough of the off topic, back to the skoda rebuid!

[TnT]

This is more on topic than you realise - this may pave the way to pay for the Skoda rebuild - anyway 'on topic' - parts ordering time tomorrow all being well, rear brakes are to be stripped down, and I need to work out a way of securing the radiator cowling - none of which has to do with the gearbox or clutch - another post maybe or title add on?

[TeflonTom]

Something that to be seems odd, is the horse shoe shaped thing that holds the release bearing and housing seems to have a roll pin on the top, and nothing at the bottom, is this normal?

yeah that's normal, if you are planning on changing that roll pin i've got a brand new of them kicking about somewhere, but to be honest if it aint broke don't bother!!! they are a pain to get out and it's even more difficult getting the new one in......

as for your grease issue:rolleyes: put a smear of grease on the clutch release bearing guide sleeve for the release bearing and a tiny tiny amount on the spline that the clutch plate runs moves on, it's best to use copper slip rather than high temp grease

[TeflonTom]

Not sure how it's meant to work, it is very bung like and a tight fit! :confused: Wonder if you can use it to fill it up with oil with a small enough pipe?

it's just a breather, dont pull it out because a bit will snap off and end up inside the gearb ox...

you need to use the speedo drive to fill up the gear oil because the drive gear also acts as a dipstick for the oil level:)

[KenONeill]

The release fork (horse-shoe shaped thing) looks like a fairly typical design to me.

[TnT]

it's just a breather, dont pull it out because a bit will snap off and end up inside the gearb ox...

you need to use the speedo drive to fill up the gear oil because the drive gear also acts as a dipstick for the oil level:)

Already had the white bung out, cleaned it, and put it back, it stayed in one piece thankfully! Was just curious to how it worked, still can't work out how it works, cos it's a pretty tight fit!

As for the grease issue, plenty of copper, so will try that instead, the stuff I've got is up to 500oC and stays pretty viscous and high temperature.

[richardsfavorit]

Interesting read - good luck with getting it all sorted

[TnT]

Clutch alignment tool has now arrived - all being well I should be able to order some parts today - hopefully

[TnT]

Was tempted to start a new thread, but I think it'll still fit here. During my moments of rest, I try and read as many posts as I can in this sub forum. Subject wise for now have been clutch, gearbox etc - for obvious reasons

Now I'm stumped! I've read that to fill the gear box up, you do it through the speedo cable, you remove the cable, undo a little bolt take it out, fill it up to the plastic gear or thereabouts, and job done.

Problem, my speedo cable is off already - gearbox is sat on a creepy (technical term for a stool up here) I've undone a 9mm bolt, removed it, removed a U shaped clamp type thing, and that's as much as I can do, because nothing else is going to come off, it is part of the gearbox casing thead and all. There is no weld there, there is no repair there, that's how it is, and how it's always been.

So ow the ell do I fill me gearbox up? :confused: I do have a nice little white bung with a tight fitting, but I'm not going to have any sort of level out of that.

I can refer to Citroen's and a few other cars, where you undo the side bung fill it until it drips out, sorted.

So any ideas on why my gearbox is different? Any ideas on where to fill it? I have a few, but how to measure it. I read somewhere that a Felicia will take 2.4litres? So I could just put 2.4 litres in. I also doubt I'd ever get anything backed up the speedo cable looking at how it works. It would also be a gearbox strip down to repair / replace the speedo internals.

Oh for a couple of Clydesdales!

The more I fall in love with this little thing, the more it seems to fall apart :( - Anyway, I'm going to have some food, as I'm tired, and hungry and can now watch 3 wind turbines all going at once, cos they've glued the other one that was struck by lighting back together.

[anewman]

Haynes explains how to top up the gearbox. It's done via hole vacated by speedo drive. You need the speedo cable attached to remove the speedo drive otherwise the speedo drive may drop into the box? Anyway it should pull out relatively easy. Oil is measured on speedo drive gear. Should be between 4-11mm from bottom to be correct level. Ensure gear meshes correctly when re-inserting.

[TnT]

Haynes explains how to top up the gearbox. It's done via hole vacated by speedo drive. You need the speedo cable attached to remove the speedo drive otherwise the speedo drive may drop into the box? Anyway it should pull out relatively easy. Oil is measured on speedo drive gear. Should be between 4-11mm from bottom to be correct level. Ensure gear meshes correctly when re-inserting.

This is the thing - it's not removable, I've just spoken to my dad about it (next best thing to Haynes and a forum) - he's as confuzzled as anyone. The speedo is not removable unless you strip the gearbox down, it's really odd, you remove the bolt, you remove the clip, and there is nothing but solid gearbox caseing underneath, the thread for the speedo cable to go onto is also part of the sold gearbox housing. It's not been repaired, it's not been welded, it's just the way it is as I see it - Very confuzzled that I should have an odd gearbox. Or I'm being very dense? :confused: :(

Here you can see the speedo thread, the clip metal thing and the hole for the 9mm, solid underneath, doesn't can can't pull out or anything :confused:

Another shot of it - sorry for the poor quality pictures, I'm afraid today I'm a poor quality picture taker!

[fruitbat]

It looks as though the end of your speedo cable has become rusted and stuck into the top of your gearbox. You don't need to unscrew the speedo cable at the gearbox end to top up the oil - just remove the bracket as you have done, and then withdraw the whole of the end of the speedo cable from the gearbox - the bit with the thread sticking out of it is part of the cable, not part of the box, and it should just lift out - it's quite a snug fit, but it's just slotted in, not screwed or anything like that.

I'd give the sticky outy bit with the thread on it a couple of gentle sideways taps with a small hammer and then try to get a pair of pliers on it or something, or alternatively, screw the end of the cable back on and then pull on the cable.

The bore of the part that should come out of the gearbox is much bigger than the cable - it's about the width of a thumb.

I did exactly what you've done the first time I tried to remove it...

Cheers

James