So starting in a few weeks I'm going to have to start doing some bi-weekly 2 hour drives so I figure it's time I sort out all the work that's been building up on my Felicia. The main job is a clutch change so I was wondering if anyone could give me any tips on doing this. It's the first time I've done it and probably my biggest automotive repair so far. I'm an IT Technician by trade so I know I have the right line of thinking to do this kind of thing and I'm not scared of it but most of all I'd like to know what kind of bits I'll need to do it, like special tools and such. I'm going to my Dad's house to do and he lives in the middle of the countryside so I don't want to find myself with the car inside out and I need some obscure little tool to do the next bit. He's been a mechanic all his life so I'm hoping he'll have most of the stuff I need but he doesn't have everything.

The Haynes manual says that new mounting bolt nuts will be needed. As I'm writing this Jorily is down for maintenance but do they sell them and how many do I need? Same with the driveshaft inner joint circlips? I also know I need 2.5 litres of gear oil but is there anything else?

I've got a whine in fifth gear and I was wondering if there was anything I could do about this while I've got the gearbox off.

On this thread:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/140640-felicia-1-3-1997-clutch-change/page__pid__1764160#entry1764160

they talk about a "lazy" method but don't really go into any details. Can anyone tell me about this?

The car isn't really worth enough to go about sending it to a garage to do this so I might as well go about having a go myself, I'm going down on the Thursday and though I'd like to be done as soon as possible I don't have to be back at work until Monday. I've also got a multitude of other issues that have cropped up in the last few months.

Here's my other issues if anyone has any comments:

Both rear wheel bearing need replacing.

Front right CV boot needs replacing, maybe the actual joint if it's related to the following issue(s).

I have creaky steering in warmer weather (ball joint?) and there's a knocking sound that crops up, most notably when the front right wheel is absorbing a bump.

Middle silencer needs replacing as it has a huge hole in it.

Sorry for the long post but it's gonna be a long few days and I'd like to be as prepared as possible. I'd really appreciate anyone sharing their experiences just to prepare me for this although I'm not sure I'm going to be doing all this work next week. I'm only starting with the biggest job so if I **** it up I can scrap the car and eBay everything I didn't yet use.

Thanks for any help in advance.

One of the guys will be able to give you the detail but with my clutch a friend either tightened or loosened the cable and it is still fine now, just the pedal is about an inch higher than the others, saved me a lot of money.

Ok, with the whine, the diesel Feli I bought for my nephew had this. It's a really simple job, pretending you're not doing the clutch. You remove the engine mount on the gearbox side & lower the engine down a little supporting it on a jack. Just lower it enough to gain access to the inspection plate on the side of the gearbox. Remove the plate & tighten the nearest cog to you a little (it has indents hammered into it to stop it undoing itself & the sometimes arent enough to do the job. Once you've tightened it up slightly, get a hammer & chisel & knock a coupla indents in it & chuck a couple of quids worth of gear oil in as some will have escaped. Done!

If the clutch is slipping slightly, Daisy is right, it can be worth slackening the cable off a tad & seeing if it helps. If you have difficulty obtaining low gears then tightening the cable a little may help?

Knocking sound - most likely will be top mount bearing. Easy enough to change, not too expensive (£10? not had standard ones for ages!)

CV boot - easy. Doesn't sound like knock would be that (you get a click on full lock in reverse when CVs are on the way out if their grease has leaked out and/or water/sand have got in). £5 or so to sort. Use genuine boots, pattern ones are a waste of time.

Clutch - I've never replaced nuts or CV joint inner spring clips. And I've changed clutch/gearbox a LOT on my car.

If your dad has been a mechanic for more than about 6 months, the two of you will have no problem changing the clutch. I've done one on my own in 1h30, they are as simple a setup as you'll ever get, and the gearbox is about as light as an FWD box ever gets. No special tools are needed, just the usual selection of spanners/sockets. From memory, 30mm (driveshafts), 19mm (gearbox drain plug), 16mm (various bits including starter mountings, gearbox, gearbox mounts, pinch bolts, you'll need two as IIRC standard pinch bolts are 16mm), 13mm (starter connection), 10mm (gearchange steady), 9mm (gearbox drive to open up for refilling). You'll need an 8mm or so drift to knock out the gear lever roll pin. I think that's about it, but I'm not 100% as a) it's 7:40am, I've not done mine for a while and c) my car has lots of non-standard bits on it.

Seriously, it'll be fine.

Thanks guys, I feel better about this work now. Anyone know anything about the creaking though. A guy at work was telling me horror stories about the time his ball joint broke while he was driving and I don't want that happening to me on the M1. Every time I google creaky steering I get all sorts of different answers depending on which car comes up.

I did read all the stuff about adjusting the clutch cable but that seems like I'd just be covering up the problem. I've had the car from around 25k and now it's on about 55k so it doesn't seem odd that the clutch would be on it's way out.

Creaking will probably be the top mount. When I ran standard ones the car sounded like a crypt most of the time. Never was a problem aside from that/rattle, so don't worry about it. Check everything (ball joints, most importantly) to give yourself peace of mind, but it should be fine. It's very rare for something like that to have a sudden failure, they wear and then fail - I've seen ball joints that were hanging out, loads of play in them, and still wouldn't have given way.