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When you just want to kick it

Bozz

By Bozz,
in General Automotive Discussion

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Bozz Proficient

Bozz

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Am in very pissed off mood tonight.

Last Saturday (9 days ago) I started work on pulling the old RB30E 5 speed gearbox out of my R31 Skyline and to install the RB25DET gearbox in its place.

Clutch was slipping a fair bit which provoked me to finally do something about fitting the new box. It was expected to be a two day job but today I finally got the damn car back together after a lot of mucking around.

Day one, after pulling the gearbox and tailshaft out, I removed the slip yoke from the R31 tailshaft, ready to attach the larger one from the R33. Now is when I realise the slip yoke from the R33 was attached to a non replaceable unijoint that was pressed in place. There goes the idea of finishing it that weekend.

Take it to an engineering place. They can't do it economically either. I notice the CV joint is loose and makes a little click when turned side to side. I find out its cheaper to have a single piece tailshaft made up, so I go ahead with having it done.

I get quoted $350 with some new replaceable unijoints at the front and rear and a thicker 3" tube for the tailshaft to replace the 2.5" two piece shaft originally installed in the car. I am happy with the quote, tell the company to go ahead, they do, they called me to say its ready and its $350. I get there and look at the marvelous new tailshaft, very well made and I am very satisfied with it. I put it in the boot, go to pay and its $350 plus GST. Now I have nothing against paying a good sum for quality work, but please dont rip me off like this, we are well beyond the point of having to ask if something is ex-GST or inc-GST so why they do this is beyond me. I couldn't care if it was $450 inc GST but I wish companies wouldn't do this. Very easy and successful way to guarantee a customer will never return. Pity because the quality of work and customer service (bar this issue) was outstanding, second to none.

Saturday comes and I continue installing the gearbox. I fit the flywheel, line the clutch up by hand and tighten it up, install the gearbox (bloody heavy monster, it is!) and start fabricating a crossmember to suit. Meggala had an R33 crossmember which I used and welded additional 5mm pieces of mild steel to it to widen it so it could bolt up to the floorpan of the R31. No real problems here other than me being a bit careless with the drill while I had a grinding bit on it to enlarge a hole I drilled, it slipped and caught my shirt, tearing it off my back... mmm must learn to be more careful with powerful tools

Sunday comes and I'm finishing off customising the crossmember, I almost finish, didnt finish simply because the bloody metal grinding bit I was using on the drill broke and it was too late to go to bunnings to get another one, so I did that today and finished it off. Started to bleed the clutch, turns out the pin in the slave cylinder is not long enough for the '33 gearbox and it shoots out and sprays me with brake fluid while I'm bleeding it. Natural reaction was to lift head up and swear, problem was, right above my head was the floorpan of the car which my head made contact with rather violently so more swearing came out before I got to clean my face of all the brake fluid. I went and found a long bolt, cut the ends off it, ground the ends so they were round and installed that. As I'm tighening the slave cylinder, I hear a crack. ****, I say. I pull out the slave cylinder and i've cracked half of one of the mounting holes. Ignore that, bolt it up again and start bleeding again, this time it bleeds just fine. I get in the car, yank the handbrake on f'ng tight and put it in neutral and start it. Yay it starts, I put it in fifth gear and release the clutch and it almost stalls. ALMOST!!! The clutch fully released and it didn't stall!!

OK so I figure the pressure plate is faulty, it means this weekend will be stuck under my car again pulling the gearbox out, replacing the clutch and fitting it again...

I hate cars sometimes...

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Bozz Proficient

Bozz

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Originally posted by Majanal

Now I have a headache!

Hope all goes well for you.

You have a headache? I'm the one who banged my head :D:P

Oh well, sometimes things dont go as planned, it's all the labour of love....

Hopefully I'll have a sleeper at the end of all this trouble that doesn't break driveline components :)

Bozz Proficient

Bozz

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Posted

haha here's todays sequel of f**kups....

11am

Initally I can't pull the gearbox out on my own, thing weighs too bloody much, wait an hour till a mate gets here and things start going OK. Driveshaft is out, plastic bags and rubber bands are around the output shaft of the box, jack is in place and we remove the gearbox, only putting another 45 scratches to complement the 2,000 odd scratches on the transmission tunnel. Clutch is replaced in no time, I've aligned it and we put the gearbox back on. Slave cylinder gets replaced as does the driveshaft and I sit in the car and test the clutch.

3:30pm

Bloody thing slips, although it does stall the engine, if I use any throttle it slips like nothing on earth. I get under the car again, lots of swearing, and I realise the pivot fork hasnt returned all the way. A bit of persuasion with a hammer unjams it and I breathe a sigh of relief. Get back in the car, start it, put the foot down on the clutch, put it in gear and release the clutch. Woohoo it stalled and a bit of throttle didnt affect it. I try it again and the clutch fork jams again and car doesn't stall. Well sh*t.

4pm

Tailshaft, slave cylinder and gearbox are removed again (Fourth time - I'm getting really good at this) and I see the pivot fork is sitting on the pivot ball properly but the thrust bearing somehow has rotated about 45 degrees on the fingers of the fork. No wonder its jamming. I dont know whether or not it somehow jumped out of position or whether I never aligned it properly so I put a cable tie around it to hold it to the fork. Sweet. Put the gearbox back in, the mandatory "tear the plastic bag and lose quarter of a litre of gearbox fluid on your chest" routine happened again now, all stuff is returned back into place and I start the car and test the clutch.

5:30pm

Now it works!!!! I top the box up with fluid and get on to wiring the electrics. In no time I manage to blow a fuse while trying to figure out the three pins to speed sensor. Red wire is signal and it sits on 7.5 volts, yellow wire is +12v and black wire is ground. The red wire oscillates between 0 and 7.5 volts to generate the speed sensor pulses. I worked out the R31 gearbox makes about 9 or 10 pulses per revolution of the sensor. I didn't get around to checking how many pulses the R33 box made but suffice to say, I hooked the two wire sensor to the ground and 7.5v wires and I got a speed reading of approximately half the road speed, now I need to design and make a frequency multiplier circuit to bring it back to spec.

6:30pm

Shower and get on here.... What a poo of a day....

Whats the moral of this whole story? Nissan wants to piss me off and they succeeded.

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