Darth Coupe

Well, I have the new clutch reassembled, have the fork bearings changed and started to do the flywheel removal yesterday. However, my flywheel is completely smooth, that part of the clutch disc did not fail. There are no drips or oil coming from behind and I am under a little crunch to get the car ready for an autox this Sunday.

I think what I am going to do is leave the flywheel and rear main seal alone for now. Since the job was so easy, I can get to it this winter when I have more time and also give me more time to stew over a lightened flywheel. I will have the hardware needed so I am good to go for that job when it comes this winter.

I guess I am looking for a little friendly reassurance though from my fellow wrenchers. If I was not under the time crunch or had a nice leak I would not even think about this. But since when Bruce did his and did not have to change out the seal and the flywheel was good for him too, I think I should be fine to get to this in the winter. Have you had any issues to mention Bruce? Raj, do I sound insane?

I guess another thing that is pushing me to do it this way is I will have to order a flywheel lock and have to wait further. Then I will be under pressure to get it done for Watkins Glen coming up, goto the event with even less limited seat time in the car before the event, and who knows what else. I think I am doing a good job of talking myself into waiting for the seal and flywheel now. I will go ahead and order a lock soon while I am thinking of it as I will need if for the belts which I am considering doing this winter too.

Jason Judd

Darth,

Are you referring to the Metro NY DE up at Watkins Glen in August? If so, I'll see you there!

Jason Judd

RajDatta

Darth, I wouldn't worry about it too much. As they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
I plan to do the same with the speed yellow coupe as the clutch is too stiff and I need to figure out whats wrong there.
Raj

BruceWard

In hindsight I did not benefit by removing the flywheel. Just a couple extra days of waiting and a lot of trouble and worrying over what to do with the flywheel. So I say put it back together and then revisit the issue over the winter if you want to.

Darth Coupe

Excellent, just gotta get a few more bolts torqued tonight and then put the exhaust back on and it will be done. Sucks how long it has drawn out, but working on it when you can takes time and doing my first clutch job ever takes time...but it really is pretty easy, even when I stripped one of the bolts during removal, not too bad getting it off. Thanks for all of the help and reassurances.

Jason, the Watkins Glen event will be the 48 Hours event from Zone 1. Just have to get through their rather long list of rules, but that should not be too much of a problem.

BruceWard

Are the top two bolts between the cat and muffler several inches above the floor pan and very difficult to access on your coupe? I am not sure if the problems I had with them were normal or caused by the second floor pan on the Cab. I was only able to turn them 1/8th turn or less and found it very difficult to get a wrench on them. Eventually I made a tool by inserting a short 13mm socket into larger wrench breaking my vise in the process.

Darth Coupe

Are you talking about the bolts for the cat flange? I am not sure if you are or not, but for my exhaust removal, I found it easiest to remove the entire exhaust systemt from the headers back. I did this because my cat flange bolts are really rusted, there are 4, and the top ones looked hard to get at. It was much easier to just undo the other more accessable bolts, two at the muffler, one at the torsion tube, and two ahead of the cat, then of course the header flange bolts.

BruceWard

Interesting, I had not thought about taking off the whole exhast system. Sounds like you will have an easier reinstall than I did. The most difficult part was getting those top bolts back in place.

I replaced all of the exhaust bolts with new parts from Paragon. Not factory bolts just some metric sized exhaust quality bolts that they keep in stock.

RajDatta

Darth, that was an excellent call to remove the entire exhaust. Thats what I have found as well. Its much easier to reach the manifold nuts/bolts than to remove the center section. Unless ofcourse you have a custom flange setup which allows you to drop the cat like stated on 968.net, lol.
Raj

Darth Coupe

Yeah, maybe I will have to look into that custom flange set up as we all know it has got to be the best...lol. I just remember doing cat bolts when I put an exhaust in last time on the Prelude, and those bolts were only 3-4 years old IIRC. Just not fun at all, so I avoid them whenever possible, and if I do work on them, I find it is easier just to take the whole thing out and work on it on any car.

I must say though that I love how Porsche made the hangers able to be unbolted instead of trying to snake on a rubber hanger with the weight of the exhaust hampering your efforts.