Transmission giving me lots of grief...

[Cat3]

ok...
i'm now on day... 4 of replacing my clutch.

i've been working every day for about 10 hours a day trying to change the clutch out. I'm starting to think that when the clutch goes out is when you're supposed to just throw the car away and get a new one.

i've taken the transmission out of the car, replaced the clutch and release bearing... and now i'm trying to put the transmission back on the car. But that's MUCH easier said than done.

supposedly there's a thing called a transmission jack that should make this job go much smoother, but i can't rent one of those, cause i can't locate one to rent. And buying one is out of the question, because i'm almost broke now from this project.
Today, the objective is simply to get the transmission mounted to the engine. then once that task is complete, i'm closing the hood and not looking at the car again until tomorrow.
me and a friend have the transmission supported by ropes, dangling where it should be mounted right next to the engine... that was real fun let me tell you. took almost 2 hours to get it from the ground to where it's resting now. My arms feel like rubber bands now from "bench pressing" the tranny into place.
We're stuck at the point where you have to align the shaft that goes from the tranny to the flywheel.
lot's of swearing and twisting and turning and readjusting and tilting and so on, and no luck.
is there any sort of trick anyone's discovered to make this less like giving birth and more like working on a car?

i guess the only way to get it on there is to just keep doing that list of things i just mentioned until it just works.

i'm mostly just venting and taking a break... hopefully when i go back out there, things will start to come together.

[MattsAccord]

I'm in the process of taking my tranny out and put a new clutch in and I have had a few problems also. Mainly with stuck bolt and stuff but I can't get the flywheel off either. Nut now I'm not looking foward to putting the tranny back in. Good luck.

[AZmike]

I'm sorry Cat, that's the same problem I had when I did mine--except I didn't have the help. How close is the transmission to the engine? I used a couple of the lower front bolts sort of like guide pins (did not thread in) and moved the transmission's end slowly up and down and front and back until it fit into the clutch splines. I think I turned the input shaft a little between trials in hopes that it would line up better with the splines on the clutch. After several tries (took 6 hours) I had it back on.

Good luck.

[Art 1]

Pay someone to do your car work.

[shepherd79]

i changed the clutch in 2 days by myself. it wasn't fun, but i got a lot of experience.
the problem is to keep the trany at the same level as the engine what you putting back. it is hard, but you must align the main shaft's grouves or you will end up spending a lot more time.

[4sillypwr]

Did you use an alignment tool to center your clutch disk in the flywheel and pressure plate? If not that thing is never going to go on. take a good look at the assembled clutch the hole in the middle of the clutch disk should look centered around the hole in the middle of the flywheel. After you get it centered or if it already is. Use the guide bolts to get the tranny kinda lined up. Have an assistant slowly turn the the engine with a ratchet on the crank pulley bolt unitl you can slip the tranny on. Some times it help to have a few of the bellhousing bolts in so that you can keep the tranny lined up better. It should go on without that much trouble.