Feeling good about the car for the first time in awhile. About 20,000 km's ago I swapped a failed clutch out for and OEM style Exedy clutch with the "HD" in the part number. At that time I wrestled the transmission off the car with great distress and swapped the clutch and wrestled the thing back on with just as much stress. Didn't have a whole lot of confidence that something wasn't going to explode when I started it. It started and I drove away that day with a sense of accomplishment. That feeling was short lived as I now had the infamous clutch chatter. When I installed that clutch I was under the distinct impression that lightweight parts were the reason for the chatter. This is why I
didn't install a lightweight flywheel. Yet I failed to avoid the chatter. So I did even more research and found that there are many theories about the nature of the chatter. Bad pilot bearings, wobbly throw-out bearing on a worn snout, bad gearboxes etc.. but no one single confirmed answer. So I lived with the chatter, from what I gathered it was a noise that caused no mechanical issues.
Fast forward 20,000 km's and I'm miserable about the car. I hate the chatter, it's annoying to the point where I don't do any engine braking. Not even lightly as I can't stand the grindy sound that is the chatter.
Then another noise started. This time it doesn't matter if the clutch is in or out, Accel or decel. It's a new grinding noise that's directly tied to the speed the car is travelling. Faster speed, faster grind. That makes the noise tied to something that always rotates while rolling. Wheel bearings, CV axles, drive shaft, rear diff and the transaxle part of the transmission. So after wiggling a few wheels I found one seemed to have a looser than nominal hub bearing. As my last post stated I did find one worn out pitted race while swapping all 4 bearings. I jumped in my car and the grinding persisted....Damn. Happy I changed and obviously bad bearing but wish the noise went with it.
So I spent sometime checking under the car on stands checking the drive shaft, CV's and Diff. Turns out the noise was coming pretty confidently from the transmission. So I thought, maybe I can kill two bird with one stone. New (to me) transmission for the constant grinding and a second chance at the chatter. Not to mention I had some Group - N engine mounts and a timing belt kit to do as I was rolling about 100,000 km's since the last belt.
Time for a big job. I bought a transmission from Hilux out of Winnipeg (Thanks again for the quick shipping and sending me a working tranny) and ordered a snout kit and new pilot bearing. I figured that another install done with care in my industrial shop with every tool under the sun, I might get rid of that saddening chatter.
Like a true fool. I decided that one weekend ought to be enough to pull an engine and swap motor mounts, do a timing kit, swap a pilot bearing, install a different transmission and sleeve the snout. I'm sure there's a better expression but the closest I got is that my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Almost.
So Friday I ripped and tore. Spent my evening wondering if pulling the engine was overkill as I could do the timing belt in the car. There truly is lots of room once the rad is out. However, I wanted to do the mounts and check for oil leaks etc. As well as do the clutch stuff.
Saturday it turns out having the engine out made it a lot easier to drill and tap one of the idler holes when the threads decided to come out with the bolt.
I ended up doing a panic trip to my buddies workplace to find the M8 x 1.25 heli coil kit for the repair. Not to mention my heart being crushed as we followed the Subaru service manual step by step only to have the drivers side cams spin when we pulled the old belt off. Then reading the "WARNING" in the manual that says your valves are totally F-ed if this happens. Luckily a couple of guys at my shop were working Saturday and used to be auto mechanics. They just laughed at me and said it was "probably" fine. I felt 1% better and moved on. Belt was on, took plugs out to se if each individual cylinder could build air pressure and they passed. Then put plugs in and checked the case breather while rolling it over to confirm that no overlap had been caused by the spiny cams.
So the second time I've slid a transmission on this engine I was a pro. I used our 10 TON crane side loaded to pull the top of the engine back towards the rear of the car. This made sliding the transmission on aligned perfectly not only fast but so smooth I didn't believe my spotter up top when he said it was on tight. Yay, finally a win.
Sunday was spent filling oil, connecting drive shaft, CV axles, installing exhaust, and reconnecting about 100 things I regretted taking off. It was nice to have a chance to get anit-sieze on every single bolt and re organize wiring and lines. The big moment came and I was ready to turn the key. With a little sweat beading down my forehead I turned the key and the starter clicked loudly and it seemed like the battery died. Seems I had an electrical demon. Damnit. I hooked up a wall powered battery booster and it started no issue. WTF, my battery is dead after sitting on the table for three days? Never had any issues with it before. Seemed odd, so i asked one of the old auto mechanics what he thought and he suggested that I may have crushed the top cell of my battery by over tightening the tie down. OK, that seemed weird but I am game to explore that. He offered to give me an extra battery that he was gifted for his boat project. I said "Ok" and he gave me his extra yellow top! Sweet, not just any battery but a substantial upgrade over the Canadian Tire special that was leaking acid all over my engine bay.
While installing this brand new battery I noticed that the AC pump plug was half plugged in.....hmm..Could this be the true cause of my mysterious electrical ghost? One will never know. Jumped back in and viola, car is purring like a beached whale again. Take it for a test drive and the output grind is GONE, the clutch chatter is
almost non-existent. I really have to try to cause chatter now. It does happen but it's dramatically reduced and I can totally live with it now as it doesn't sound nearly as violent as the original issue. Pretty freakin stoked to be driving around a normal not crappy sounding car again.
