Wednesday, September 14, 2011

What is the best way to line up the transmission on a FWD vehicle?

I changed my clutch and am having a bear of a time trying to line up the transmission to the engine (the splines that is), and placing the driveshafts into it at the sametime. Any reccomendations on how to do it? Its a Mazda 6 V6 manual if that helps (very similar drivetrain setup to the Ford Fusion, Contour, Mercury Milan, and Lincoln Zephyr if that helps) Is the best way to focus on getting the driveshafts in, and then pushing the tranny against the flywheel, and then turning the wheels to turn the spline on the tranny to match up with the engine. There are a total of 3 of us, two jacks, and a jackstand. Thanks!What is the best way to line up the transmission on a FWD vehicle?
is the transmission bell parallel to the back of the block? if it is at a slight angle (easy to do), it will cause the splines to bind. Get a few long bolts that thread into the engine block and cut the heads off to make guide pins to help hold the tranny in the proper position.What is the best way to line up the transmission on a FWD vehicle?
It sounds like your doing more work then necessary. First did you have an alignment shaft for when you put the clutch on the flywheel? If not, that is probably your most major problem with alignment. If you did, then try to slowly rotate the input shaft on the trans a little at a time till everything should go together smoothly. Good luck. By the way, don't put the CV's in, as its hard enough to move the tranny without extra things binding you up.What is the best way to line up the transmission on a FWD vehicle?
the last 2 have some good advice. lose the cv joints till the trans is bolted in and use some long guide bolts to help line it up. I also use a drift ( long tapered spike you might call a punch) to line up 2 corresponding holes in the trans and engine. I assume you had an alignment tool with the new clutch. What I think your biggest problem is, is a wear pattern formed on your input shaft splines. I ran into this problem and couldnt get the trans back in to save my life. and I had a lift and a trans jack. remove the trans so you can work on it and see what you are doing. when the engine is running it is putting stress on only one side of all the splines. If you look very carefully at the tip of every spline you should see or feel a sharp corner on one edge. the splines a re triangular one edge should be rounded and one shold be sharp. go around the shaft and file or gently grind off the sharp edge on every single spline. I did that and the trans practically fell in place the first time after i cleaned up the splines.