Technical Clutch alignment tool

[124BC1]

Or via starter motor hole ??

Might someone have dimensions of friction Plate hub "across the splines" minimum diameter please, also spigot diameter please ??

Will have to check end of crank for spigot "hole", Punto Evo 2010 1.2 8 valve...

Haynes manual shows g/box input shaft being spigotless and mentions hole in end of crank, but no dimensions it picture...

Thanks in advance for quick clutch job in the summer....

@puntodad19

If there's no spigot shaft bearing in the crank, the type of universal clutch alignment tool shown by @bugsymike in post #19 above, should work fine - but it might not be worth buying such a tool for a one-off-use?

Or lining things up by eye as suggested by @Pete O in post #18 above - a possible improvement to doing it this way is to insert something that accurately fits the clutch disc splines e.g. a socket extension, length of bar/tube etc. and ensure this 'alignment tool' is equidistant from the clutch cover diaphragm fingers all the way around. Or maybe use something tapered e.g. an oil funnel in the same way?

 

[124BC1]

That for proper engineers... which Im definitely not! Im a bodger, but I try not to break things

So, you're just a harmless bodger?

 

[124BC1]

All I need now these days is someone to lift the gearboxes for me.

Time to hire an 'apprentice'

Or, you could always buy one of those transmission adaptors that fit in place of the jacking pad on a garage trolley jack, see below:-

There's also another type that combines a jack and the trans. adaptor as one unit (but these are dearer and can only lift a trans. but not a car).
The type that has one or 2 adjustment knobs to alter the angle of the trans. in 1 or 2 planes is preferable and chains or straps to secure the trans in place are essential.
But, as always, you have to weigh up the cost vs the amount of usage you'll likely get from such a tool. ( at my age...).

 

[124BC1]

On FWD cars (so not relevant to the classic 500) it's sometimes easier to lift the transmission from above than from below i.e. maybe use an engine crane or hoist of some kind from above the engine bay and a strap around the trans or attach a lifting bracket to somewhere on the transmission to raise it. FWD trans are an odd shape/weight distribution to lift using a jack underneath - they keep trying to topple over. If suspended on a strap, it can give you more freedom to move the trans. to the correct angle/orientation to join the trans onto the engine.

Not only do I centralise the clutch plate to the pressure plate, but I also try to set the input (1st. motion) shaft splines to exactly align with the splines in the clutch disc e.g. if the disc has the bottom of 1 spline groove at the tdc position then I set the input shaft so that it has the peak of one spline at the tdc position. If you don't do this, you might have some difficulty in getting the shaft to enter the clutch disc because 2 splines are 'butting heads', this can easily happen on older transmissions where the disc has fewer but larger splines. If this happens,, try slightly rotating the flywheel by a few teeth on the ring gear. e.g. use a screwdriver to lever the flywheel around.

As @bugsymike has said, never try to force the trans. into place but also never leave the trans. hanging unsupported after it has engaged the clutch disc, get some bolts/nuts in place.

If swapping in a trans. from another vehicle, check that any locating dowels that align the trans to the engine are present and that any dust/splash shield is in situ before refitting the trans.

 

[bugsymike]

So, you're just a harmless bodger?

Ha,ha! Not a harmless old codger?

 

[bugsymike]

Time to hire an 'apprentice'

Or, you could always buy one of those transmission adaptors that fit in place of the jacking pad on a garage trolley jack, see below:-

View attachment 481877
There's also another type that combines a jack and the trans. adaptor as one unit (but these are dearer and can only lift a trans. but not a car).
The type that has one or 2 adjustment knobs to alter the angle of the trans. in 1 or 2 planes is preferable and chains or straps to secure the trans in place are essential.
But, as always, you have to weigh up the cost vs the amount of usage you'll likely get from such a tool. ( at my age...).

I always wanted to have decent premises and employ and train apprentices the way I was taught, sadly between my ex wives taking me to the cleaners and my bank when I wanted to buy a garage saying they would not loan the money as it wasn't worth it and yet within the year it sold for three times what I was going to buy it for and houses were put on the site, the chance did not come along.
Re the gearbox jack, up until a few years ago I could happily lay on my back and lift most car and light commercial gearboxes on my own.
I did actually buy a commercial gearbox jack capable of doing as the ones above but up to 500kg weight at an auction quite cheap, but it was massive overkill so I sold it on. At the moment since I fell in October and broke the bones in my right shoulder, at certain angles I have a job lifting a pint mug of tea, never mind all the tools I have at my disposal!

 

[puntodad19]

Blimmey mike, bank lost money in a bank transfer...in my rush to catch bus to town I had a tumble...the gap between humourouse ( it's not funny, it bloody hurts ) and where it was supposed to fit was huge, 3 breaks in my right shoulder....9 months later I have limited movement but can saw a bit of wood, practise for hack sawing....

Max diameter of input shaft would be good to know so I can prepare for summer clutch job.....

Guide bolts to help slide gearbox into position....

5 ply is versatile to make gearbox "platform/holder" , but a young assistant is more so....

It is probable a "beam, roller and strap" system could be made to allow single person gearbox fitment but a young assistant ( yours/mine, whoes car it is !!! ) Is quicker, probably....

Sometimes they learn the hard way...

 

[The Panda Nut]

So, you're just a harmless bodger?

Many things, definitely a bodger, but possibly not a harmless one..... That reminds me garage didnt reset the service indicator on daughters car so I need to go bodge that up

 

[124BC1]

Blimmey mike, bank lost money in a bank transfer...in my rush to catch bus to town I had a tumble...the gap between humourouse ( it's not funny, it bloody hurts ) and where it was supposed to fit was huge, 3 breaks in my right shoulder....9 months later I have limited movement but can saw a bit of wood, practise for hack sawing....

Max diameter of input shaft would be good to know so I can prepare for summer clutch job.....

Guide bolts to help slide gearbox into position....

5 ply is versatile to make gearbox "platform/holder" , but a young assistant is more so....

It is probable a "beam, roller and strap" system could be made to allow single person gearbox fitment but a young assistant ( yours/mine, whoes car it is !!! ) Is quicker, probably....

Sometimes they learn the hard way...

Sorry to hear about your injury and hope you can regain more movement soon but it can be a long road. I found Physiotherapy very beneficial in regaining near-full movement after I injured my shoulder.

If you order a new clutch in advance of fitting it and measure the bore of the splined hub (afaik, there's no need to measure the splines, just the bore) then the input shaft will be very slightly smaller (by a few thou. i.e. 1/1000th inch). But for the purpose of devising/fabricating a clutch alignment tool, surely just knowing the bore of the clutch disc would suffice?

Guide bolts, excellent idea - providing you have room to use them! Some cars even have 1 or 2 studs at the gearbox to engine junction but most do not.

 

[puntodad19]

I was told if you can rub the top of your head with the palm of your hand on the "bad arm" your doing well. Don't expect much more than that.

I can saw a bit of wood now. When new hack saw blades arrive I will try sawing metal.

Yes, buy clutch kit early to measure up. Seen adamh picture of pressure plate, so a Dished disc to fit in/outside central circle with boss for slide fit of dummy input shaft....

I probably have an alignment tool in my collection that can be modified....

The tool needed for the Nissan Almera inj pump job worked well, saved having to take the engine out. Crank to Pump drive chain, pump to cam drive chain...what fun.

 

[bugsymike]

I was told if you can rub the top of your head with the palm of your hand on the "bad arm" your doing well. Don't expect much more than that.

I can saw a bit of wood now. When new hack saw blades arrive I will try sawing metal.

Yes, buy clutch kit early to measure up. Seen adamh picture of pressure plate, so a Dished disc to fit in/outside central circle with boss for slide fit of dummy input shaft....

I probably have an alignment tool in my collection that can be modified....

The tool needed for the Nissan Almera inj pump job worked well, saved having to take the engine out. Crank to Pump drive chain, pump to cam drive chain...what fun.

I tried that but a bit of a struggle, the other day I tried to use my electric hair trimmer, using both hands, daughters took the pi** out my attempt as I had missed a lot.
Re sawing I tried to use a bow saw for some firewood, but too painful.
Since I bought that universal clutch tool I have need nothing else for diaphagm clutches over many years, though a good job most of it is plastic as these days it is likely to rust out like most of my tools.

 

[puntodad19]

Seen the universal kit in post 19...

Diaphragm fingers used to centralise the "outer" bit. SP stuff is usually very good, but, as pressure plate is drawn to flywheel, the "fingers" will move....gas the "outer" bit ever been trapped in place by the diaphragm fingers ?

Anyways, food for thought....it's summertime soon, still some snow on Snowdon. Snowdon claimed another two very recently, poor buggers.....rip...

 

[bugsymike]

Seen the universal kit in post 19...

Diaphragm fingers used to centralise the "outer" bit. SP stuff is usually very good, but, as pressure plate is drawn to flywheel, the "fingers" will move....gas the "outer" bit ever been trapped in place by the diaphragm fingers ?

Anyways, food for thought....it's summertime soon, still some snow on Snowdon. Snowdon claimed another two very recently, poor buggers.....rip...

Yes that was the kit I have and I have not had any problem using it on multiple vehicles in the past.

Always sad when you hear of people dying, but my selfish thoughts are "would any of them give a flying fig if I popped my clogs",
I tend to look at it along the lines of, yes people are dying every day, but also people are being born every day, so which ever way it is, the loved ones are the only people truly affected.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

If there's no spigot shaft bearing in the crank, the type of universal clutch alignment tool shown by @bugsymike in post #19 above, should work fine - but it might not be worth buying such a tool for a one-off-use?

Firstly the plastic clutch alignment tool is like £5-10 depending where you look and if doing your own clutch well worth the money versus fighting a gearbox back into place with the clutch not centred.

However. As I found out with my mk1 Punto and I presume this will apply to a lot of smaller engined fiats. The cheap plastic alignment tool will not fit in the hole in the centre
Of the clutch plate…. Which is bloody annoying if you only buy the tool to do that job and it won’t fit in the cluch that you have bought it to replace. It will fit in the clutch of the fiat diesel engines though. I paid £10 for mine and have used it 3 times so it’s been money well spent

 

[bugsymike]

Firstly the plastic clutch alignment tool is like £5-10 depending where you look and if doing your own clutch well worth the money versus fighting a gearbox back into place with the clutch not centred.

However. As I found out with my mk1 Punto and I presume this will apply to a lot of smaller engined fiats. The cheap plastic alignment tool will not fit in the hole in the centre
Of the clutch plate…. Which is bloody annoying if you only buy the tool to do that job and it won’t fit in the cluch that you have bought it to replace. It will fit in the clutch of the fiat diesel engines though. I paid £10 for mine and have used it 3 times so it’s been money well spent

In fairness the one I have has two options to fit in the centre plate and it has fitted all the cars and light commercials I worked on and held them securely once centralised and tightened with the plastic nut.
If you know the diameter of that Punto centre plate, I measured this tools smaller option at 17mm.It's by Draper and although it looks pretty tatty it and my other tools earned me enough money to house and feed a family of seven for many years.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

In fairness the one I have has two options to fit in the centre plate and it has fitted all the cars and light commercials I worked on and held them securely once centralised and tightened with the plastic nut.
If you know the diameter of that Punto centre plate, I measured this tools smaller option at 17mm.It's by Draper and although it looks pretty tatty it and my other tools earned me enough money to house and feed a family of seven for many years.

Hmmm now you mention it maybe I did have another adaptor for the centre with it which I have just lost at some point? I will have to have a look in my old tool box

 

[Pete O]

Not only do I centralise the clutch plate to the pressure plate, but I also try to set the input (1st. motion) shaft splines to exactly align with the splines in the clutch disc e.g. if the disc has the bottom of 1 spline groove at the tdc position then I set the input shaft so that it has the peak of one spline at the tdc position. If you don't do this, you might have some difficulty in getting the shaft to enter the clutch disc because 2 splines are 'butting heads', this can easily happen on older transmissions where the disc has fewer but larger splines. If this happens,, try slightly rotating the flywheel by a few teeth on the ring gear. e.g. use a screwdriver to lever the flywheel around.

I was taught to engage a gear before offering up the gearbox, the output can then be rotated to align the splines, as long as the output shaft is of a type that can be manipulated this way; with a transaxle, rotating one output will just counter-rotate the other. Great idea to get it ball-park to start with. I have also seen a clutch plate destroyed by inserting the longest bellhousing bolts and pulling the gearbox in.
I must admit that my 'eyeball alignment' technique is not the preferred option, I did turn up an alignment tool for my Land Rover clutch, a simple arrangement with the ID of the spigot and the minor diameter of the splines.

 

[bugsymike]

I was taught to engage a gear before offering up the gearbox, the output can then be rotated to align the splines, as long as the output shaft is of a type that can be manipulated this way; with a transaxle, rotating one output will just counter-rotate the other. Great idea to get it ball-park to start with. I have also seen a clutch plate destroyed by inserting the longest bellhousing bolts and pulling the gearbox in.
I must admit that my 'eyeball alignment' technique is not the preferred option, I did turn up an alignment tool for my Land Rover clutch, a simple arrangement with the ID of the spigot and the minor diameter of the splines.

I agree we always put it in gear to assist location onto engine in the past, but with finer splines on later gearboxes it seemed less of an issue.
I always tried to work on vehicles using "love and kindness", most times that made the job much easier.
I recall a previous foreman at one garage and myself doing an identical job on two cars, he had grabbed the best ramp so I was left with the horrible one, never the less I finished the job first and with no sweat, where as he was shouting and swearing the whole way through so everyone thought he had the worst job to do but in truth they were identical.