How hard is it to replace a clutch in a 5-speed manual transmission?

I just called a random shop who charges $630 for the job, so my thoughts are that the first $630 are free by way of tools.

Of course, that includes parts, so, let's halve that which means that the first $300 are for the tools.

At that price, I can afford a specifically designed transmission jack - but it's still a tool that I won't ever need again (although I know, as you know, that these things have ways of finding themselves useful in the future).

My garage is filled to the brim with tools, some of which I bought for specific jobs which are small, like pickle forks or spring compressors or special wrenches (I still have curved distributor wrenches from the 70s and a dwell meter by way of examples of tools just sitting there doing nothing).

I don't mind buying a tool if it saves me money on the job, but I would rather not buy a transmission jack that is only going to be used once. For example, I have a HF motorcyle lift that I only used once. It worked for that bike but it's long gone so now it just takes up room in my garage.

I do like the idea of the floor jack "transmission saddle" though, as it will store easily and it goes onto my existing floor jack. I just need to find one...

I have cars that are 15 to 20 years old and I do all my work. The only job I've not done is a clutch. In a way, it's the one job I wish I could do. Well, I wish I could do an engine replacement too - but I'll never do that.

But a clutch? I wish I could do it.

I just need to do my homework first. Which is what I'm doing here by asking what it entails.

It seems that, so far, the idea of the transmission saddle was the BEST ANSSWER because I don't have to buy a one-time-use transmission jack.

I just called a shop and got a quote of $630 assuming nothing else was needed (e.g., overheated flywheel needing replacement), so, that's about two hundred more than I thought the quote would come out at.

At that price, the transmission jack is nothing. Sure it will take up even more space in may already crowded garage. But it will save more money than it costs. Still - the saddle seems to be the way to go since it won't cost as much, won't take up as much space, and will work as well (we presume).

Once I have that, the rest seems to be just bolts. :) (Famous last words.)

Here is a picture of the transmission when I replaced the fluid two days ago. It seems to be some kind of "alloy" which means it might not be heavy.

Is the clutch linkage mechanical or hydraulic? Get under it and you'll see some sort of lever sticking out the side of the bellhousing. Have your wife operate the clutch and see if you are getting a full stroke and smooth travel.

It really sounds like the clutch isn't disengaging cleanly. It doesn't take too much drag to make shifting difficult. With the F150 the throwout bearing was the culprit. It would start to hang up on the nose of the transmission. At first I thought it was the slave cylinder of the hydraulic so I replaced it. (And anyway that was a lot easier).

The symptoms were very erratic so sometimes it would work, sometimes not. I also thought it might be the pivot ball for the lever arm. A spray of lube and it would work for a while but I think that was just coincidental. That could be why your miracle oil worked.

I'd have to see a 4Runner to be sure, but usually the transmission bolts to the bellhousing with 4 or so bolts. The transmission has a round boss, say 1/4" deep that is a snug fit into the bellhousing to keep everything centered. Just removing those might do the trick. Typically the bellhousing itself will have a bunch of smaller cap screws around the perimeter that can be a pain in the butt. The housing might have a bushing for the nose of the starter motor that's something else to line up.

I've done it without a jack more than with one. Newer transmissions are relatively light, but then I can't bench press what I could 40 years ago either. the real problem with doing that is the input shaft of the transmission needs to be level and square to pick up the clutch splines and get the end of the shaft into the pilot bearing in the end of the crankshaft. (again, generic, a 4Runner might be a little different) Horsing around a 60 or 70 pound awkward hunk can be tricky.

You can use a floor jack. The problem is most floor jacks only have a small cup. You need to figure out someway to balance the transmission and secure it. Then the shaft might not be at quite the right angle so you need to wedge it. A transmission jack with have a larger surface to hold the transmission, generally some brackets to secure it in the right position, straps to tie it down, and maybe a way to tilt the whole deal. Most tool rental places have them and unless you're on a really tight budget it is one hell of a lot easier. When I was a kid I didn't have much cash in hand and did most things the hard way. it can be done but it's not much fun.

Rent it. The local Time Rental is showing $34.50 a day. If you don't have a torque wrench you can generally rent those too. Another thing about keeping the tranny nice and level and upright is you don't suddenly find out that there really isn't a shaft seal on the input or output shaft and fill your armpit with fluid.

If you figure it will take more than a couple of days you might find something like this locally:

Even if it's a couple of bucks more locally you can measure up your floor jack and make sure it's something that's going to fit without going off onto another project to make it work.

Going on 70 that's what I really like about bikes -- you don't have to get under the damn things. Worse comes to worse you can just lay down next to it.

I'm one of those weird people that looks under the hood when buying cars. Drain plug? Check. Oil filter? Check. Ignition wiring? Check. Of course the Toyota doesn't have a distributor of plug wires so that was a real easy one. I can reach in with a 10mm socket to pull the drain plug and unscrew the filter from the top.

Walmart shows them but I imagine it would be something they would have to order before you find out how well it works with your floor jack.

A lot of the bike riders do just that, though not necessarily intentionally, at high speed out on the highway.

Drain the fluid. Otherwize unless you have a "dummy shaft" to fit in the tailstock it WILL leak when you get the tail end low

It can hold it but good luck getting the tilt right - more important putting back in than pulling out. It's a 3 man job with a simple floor jack - and the air will be blue. With a proper trans jack it's a pretty simple one man job.

This is why it is often cheaper to pay someone with the right equipment. You can likely get the labor to change the clutch for the cost of a decent transmission jack - and if you drop the trans on your hand, paying a pro to do the job would be CHEAP in comparison.

Likely some idiot put the wrong fluid in lastr time it was changed. There IS a difference between GL4, GL5, ATF, and engine oil. Differnt transmissions are built to use different fluids.

I'd be checking the release cyl

Again, another reason paying someone who knows MIGHT be a good investment.

The clutch master might be bad too.

I'd be checking the hydraulics and the linkage before tearing the transmission out.

Bleed your clutch lines. Make sure your clutch master cylinder is filled. Make sure your slave cylinder and the lines aren't leaking. If you bleed the system and it still has that problem, replace the master cylinder.

I didn't realize all the stuff, especially tilt, that a transmission jack did where you explained lining up the shafts, where I'm now convinced. I will buy (or rent - but I generally buy) a transmission jack.

It turns out that the cost to replace the clutch is so high (from $650 to $1200 in the two quotes I received already) that the jack is just the first hour of the four hour labor cost AAMCO just quoted (at 4 hours & $600 in labor alone).

BTW, if it takes them four hours, it will take me the entire weekend, and that would be if I have a perfect DIY to follow and if I don't run into problems that I can't overcome easily.

I've been down the tool-rental path, where sometimes it's worth it (like with a ditch digger but most of the time you get a beat up worn tool for about half the price of a brand new tool).

So I'll likely buy a new but inexpensive transmission jack (or this saddle idea if it works).

Googling I see some people just weld a fence post to a flat plate of metal to make a saddle, but I don't have welding equipment (that's another project for another day).

I have rented but found that you gat a beat up tool for about 1/3 the cost of a brand new tool.

How does this cheap $100 transmission jack look?

In this picture you one of my Pittsburgh (not great) torque wrenches.

I don't mind buying a torque wrench if I need it because that is something that gets used time and time again.

I'm gonna drain it based on what was said prior that it's going to leak out no matter what I do. I just drained it two days ago so that's easy to do.

Two days ago I replaced the fluid as shown in this photo, so it will be interesting to see what the new fluid looks like after a few weeks.

Thank you for finding that, which seems to be the $40 "saddle" that was previously suggested.

I like the idea of the saddle because it means I don't have to store a transmission jack that I'll likely never use again (although we all know that spare tools have a way of finding themselves useful in the strangest of ways).

After reading what was written here, I'm definitely going to get "something" for holding the transmission. It will either be the $100 transmission jack or the $40 saddle similar to those listed above.

I presume the jack works fine but I'll read the reviews on that saddle as there is a chance it's a rube goldberg contraption.

The good news is that this is a 2WD Toyota so the transmission "looks" accessible to me to a jack.

Thanks for your wonderful advice!

Thanks for confirming that it will leak more than I want it to. The only reason it matters is that I put in very expensive (for what it is) Red Line MT-90 which was about 20 bucks a quart, so, that's 60 bucks that I don't want to waste.

This is a good point that I had not thought of so thank you for pointing out that I was mostly thinking of removal for the jack where all I had to do was support the weight, but replacement is where "tilt" may matter (I never thought about "tilt" before).

I didn't even know transmission jacks "tilt". I thought they had two things only: . A flat plate . A ten-foot lift

I didn't know that "tilt" was a spec that mattered! :)

I understand your perspective which is that it is "sometimes" best to let the pro's do the jobs where the risk it that you hurt yourself. People make this argument all the time on compression of springs around the shocks.

You know what?

For years, I had AAMCO replace my shocks because I was afraid of dying, but then one day I rented (for free) the spring compressor from an auto parts store and wouldn't you know it. It's a trivial job to do. All these years I was scared of nothing. Now I realize you're gonna say I'm a fool but I did take safety into account, and, in fact, I rented two sets of springs, so I had them double locked.

Safety is always something that has to be weighed proportionately. A chain saw is just about the opposite of safe right? A lawn mower is just as bad depending on the terrain, right? And don't even think of going on the roof for anything, right?

Sometimes we have to take reasonable precautions, so I am leaning toward a "cheap" transmission jack. Now, I know what you're going to say which is that sometimes a cheap tool is more dangerous than a good tool, but I assume the $150 transmission jack I found in my first google hit would be ok for a single transmission job.

I called AAMCO who quoted 4 hours at $600 for labor alone, and then $1200 for the job (estimated over the phone), so at *those* prices, a transmission jack is cheap!

All Japanese cars, I'm told, are hydraulic. This one certainly is hydraulic. I bled the slave cylinder months ago but it didn't do anything.

I went through my photos in my fluid change DIY where I didn't snap one of the pink slave cylinder but in the far left you can see the rubber-booted actuating mechanism into the clutch that the slave cylinder operates.

I can have her press the pedal but I'd have to know how much travel to look for at the transmission itself.

I'm all with you on the fact that the "miracle oil" must be an anomaly of some sort because I just can't believe it makes that much of a difference between a non-working transmission when cold making a K turn out of the garage and a working one, when the fluid level was not low (it was actually

20 ounces too high).

This was posted earlier in the thread.

The question is whether to get that or this: They have more expensive transmission jacks but this is expected to be a one-time use so it doesn't need to be super sturdy but just sturdy enough.

Wrong picture.

This picture shows the transmission.

There is some kind of "mount" at the rear (right in the picture). Since this is the 2WD, it looks kind of roomy down there.

I noticed the $100 transmission jack had a "5 degree forward tilt".

Do you have any idea how much forward/backward tilt is usually needed?

I will repeat that I was shocked that the fluid change made what would clearly not shiftable when cold, now shiftable. (New fluid didn't change the clutch pedal feel issue of course - but it magically "fixed" the fact that a cold K turn out of the garage required multiple killing of the engine where now that's not needed.)

This is what the top 20 ounces of the old clutch fluid looked like:

And this is what the bottom 72 ounces of clutch fluid looked like: Where 2.9 quarts came out but the spec is for only 2.7 quarts. This is the gunk that was in the drain plug: I think the only thing "wrong" with the fluid that I could tell is that there was 20 ounces too much and it looked pretty dirty.

Certainly it should have been changed long ago, where it could be the original 20 year old fluid if the clutch job five or so years ago didn't replace it.

I know the history of the car from day 1, so it definitely only had one time where there would have been a chance of the fluid being changed, and that was the clutch job years ago at half the current mileage.

There is a release cylinder? Googling for "toyota clutch release cylinder" shows up stuff.

Here's a boot for the "clutch release cylinder" but is that the same thing as a "slave cylinder"?

The master/slave cylinders may be bad. I will check them for leaks. Dunno if there is anything else that can be checked yet.

I agree. The one thing though is that the clutch is going to *need* to be replaced soon anyway as it has had the same clutch for five years or more.

snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca posted for all of us...

+1 on that. Also +1 on the fluids.

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 17:43:58 +0000 (UTC), Chaya Eve wrote: SNIPP

And the fence post doesn't give you the tilt that the jack saddle does (it really converts the floor jack to a transmission jack)

Well, for starters it only gives you FIVE degrees of tilt. In my experience that is seldom enough.

I have a policy (developed from YTARS of automotive service) od ALWAYS draining a transmission before removing unless it has a fixed output flange.

Notice it has a full 60 degrees of tilt - 30 in each direction. MUCH more usefull than the 5 degree motorcycle jack that "also works" as a transmission jack (sorta)

Don't waste your money and effort on the $100 solution - it is NOT a viable solution.

The saddle WILL work, as long as your jack has a removeable saddle and the pin on the trans saddle fits or can be adapted to you jack saddle mounting hole.

The transfer case on a 4wd does complicate things "somewhat".