80 Series H151/152 Installation Help (1 Viewer)

[CaptBeardilocks]

Now look, I'm pretty vaguely mechanically inclined. Check my build thread. At the very least I'm not some idiot that ships my rig off to some mechanic every time I get flummoxed . But I seem to have caught a pretty dire case of the Stupid the last few days.

I am in the process of swapping the H151 for an H152 in my converted HDJ80. The H151 came out with a moderate struggle but it wasn't "getting a 1000lbs tuna on deck solo" kinda fight. But I cannot get the ******* new transmission in to save my life today. Granted I'm coming off a bought of covid and I'm def not at 100% but....

I have:
Jacked the front of the motor up (though i have removed nothing other than loosening the radiator shroud).
Have a transmission jack.
Built a jig to hold the transmission on my jack that will allow for about a 30deg tilt.
Tried the only advice I could find on Mud which was "tip the bastard about 30deg, turn the ass end all the way to the passenger frame rail, wiggle the crap to of it"
Also tried the opposite of the above in case I misunderstood.
Used every swear word that I know in several languages.

I've been using a scope to see if I'm even remotely close to getting the input shaft up into the flex disk cage, and I haven't gotten closer than about 3/4".

So what is the trick that I'm missing at this point? I feel that it is something very obvious, but bring on the ridicule if gets this dang thing home.

EDIT: No offense to anyone that seeks professional help when they’re in over their head on their rig. Cheers to anyone with competent help near them.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Granted I'm coming off a bought of covid and I'm def not at 100% but....

Take a break and come back to it fresh.

No point fighting with it.

Your struggle really is just likely to be a matter of getting the two aligned perfectly square to each other.

When I put my engine in my fzj80/h151, I struggled for ages to get the trans and engine lined up.

First thing is lining up the input enough to get it into the clutch. For this part, having the box and engine tilted down at the rear helps.
A week as lining up the shaft, I had to rotate the gearbox internals to get splines to line up. (Rotate a drive flange with it in gear. ) Once the splines lined up, it slid in most of the way, but not the last inch or so

A few degrees misalignment is enough to cause it to bind getting the input shaft splines into the clutch plate, but also, getting the input shaft spigot into the pilot bearing.

Once I got it close enough to get a couple of bell housing bolts in, I was able to pull it together with the bolts. Part of my struggle was getting the gearbox to twist to get dowel pin and bolt holes aligned.
Using bolts to pull it together needs some care. Bolts should only need light-moderate force to get things moving. If you need to put a lot of force on a bolt, stop.
Something is binding, or there's interference.

I had the gearbox slung in place with a couple of ratchet straps under the frame from rail to rail. I was able to adjust the position of the gearbox left/ right, up/down.

I used a bottle jack to adjust the tilt of the engine.

Once it got it squared up with a couple of bell housing bolts, it slid in place the last 1/2 inch by itself!

I had the wrong throw out bearing in mine, so had to remove the gearbox and reinstall.
2nd time round, it slid in place easy. Didn't really do much different.
It was great it went in easy 2nd time, but frustrating AF that the 1st time was such a pain, and the second was almost too easy.

It's still a hard job to do on the floor on your back, but second time round, I really didn't have to fight it at all.

 

[mudgudgeon]

My second go, I used a ratchet strap to pull the gearbox backward to remove it.
I think I may have used a strap to partly winch it back into place too.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

Thanks @mudgudgeon . Great advice all the way around.

So far I haven't gotten as far as getting the input shaft into pressure plate opening yet. My bellhousing is hitting the transmission tunnel while I'm still nearly 2cm below the opening in the pressure plate.

That's what has me flummoxed. I'm not even close to being THAT far in and I can't seem to find an angle that gets me there.

I'm not sure if I'm not getting enough tilt out of the engine (is my 3" stainless exhaust binding more than a stock exhaust would?). How much can you safely bend any of the pressure plate spring tabs in during the battle? Am I just being too careful with the pressure plate?

 

[Gerry McGerry]

Jacked the front of the motor up (though i have removed nothing other than loosening the radiator shroud).

Remove the fan and see if you can get any more tilt on the motor.

Last I did a clutch in the HZJ I had the same troubles. Tilt the motor until it starts to lift the car, then back off slightly. I recall hitting the PP fingers a lot with no damage in the end but still best to avoid as much as possible.

I think the gearbox was rotated a fair amount to get the input shaft to slot in (almost fell in when it finally did after 2 days of fighting it).

Obviously you shouldn't need to, but I seriously considered pulling the engine mounts and lowering the engine with a crane to make it easier.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Good point about the fan.

I was putting a replacement engine in, so fan was off.
With the fan off the thing that will limit tilt on the engine will be the rocker cover contacting the firewall

I'd also consider unbolting the exhaust at the turbo flange, and unbolt the first two rubber hangers so you can pull the exhaust out of the way a bit. A rope around the top threads of shock absorber will help hold the exhaust out of the way.
May not be totally neccesary, but if it means less of a fight, it would be worth while .

I did similar with my 1hdt around 2009. Don't remember having any real trouble

I agree, the pressure plate fingers will take a few knocks and bumps.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

Jacking the front of the engine up is def lifting the body at this point. I seem to be bottoming out the rear of the block at the firewall at this point. Although I might have a few mm back there still and the exhaust is what's binding. I wonder if I can lift the engine and get the MMs out without pulling the exhaust out...

The last possible thing that I could think of was to pull most of the body mounts and try to jack the body up a bit. But I thought if it was really normal for it to be THAT tight that it would be common advice.

 

[Gerry McGerry]

Jacking the front of the engine up is def lifting the body at this point. I seem to be bottoming out the rear of the block at the firewall at this point. Although I might have a few mm back there still and the exhaust is what's binding. I wonder if I can lift the engine and get the MMs out without pulling the exhaust out...

Sounds like the motor is at max. angle then.

Drop the exhaust, every mm counts...

The last possible thing that I could think of was to pull most of the body mounts and try to jack the body up a bit. But I thought if it was really normal for it to be THAT tight that it would be common advice.

Body lift time!

I replaced body mounts not long ago, they were around 7-8mm taller. Old saggy mounts could be enough to giving you grief.

Is the bell housing clashing on one side of the tunnel more than the other? I'd drop 1 engine mount before I pulled 8 body mounts.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

Haha. My truck is bloody tall enough with Slinky lift and the Campteq top. And I'm about to put 35s on. She's way too damn tall.

Body mounts were done when I built the truck about 3yrs ago. So on the bright side they would come off easy. Lol.

Bellhousing is hitting at the chunky bits where the exhaust holder bolts on AND at the starter cone. But the main issue is that I can't get the height out of the transmission I need to get into the PP opening. Everything is definitely tighter on the right (passenger) side than the left.

I need to double check that the fan isn't hitting anything, put a feeler gauge behind the VC to see how much room I have back there (Lol), and if there's any room I drop the exhaust and possibly the passenger motor mount.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Should be doable with motor mounts in place, and definitely shouldn't have to raise the body.

 

[rick_d]

Matt.
I would take the fan shroud off and try to tilt more. i also use four long 4” ish 12mm bolts to guide the transmission thru the clutch and into the pilot. Obviously use ones easy to get to when you must replace with final short bolts.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

I have made up a couple of guide pins from old bolts. I’m just struggling to get it close enough to use them.

Going to see what’s stopping me from tipping the motor any further. If I’m fully into the firewall already I have to figure something else out.

I have the rad shroud loosened up at this point. Fan is clearing it. I hope I don’t have to take it all the way off as that requires pulling both batteries/trays, rad hose, etc. Ugh.

 

[SNLC]

Put an engine hoist on the engine with a leveler. This will allow you to control the tilt better.

If it takes four hours to unbolt stuff so it is out of your way, well that’s less time than two days of grief.

Cheers

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

Thanks for the advice guys. Finally got the transmission lined up late last night.

Some details for the next guy that's struggling.

I ended up popping the exhaust off at the turbo downpipe (along with pulling the nuts off the rubber exhaust hangers) and popping off my intercooler piping.

I think what finally did it for me though was loosening up the nut on the TOP of the motor mounts. I had loosened the bottom nuts up, thinking that should offer similar tilt and the bottoms are easier to get to. But loosening the top of the mounts really did it. Then I got my engine hoist and grabbed the motor by the front lift point to lift the engine instead of jacking it up from below. My crane is barely long enough to reach that front point on the big girl with the Delta bumper on, so I had no chance at getting the engine leveler on.

I thought I was already hard up against the firewall before I did all that but I guess I ended up squeezing a bit more out of it.

I had plenty of clearance on the fan on the front of the motor. I just pulled the top bolts off the fan shroud up so that it could move & flex better and the fan could pop over it at the top when the engine tilted. That worked great.

I still really didn't think I had enough to get it lined up but I went under and started trying to get things in place to take a look with the scope and *POP* she just slide into the pressure plate cage. Huh. Really surprised me. I had plenty of room now.

Oddly then I had it fully bolted up within an hour.

One of the keys for me was using a drafting angle (or huge protractor) with a small magnetic bubble level hooked to it. That allowed me to measure the tilt of the motor and relatively precisely adjust the transmission to be level with it. Worked a treat.

After it was leveled I got the input shaft splines lined up with the clutch (spinning the output shaft with the box in gear). The alignment pins I made worked great to line things up and see if I needed to make any fine adjustments, like twisting the box a few degrees CCW etc. To get the input shaft into the pilot bearing I ended up wedging myself btw the gas tank and the rear of the trans and just jiggling the whole thing on the alignment pins. It went slowly but worked great. At that point I was just able to get all the bolts started, but continued to wiggle the transmission into place while hand tightening bolts until they were about half on. Then I started tightening the bolts in a circle pattern using a 3/8 ratchet, a couple turns each at a time to make sure that nothing was binding. It all went in very smoothly with the transmission leveled to the engine though.

I still have a long way to go from here, including getting the t-case hung on the transmission now. But I'm glad I'm this far.

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions and for sharing your experiences.

 

[Gerry McGerry]

Good to hear!

T case is easy in comparison, won't take you much time at all.

 

[mudgudgeon]

It's like it's mocking you when it finally pops into position!

Left me questioning "Why was that so hard, Dumbass!?"

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

It's like it's mocking you when it finally pops into position!

Left me questioning "Why was that so hard, Dumbass!?"

Hahahaha.

That's exactly what got me posting this thread up. "This shouldn't be this bloody hard WTF!"

First time is always the worst. "How hard should I need to force this? Or am I about to break something really expensive?"