It's Happening, although slowly...
It's been a while since I posted anything. Been busy in most things, slow in others. Thought I would write a little about what's been going on.
So, here it is.
Last weekend, a friend & I did some maintenance on my BMW. We started out by pulling the exhaust off, then dropped out the transmission. Then we got to the heart of the issue... a worn out release bearing (also known as a throw-out bearing). It had started squealing extremely loud the last day I drove it... when we pulled it out, it was easy to tell that something was wrong with it. One race (bearing surface) was off center, and the whole assembly was fused together. A couple of firm taps on the concrete broke the fused surfaces apart, and it popped into pieces. Some of the balls popped out and tried to roll away.
Removing the clutch was next. The pressure plate came off as expected, along with the clutch plate. On inspection, it was easy to tell that this was the original clutch for the vehicle (a good thing) and that it was definitely due for replacement (the clutch plate was worn to the point of rivets cutting grooves in the pressure plate.
After that, we pulled off the flywheel. Rather than have it resurfaced, I had purchased a replacement flywheel ahead of time. One that saved about 20 pounds of weight where it will really make a difference... :) Before beginning to put everything back together we broke for lunch and a trip to the carwash to clean up the transmission.
Reassembly started after UPS dropped off the new clutch plate (there was a minor bubble in the initial order.) Reassembly went without issue, and the car was on the ground and running at about 9:00pm.
Other items of interest: today is the building inspection on our townhouse. This Friday is the Warranty Walkthrough of the same. Wendy's cell phone/PDA is dying. I've upgraded from a 4GB iPod Mini to a 30GB Video iPod... schweet!
:)
So, here it is.
Last weekend, a friend & I did some maintenance on my BMW. We started out by pulling the exhaust off, then dropped out the transmission. Then we got to the heart of the issue... a worn out release bearing (also known as a throw-out bearing). It had started squealing extremely loud the last day I drove it... when we pulled it out, it was easy to tell that something was wrong with it. One race (bearing surface) was off center, and the whole assembly was fused together. A couple of firm taps on the concrete broke the fused surfaces apart, and it popped into pieces. Some of the balls popped out and tried to roll away.
Removing the clutch was next. The pressure plate came off as expected, along with the clutch plate. On inspection, it was easy to tell that this was the original clutch for the vehicle (a good thing) and that it was definitely due for replacement (the clutch plate was worn to the point of rivets cutting grooves in the pressure plate.
After that, we pulled off the flywheel. Rather than have it resurfaced, I had purchased a replacement flywheel ahead of time. One that saved about 20 pounds of weight where it will really make a difference... :) Before beginning to put everything back together we broke for lunch and a trip to the carwash to clean up the transmission.
Reassembly started after UPS dropped off the new clutch plate (there was a minor bubble in the initial order.) Reassembly went without issue, and the car was on the ground and running at about 9:00pm.
Other items of interest: today is the building inspection on our townhouse. This Friday is the Warranty Walkthrough of the same. Wendy's cell phone/PDA is dying. I've upgraded from a 4GB iPod Mini to a 30GB Video iPod... schweet!
:)
posted by Stephen Hughes-Jelen at 12:42 PM
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