Hi everyone,

I have been coming to this forum for a long time learning but never joined until now. I have searched a ton of threads on the clutch replacement of my 98 EX 2.3 Accord and found a bunch of great info on it and I thank this forum for that. I did have a couple questions though that I have not been able to clarify that I was hoping you all that have done this job could help me with.

1. Is it necessary to support the engine when unbolting the trans? I've heard you need to and then I've seen tutorials posted on other threads that don't show or mention it. I have a lift in my garage so I would have to use a high position jack stand or something. If this DOES need to be done where is the best place to support the engine from the bottom, oil pan side?

2. I've heard you should machine/replace the flywheel no matter what and also heard only if there is visible damage. Can you guys weigh in on this?

3. Anything else I should replace while i'm in there like the rear main oil seal? Just like the flywheel I've seen people who say if it is don't broke don't fix it and others say to do it so I just want some clarification.

To all of you that have done this job on a 6th gen car can you give me any pointers to watch out for? If seems straight forward just time consuming. Thanks for any guidance, and I'm glad to be part of the board finally

 

I can't offer any advice on supporting the engine, but I will comment on the rest. I would at least take your flywheel to a machine shop and get their opinion, which will most likely be to surface it. I almost always surface a flywheel when replacing a clutch. I would replace the rear seal also. You are right there, so you may as well do it. Good luck!!

 

I agree 100% with jollyhonda's recommendations.

No you do not need to support the engine when removing the transmission, you obviously need to support the transmission though

 

You will need a jack to jack up the transmission to take pressure of the through bolt so you can take it off and then remove the mount/bracket. After the mount is removed just let the engine hang loose with the tranny. To drop the tranny it's best to have someone on top with their hands on the tranny stud and inside the starter housing and someone on the bottom to help guide it. You just don't want the input shaft to bang on the block it needs to slide and clear the block then drop it. Have the person on top wiggle the **** out of it to get it loose then have the person on the bottom help to pull it toward the passenger side chassis to clear the input shaft from the engine and then drop it on an old pillow.

You can simply look at the very bottom of the rear main seal and see if any oil is collecting on the outside at the bottom which is where oil tends to pool when the seal is starting to leak or is leaking. If it's not leaking at all, sure, just leave it if you want. If it's leaking, then you may as well replace it. When I do mines I pull the oil pan and then remove the entire rear main seal plate and redo the rtv on the plate. This also make it impossible to scratch the crank to remove the seal if you don't remove the oil pan and plate. In order to remove the plate there are two bolts that go through the oil pan which is why you need to pull the oil pan itself. If you choose to remove the oil pan you may as well replace the oil pan gasket. If not, at the very least, make sure to remove all the oil residue on the block and oil pan before putting the oil pan back on and use brake cleaner to completely clean it which will also dry it, and start in the inner most bolts and work your way to the corners. Also regarding the rear main plate, you will see where the rtv has worn off the plate. You will need to reapply some rtv where it appears there was some previously. Then put some grease in the inner lip of the rear main seal(this is very important don't forget to great the inner lip) and stick it in the plate flush and stick the whole thing back onto the crank and tighten the plate bolts back down.

Regarding the flywheel if you're just replacing the clutch and nothing has been damaged and the clutch isn't slipping or anything I would say just leave it. If the clutch was slipping or you had a busted clutch or something it would be best to have it machined at the very least. You will need a 12 point 12mm socket to remove the flywheel and you can put a 19mm socket and a breaker bar on the crank bolt and as you turn the flywheel bolts eventually it'll hit something and hold itself as you turn and unscrew the flywheel bolts and they will loosen up. The flywheel bolts are only torqued to around 80 while the crank bolt is torqued to 160 or so but the flywheel bolts coming from the factory are hit with some locktite but they should come off before the crank bolt loosens up. Do make sure to tighten the flywheel bolts down exactly to OEM specs. You should be doing three torque settings/stages. The last one should be around 76 or so. If you don't they could loosen up and this would require removing the tranny again. You're supposed to use loctite on the threads but I have never used any and with always using the correct torque settings/stages you should be fine.

 

Thanks for your response, good advice.

Thanks for the reply, got the tranny covered

Thanks so much for your in depth reply. So looks like it is a wait and see kind of thing but my clutch is definitely slipping so i'm going to look at the flywheel very hard. Does anyone have an opinion on resurfacing vs buying new? I priced a "precision" flywheel at Advanced Auto and with there online code it is like 60 bucks. I'm thinking this may be better than resurfacing just b/c I've heard if not done perfect a shop can throw off the balance and cause a vibration or even a "chatter" when the clutch engages, any thoughts?

 

Well, the machine shop I am using charges $50 to surface, so if you can buy new for $60, that is prolly the way to go.

ROb

 

Hey Guys,

I'm right in the middle of this clutch change, getting ready to get the sub-frame out so I can drop the tranny. I've seen where you don't have to but that looks like a big PITA to try to fiddle with it and work in a tiny space to remove everything, plus I'd like to inspect it while I've got it out.

Anyway I had a question about the clutch kit I purchased. I bought a Perfection kit at Advanced. The price was really good with an online code and Perfection has a good name from what I can find. This is especially true of their "Zoom" hi-po brand. Anyway I just thought I'd ask your guys opinion on it. I don't really want to pay 400 for a Honda kit, or for a high performance kit when this is a daily driver, but I do want something that is decent quality that won't break on me b/c this is a lot of work. I basically have 3 choices locally, and that is Luk (I hear a really good brand), Perfection (also hear good things about) and Duralast (I have no idea). As with any brand of anything on the internet you can find people that say they are crap this and crap that, but the overwhelming majority has said they were all good. All the reviews on the perfection clutches on Advanced website are 90% positive that is why I went with it. I can easily go pick up the Luk though if that is much better. I think all the kits are made overseas. The Perfection kit I have says "Engineered in the USA", on the side of the box it says "Made in China" and inside the box the clutch disc says "Made in Korea" lol. I called Perfection and they told me that was normal and that everything is engineered to their specs but that is all they would tell me. Please weigh in, I plan on putting the clutch in today and if I should go swap this for a Luk then I would like to do it quick, thanks.

I found this on another board, if it is true then it really doesn't matter:

"There are 3 major clutch manufacturers in the world, LUK, Valeo and Sachs.
Most all of the "aftermarket" clutch companies have their clutches made by one of the big 3 I mentioned and then has them painted their own color and slaps their company sticker on it and sells it as their own.
The only exception to this is SPEC Racing Clutches. They are their own production facility and they build every one of their clutches down at their plant in Alabama."

 

Well, couple more hours into it and got the drive shafts out of the tranny, and low and behold my drivers CV joint boot is ripped Got to go to the store and get a new one, but i'm just buying the whole damn shaft, it is only 20 bucks more than the boot and I don't feel like messing with a questionable joint at this point, plus cleaning it up would be a bitch. The saga continues lol.

 

More progress, getting ready to drop the tranny, here is a few photos if anyone cares, subframe removed ready for the drop. Damn salt all over everything, yuck!

 

Well I'm done for the night, got back home and thought I'd post these two pics as well. Got the tranny out, it was not bad since I removed the sub frame. I don't know how some of you guys get this done in 4-5 hours though, I'm probably 6-7 in and just now getting to the clutch parts. Although this is my first time doing a front wheel drive tranny/clutch so I'm cutting myself some slack. It was the little things that slowed me up too, like the stupid plastic fasteners on the front air dam, I mean WTF I had to break like all of them lol. Anyway I was going to do a step by step video tutorial and that lasted all of about 5 minutes b/c I started getting pissed off. It is hilarious, that always happens to me I don't know why I try. I got some of it on video and then you hear me losing my $hit b/c I can't find my hammer or something lol. Anyway I might still do a write up on this as there are some things to look out for definitely that the manual (and I have the pages out of a honda mechanics manual) doesn't tell you about. There is one bolt in the back kind of out of the way and I tried separating the engine tranny for 20 minutes before I caught it. Anyway here are the pics of where I'm at now:

 

Daikin/Exedy is one of the bigger clutch manufacturers out there, they make OEM clutches for all Japanese brands and some Fords and GMs. They happen to be one of Hondas OEM suppliers (FCC being the other) they make good clutches and you can usually find Exedy OEM replacement clutch kits on ebay quite cheap. You have to really pay attention though, a lot of times it will be an Exedy disc and some other brands pressure plate of vice versa.

 

Well got the clutch disc, pressure plate and flywheel off, clutch had almost zero material it looks like I'm surprised it wasn't slipping a lot more. The flywheel looks pretty blued/hot spotted to me so I'm glad I picked up a new one. Here are some pics:

Old flywheel:





Old clutch disc:



And brand new flywheel up on the motor:



The flywheel is Perfection brand, and I decided to keep it, but I was not feeling good about their clutch kit so I decided to go with the Luk brand. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box and on the clutch disc it says "Exedy | Made in Japan", out-freaking-standing lol. I wanted an Exedy clutch I just didn't want to wait to order one. This is probably not big or shocking news since I'm guessing Exedy may be Luk's rebranded? Anyway I'm happy I got the Exedy and it is made in Japan vs. some other foreign country.

 

What does the pressure plate look like? Luk has this weird looking pressure plate and I really don't care for it honestly, I used a Beck/Arnley clutch kit once when someone was in too big of a hurry to wait for Exedy so I bought what I could find locally, Luk pressure plate with an Exedy disc. I used one other Luk clutch in a Tacoma and it had one weird freak release issue where it just would not disengage, shut the truck off and it never happened again. I wouldn't recommend Luk though.

Btw, no Exedy is not a rebranded Luk, they make their own clutches.

 

I can post a picture tonight, I'll be heading back to work on it in a few. If Luk doesn't make them then I'm wondering what it was doing in the Luk box???? It says Exedy - Made in Japan and looks like a normal clutch pressure plate with 4 springs, I'll get a pic and post it later tonight.

Found this on another thread here:

http://ls1tech.com/forums/manual-tra...luk-exedy.html

They are discussing the exact same thing, looks like Luk and Exedy buy from each other maybe? That would explain why I have the Exedy pressure plate in my Luk kit, here is an exerpt:

"Luk and Exedy (Daikin) are all OEM clutch manufacturer.

Exedy (Daikin) -manufactures almost all Japanese cars and some Domestic.
Luk - manufactures European and some domestic(not 100% sure).

Now for the 2 comapanies, in order to complete thier line(applications for diffrent cars).

Luk buys pcs(parts) from Exedy, while Exedy buys pcs (parts) from Luk.

It will be "reboxed" from the company's own box and call it thier own.

I could be wrong but the OEM clutch for camaro's are made by Luk.

But if you buy an Exedy hyper single or multi plate, those are manufactured
by Exedy.
If you buy an OEM Clutch from Exedy that might be a Luk product reboxed by
Exedy."

 

Yes they will rebox parts from each other, but don't make parts for each other per say, they just put the other guys parts in their box. Moog does this sometimes too along with some bearing companies (I've seen NTN in SKF boxes before)

From what I recall Luk is the OEM manufacturer for Camaro clutches, I know I've definitely heard that somewhere before.

 

Hey so here are the pics, definitely Exedy stuff which I am pumped about! I was pleasantly surprised again when I saw the actual clutch disc was also Exedy! This job was a bit of a bitch, and props to my wife who was my helper, I'm a very lucky guy

Pressure Plate:



Close up of pressure plate writing:



Clutch disc:



All these parts where sold and packaged to me in as a Luk clutch kit and in their signature yellow box at Pepboys, nice surprise.

 

i reused a flywheel that looked a bit worse than your original. i just hit it with some grit sandpaper, cleaned the hell out of it with brake cleaner, and it runs just fine.

 

I've heard that but I wasn't going to chance it, I don't want to do this job again for a long time. IN FACT, I just realized last night after getting the tranny back in and tightening a bunch of bolts and putting it back on the mount that I forgot to wipe the grease off the splines on the transmission. There should be a tiny amount but not a lot or it will fling off and could cause the clutch to slip, sooooooooooo.........After A LOT of pissing and moaning and @#$^$%&!# words I now have to pull the tranny again to wipe off the excess @%&^#$^& grease Glad I remembered before I had it all buttoned up though and ruined the clutch, lesson learned But I'm still pissed as hell lol.

 

Well my buddy came out and helped me this afternoon, was a bitch but not too bad re-pulling the tranny. Glad I did b/c there was a lot of grease "smooshed" around. Cleaned it all off except for a tiny light coat. Put the transmission back in, "high-fived" my buddy and was talking about how cool it was that we fixed the stupid mistake when just then I looked over at the workbench and the F%#$^$&^#*@$%$# throw-out bearing was staring back at me I almost lost my **** for real, but then all I could do is laugh and look at my buddy and say "third times the charm". All I can tell you at this point is i'm a damn expert at removing and putting back in the tranny on an Accord lol.

 

oh god that sucks...that's why it's best to triple check your work

 

True statement. I was a little under the gun b/c I had to take my buddy back to get his car to pick up his kids at school so I was rushing which = big mistake. Just glad I caught it. Honestly I can see why shops charge what they do to do this job. IMO if a shop is charging a very low price I'd be concerned b/c it is a time consuming job to do right. Hell I'd have to charge 3X as much b/c I keep forgetting $hit and having to redo things lol