Hey guys,
Clutch went and realistically it's a 20 year old car. So the "while you're in there" list is long.

Two weeks ago the clutch started slipping, and after putting almost 5000 miles on it since November I decided it was just time to take her down and do a major refresh: On the list:
Radiators (all 3)
coolant lines (all rubber)
Coolant pipes (for obvious reasons)
Condensors (suspect leaking, AC performance not great)
Heater core
Clutch
Rear Main Seal
Transaxle rebuild
Coils
Plugs
Bearings
Brakes
Suspension refresh
Turbo refresh (I have K24's) and an unknown tune
Headlight upgrade

Basically.... get it back to a very solid stage to where I can enjoy the heck out of it, both on and off the track for several years.

Yes, the list is extensive. Yes, It will take time. Yes, it will cost probably a lot more than I've budgeted. But I'm a believer in the "do it once, do it right".

So without further ado. No fancy garage. No two post lift. I did buy the QuickJack 7000TL, which fits perfectly between the wheels and is a gem to use.
First day was QuickJack assembly (and then waiting 24 hours for the hydraulic adhesive to cure).

Today I started with things I could do while it was on the ground, and the adhesive finished curing.

First up:
Rear bumper
Intake (mine is an EvoMotorsport).
I had a shop recover the AC coolant earlier this week.

 

leaking front diff output seals

 

Not bad progress.

I don't have pics of the final yet. Both rear radiators are removed, coolant drained. Center radiator ready to come out tomorrow.
Will also get the power steering lines disconnected tomorrow and start on the prep for dropping the engine.

Thoughts:
Honestly, car is pretty easy to work on.
Car itself has not been treated as well as I'd have liked. Lots of missing or mis-matched fasteners, mainly on the heavily serviced bits. That will be corrected.
Most everything looks original until you get to the rear of the car with it's mods. And the dang stereo (yes, that is getting remedied).

I'll go through a bit more detail tomorrow in getting the engine/trans out.

 

So last night left off with getting both side radiators out. Today I had the help of a friend and decided to spend that focusing on getting the engine on the ground. Most of the coolant was out, so I set about doing things to get ready to take the engine out.

Disconnect front driveshaft at the back of the trans - three bolts, and it pops loose with a small pry-bar. I zip-tied this to the big main coolant line just to keep it out of the way. After doing the axles, I popped the clutch cables off the side of the trans. They're just a ball and socket- use a screwdriver or two to pry them off.

Then I disconnected the reverse light plug from the trans (electrical connector right behind the drivers side axle/and the shift cables.

Please note I have the GT2 manual clutch, so none of that to deal with.

In the foreground beside the axle, you'll see a brass end on a stainless hose. this is the hose that connects to the clutch master cylinder line, it's disconnected. This goes up to the slave cylinder on the top of the transaxle. It's fine to just "hang out" where it is, and will get pulled.

You'll also notice that I have the coolant lines under the trans disconnected and the hard pipes are removed. You'll make a mess doing this. Have I mentioned this car holds a TON of coolant???

In this pic you can see both axles are out, and in the background beside the other axle are the ends of the shift cables.

 

Fantastic stuff. Thanks for sharing. I can't believe I did a clutch swap on my back with engine installed (I'm an idiot).
Please tell me about the car jacks and table jack supporting the engine. Cheers, and good luck.

 

Sure - I'll elaborate. There's a lot more details over on Rennlist; but I wanted to make sure it was shared on both. Lots of knowledge on both sites, and figured I would share.

 

The table is a harbor freight 1000# lifting table. It works great, minus the fact it's a little tall off the ground. The lift is a QuickJack 7000 TL, which fits perfectly. It raises the car 27" off the ground. You need 39" of height with the engine on the table to get it out from under the car.

This involves a fairly unstable process of lifting the car from the rear (under the rear control arms) with two floor jacks simultaneously. There are zero pictures of this, and I am comfortable doing this - but iv'e got a lot of experience. I put two jack stands under the of the car, as far outboard on teh suspension mounts as possible, so that if it wanted to move, it would be supported there. Please note - this is not safe. Do this at your own risk of life, limb, and car damage.

Once the car was jacked up in the rear to 39" (after everything was disconnected and loose), the engine was rolled out, and the car set back down. Total time in a precarious position was less than 5 minutes. We will have the same thing on re-install.

Definitely pretty easy to drop the engine and trans. A few things on the back firewall are a bit challenging, but not bad.

Now... what follows is a lot more difficult.