Well it is time for a clutch replacement in the little Hyundai Accent!  I just can’t bring myself to pay 600.00 to 800.00 for an Auto Mechanic to fix the thing!  I have been mechanically inclined since the beginning of time however, so this is just another one of those jobs that I can do myself with a little motivation.  My problem is, I don’t have a garage to work on my cars in.  This is a minor… err major setback…  Today I am going to start on the car and it is 30 deg outside and snow is falling, not your ideal situation but I’ve run out of time… I mean I have put this off for 8 months in hopes that I would get the money to have someone else fix it.. NOT happening!  So today is the day..  the project will be started despite the weather.  I’ll try to get some pictures and maybe some video of my project as I progress through the adventure.  Stay tuned, you might actually learn something.. well, I might learn something ;-)..  THE FUN BEGINS!
 
 
Video Series 1

 
 
Video Series 2

 
 
Video Series 3

THE PROJECT CHANGES PACE

The clutch change project has changed pace just a little.  After some thought about the symptoms that the shifter was having, I have diagnosed that the transmission has a linkage problem.  The car will not go into gear at all and absolutely has no shift pattern which it should have whether the clutch is good or not.  I know the clutch is bad so it will be replaced anyway but I have bigger problems than that.  I explain in the following video about my diagnoses so please stay tuned for more fun under the hood!

 
 
Video Series 4

Please note the first part of the following video, I talk about taking a U-Joint out of the steering column…  I will be skipping that step as I don’t think it will be necessary.  The rest of the video is dealing with taking the starter out.

 
 
Video Series 5

In this next video I am still following a manual step by step as I disassemble my Hyundai Accent to get to the Trans-axle/Transmission.  This video shows a transition period where I move the car forward into the spot I will be completing the rest of the project.   I take my time jacking the car up and getting ladder jack supports underneath because we don’t want the car falling on me when I get underneath it.  I’ll be putting more supports under it before I actually start working under there though.  Safety First when it comes to getting under cars!

 
 
Video Series 6

Today was a very tough day to be working on a car outside.  Even though the temp was about 35 deg the wind was blowing at 22 mph making it terribly cold and very annoying, I couldn’t even lay my gloves or hat down without it blowing away.  Despite the weather, I did get a few things accomplished.  As you will see in the video, I worked on the front end, in particular the driver side front rotor/axle/driveshaft.  It was an extremely tough job to do even without the weather beating me to death!

 
 
Video Series 7

Preparing to take transmission out, this video deals with the motor/transmission mounts that have to be taken out to get the transmission out.  I have to say this was a terrible job as most of these bolts were real rusty and very tight!  Never the less, I got them out!

 
 
Video Series 8

Well the project is coming right along but not without some major back breaking work!  This next video you will see that I have started and completed taking the transmission out including taking the clutch/pressure plate assembly off of the flywheel!  The flywheel will come off later!

 
 
 Video Series 9

Today in this video I am dealing with taking the flywheel off of the engine.  The bolts are extremely tight and I had to use a little ingenuity to hold the flywheel still just to be able to turn the very tight bolts.  I am happy to say that I eventually got the flywheel off.  Now the flywheel needs to be resurfaced before I reinstall it.  The flywheel is very burnt from the clutch slipping.

 
 
Video Series 10

The transmission is finally in the garage and ready to be worked on.  So now the fun begins!

 
 
Video Series 11

Well the transmission is now out of the car and on the bench in the garage.  As you will see in this next video I will be taking apart the transmission but first had to figure out how to take it apart!  I might mention that the manuals I use for my cars are from the online source:  alldatadiy.com and they seem to have some pretty good auto manuals online (NOT FREE).  In this active manual I just found out today that the sheared bolt that I found in the transmission seems to be a common problem with this model of car and transmission.  I found out that there was a service announcement on the 2000 Hyundai and there is now an upgrade kit that replaces this bolt with a spring pin setup.  So this is something I am going to have to call the dealer about and probably order the parts through them.  In this next video you will see what I’m talking about…. so much work for just a sheared of bolt!

 
 
Well it is now April 8th and I’m in the parts waiting game…  I ended up ordering the part I needed for the transmission from the Hyundai dealer as it is a “special” manufactured bolt..  I guess you can only find the bolt in Korea.. lol! Now earlier I had mentioned that there was some kind of upgrade to this control shaft assembly, well I guess you can still order just the bolt for it instead of spending a bunch of money for a whole new control shaft assembly. So that is what I did but ordered two of them in case it ever happened again… if it ever happens again though, I may just push the car over a cliff instead.. haha! Can you believe that this little bolt only cost 24 cents?.. yeah, me neither! All that work for a 24 cent bolt.. I guess I can justify it a little by the fact that I actually needed to put a new clutch/pressure plate in it but I would not have had to take the tranny clear out of it to replace the clutch assembly. So I look at this as a pretty major “BOO BOO” on Hyundai’s part for designing the tranny this way. I couldn’t imagine how much this would have cost me if I had all the work done by an auto shop, yikes, I bet the bottom dollar would have been 1200.00 and I would say that it may have been much, much more! Well sometimes it pays to be able to work on your own vehicles.. it does take a lot of time to do it yourself though, especially in my case where I have to work around what the weather throws at me! please stand by for more video in this series, the fun will begin again in a few days when I start putting the tranny back together and back into the vehicle.
 
 
Video Series 12

Well, I know it has been a few days since my last post but for good reason! For one, i had parents visiting from out of town but the main reason is that I have been waiting on the bolt I ordered to fix the shift fork for almost 2 weeks! Yes just a simple bolt! Well guess what? Got the bolt home and after setting it aside thinking that I would work on it the next day, I got to wondering if the bolt would even work.. well… THE BOLT IS THE WRONG ONE! I can’t tell you how disappointed I am, WOW they couldn’t even get the right bolt! That was it, I’d had enough waiting around and took matters into my own hands! Now, today I decided to drill out the hole and re-thread it with a 1/4-20 thread American bolt! It turns out I did not actually have to drill the hole any bigger as it was big enough to re-tap with the 1/4-20 thread tap I had to buy. So the bolt I bought had the same head type as the bolt that had broke so it should work perfectly. I did have to shorten the bolt a bit using a grinder so it did not thread clear through the shaft but that was easy enough. I used Permatex Threadlocker “RED” to help keep the bolt from backing out because I’d hate to have to do this job again! So as you will see in the video below, I got the shaft and bolt installed back into the transmission and got the case surface cleaned where the one half of the transmission cover bolts back to the other half. The surfaces have to be clean and free of burrs caused by prying the case apart on disassembly before they are put back together. Anyway!!! Today was the turning point in this project as I am now actually starting to put things back together!!! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the project continues to go smoothly.

 
 
 Video Series 13

Well today brought a few surprises in the project as I made it much further than expected!  I started out the day with the goal of just assembling the transmission.  Well the assembly went much faster than I had expected so that left a lot of time to try to get it installed back into the car.  So I set another goal to try to get the transmission up into the car but not mounted onto the engine as I still needed to install the flywheel and clutch/pressure plate assembly.  I figured that would be all I had time for today, but turns out it did not take all that long to get the flywheel and clutch/pressure plate assembly installed and I was able to keep working and actually get the transmission bolted back up to the engine.  That is a bunch of work in one day!  I explain it all in the video below so please tune in!

 
 
Video Series 14

Well, guess what? Yup, I finished the project today. Well I do have the interior console to put back together as I had taken it out 8 months ago trying to figure out why the car wouldn’t shift. Well I can tell you, it was one TOUGH day. I mean some of the things I had to do to this little car, I didn’t think I would ever get them done. Installing the axle dust cover boots were the hardest job I think I have ever experienced, they were similar to trying to put a tire on a rim and if you have ever tried to do that, you know exactly what I’m talking about! The only difference is that these dust covers would get covered in grease, you just couldn’t help getting grease all over them which made it very hard to grip and slid on. The next big problem I ran into was that I had broke a bolt off that held the brake line in place on the drivers side brake. This bolt was in the strut and I had to drill it out and re-tap it so that the brake line would not rub the axle. It was a tough job because it was in an odd area and hard to get the drill in there. I kept at it though and got it done. The next problem was the brake caliper itself.. I had my wife get in the car and asked her to work the clutch so I could make sure the slave cylinder was working.. out of habit, she pushed the brake peddle which caused the brake to close a bit.. I had the hardest time collapsing the brake so the caliper would go back over the rotor.. again I just kept at it and finally got the caliper back on. Thee rest of the time was spent on putting everything back on that had been taken off. After I got it all put back together and the tranny oil put in, I placed wheel chocks in front and back of the back wheels so that if the clutch engaged or would not disengage I would not run over anything or jet out of control. So I was able to start it up and I checked each gear to make sure I could feel the clutch engage! It worked like a charm!!! Since the car had not been run hardly at all for 8 months I let it set and run until the temp came up to where it needed to be andd it was all warmed up. So I got in and tried my gears again and they worked like a charm the second time. So after that I decided to take it for a spin around the block to see what would happen.. This was a pretty big gamble as it was now about 12:30aam at night. Well, it made it around the block and did outstanding.. worked real well! So I backed her up in the drive and shut her down for the night! So I cleaned up my tools and my huge mess and called it a night! In the next couple days, I am going to put the console back together and do a little more test driving close to home in case it decides it don’t like that new clutch and things.. Please check out the video below, it may have something in there you might need to know about.. who knows, I’m always learning!

THE END!