Ive always been one to work and fix my own cars and bikes when something small or big goes wrong with them, but this time, i had one of those moments where I kept thinking to myself ” Fuck it, ill just pay someone to do it”.
Its always been a pretty big part of my personality where i will fix everything myself. My dad instilled this into me by also fixing everything himself, helping me fix small things of mine but the main and most prominent example that was foundational for me, was when he funded a full engine rebuild, clutch and gearbox replacement on my 1992 Honda Prelude after it snapped the timing belt. I specifically remember him saying on the stairs of the entry of my late teens childhood home whilst we looked at it in the garage, “Ill give you the money for all the parts you need, but you have to research everything and do all the work.”
I had serviced and done small things on cars but a full rebuild of an engine, gearbox and clutch was a bit daunting. Anyway, long story short, he did fund it, i did rebuilt it and it ran beautifully after for the many years i had it post rebuild. I still remember the sense of pride and accomplishment I got from that exercise. It was one of those many life lessons/personality shaping moments that you look back on and gives you perspective and you identify as a moment that shaped you into the person you are today.
Fast forward to November 2023, I’m a Dad now with a pregnant partner and she is headed to pick up the little man from daycare in the Pathfinder. Heather hears a massive crunch, bang and grinding noise on the drive there.
Heather did an amazing job and still managed to drive it to the day care and get the car parked into the car park (sort of). Call’s me and says the car is broken and she cant get it into gear. Not Good.
I head over, swap cars and Heather takes Louis home in the Tesla and I’m left with the Pathfinder at day care.
It was interesting, you could drive it and change gears with the clutch, so that was working to extent but when you came to a stop, the clutch didn’t fully disengage the crank from the input shaft which meant you couldn’t get it into first at a stand still. Ive had clutch issues before and normally its gradual and not a “big bang” moment. So i was kinda stumped.
Anyways, i drive it home with out the clutch and turning it off when i got to traffic lights to get it into 1st and then drive it as normal.
Ewen comes over and we trouble shoot the normal stuff, Slave and Master Cylinders, Pedal, listened to everything we could but cant get the car into 1st when it was stopped with the engine running. I could hear that the gearbox never stopped spinning even with the clutch fully pressed. Nothing was working so the decision was made to just buy a new clutch kit with new Flywheel and throw it in the garage.
Now this is the situation, Heather is heavily pregnant, Christmas is a month away, we have a 2 year old who’s a nutcase, now weekends are free for at least end of January and i have to get a 80Kg gearbox out of a 4wd in my garage to replace the clutch. Then my second son is born January 26th (Australia Day) and that just throws any time i had to dedicate to this out the window.
In Steps Ewen, My best mate and Heather’s Mum Mara.
Mara is here staying for a couple of months and steps in to take on some of the kid minding responsibilities, and Ewen and i finally book a day on a weekend to get cracking on it in Feb.
I load up the garage fridge with beer and we get into it. I’m seriously lacking any motivation and I’ve said this multiple times to Ewen, he has been my motivation to get big ticket items on the bikes and cars done because but being a new dad again, having a toddler and all that entails I’m not exactly feeling it. He just jumps in and starts dismantling everything.
Once the gearbox and pressure plate was off, we were able to understand what happened. Two of the four springs within the clutch plate broke. One completely shattered and the other was still kind of hanging in there. This explained why the clutch never fully disengaged from the flywheel which intern kept the gearbox still spinning and didn’t allow the syncro’s to stop for you to put the car into first. We have some celebratory beers, high five each other and call it a day.
We wouldn’t get another chance to work on the car and put it back together until Mid April.
At the end of the day, the car was put back together with a new Heavy Duty Clutch, Single Mass Flywheel and all the replaceable stuff replaced. Interestingly, the clutch came with a larger clutch slave cylinder which made a massive different in the pressure required to apply the clutch which should make a nice difference to the easy of driving in the city and towing when we eventually purchase a camper trailer.
