looking forward to hearing your impressions of the new setup!

 

Progress made today - car is apart, ready for new clutch and headers to go in. The shop I am using is a one man show. So I stopped in for a couple hours today to lend a hand lifting out the transaxle and torque tube. The old clutch was absolutely demolished. The hardest parts so far were disconnecting the shifter cables and separating the torque tube from the rear of the engine. Here are some photos so far of the old clutch parts and the removed driveline parts. The car barely visible on the lift in the photo of the torque tube is a Ferrari 365 GT4 BB that is being restored.

 

Ummm..the cables aren't supposed to come off like that. To be honest I never even knew they separate like that. The end fitting is just held onto the shifter level arms by a ball fitting(it's pretty common access all brands). I use a panel tool (we have a special tool..but I use my snapon trim tool A177A) to wedge between and pop off the end. That reease button you pressed to release the cable is just the cable length adjuster, if it goes back together, your going to have a misaligned shifter..so use the button to adjust each cable in neutral.

 

Yeah... The shifter cables were a nightmare. We spent more than 2 hours trying to pry them off the ball fittings, they simply would not come off. That took more time than all the other work combined. We called Velocity AP and they had no idea how to get them apart, said they had never done one before. What the heck, how is that possible??? I actually had composed a PM to you to ask how to remove these, when my guy said he got them apart. So for better or worse that's where we are now... I guess it's a bonus that now we get to learn how to readjust the shifter.

 

We have only had our facility open here for 3 months, and we don't really 'work on cars' per se as a service facility but rather do development work on them.

When your mechanic called, I didn't say I had 'no idea', I confirmed with him that the cable linkage pops off the ball on top of the transaxle, but that never having physically done the job myself, I couldn't give any specific pointers on how best to accomplish that.

 

Ah, I see. Sorry for the miscommunication! I was very impressed that you answered the phone and were available to talk. We tried pretty much every kind of prying tool in the book and couldn't get those ball linkages to separate. Never thought that would be the most confusing part of the job! Everything else has gone smoothly so far. It's a shame the new parts won't be visible after reassembly, they are too pretty to hide.

 

Here's just one of the arms on top of the trans..ignore the tie-raps...I just use a trim tool.

It's not something special (again, same setup on most manual shifts with cables..even my old 1989 Chevy Cavalier Z24 had this type of shifter cable..minus the adjuster), really amazed the mechanic had not figured this part out. It's going to be on hard, otherwise banging through the gears is going to cause a cable to pop off. At least it's out and work is progressing. :-)

 

Yeah, we tried that exact same tool (among many others) and it just seemed like we were applying a LOT of force, much more than on any other car he's ever worked on. We did agree that it did have to come off the ball somehow, but didn't want to break the plastic end of the cable. Of course, next time will be a lot easier!

 

No worries, I've been told I'm a Canadian Beast that doesn't know his own strength..here's selfie from this morning

 

Well that just won comment of the day

 

Oh my god, I was going to ask how is the fit in your Vantage

 

I'm going back to the shop today, the owner is letting me do some work on my own while the car is apart and on the lift. So I'm going to install new air filters, replace the door struts, and replace the front marker lights with those black LED ones from ebay. I also ordered new fender vent strakes from astonmartinbits, mine are a little pitted, those should be here in about a week and they are much easier to replace with the fender liners out and the car on a lift. May as well get her all done and perfect.

 

Flywheel, clutch, torque tube, and transaxle went back in today. Was a little fiddly getting everything aligned, but actually seemed easier than taking it apart. Tomorrow we adjust the shifter cables, install the headers, install the new fender vent strakes (thanks Aston Martin Bits for quick shipping!), and then put the rest of the exhaust, covers, and misc parts back on, bleed the clutch lines, and finish the job. Can't wait to drive it!

 

This has not been discussed in detail, but I am very interested in the results, primarily because it's a 4.3 engine. I believe that the 4.3 uses a heavier flywheel that compensates somewhat for the low engine torque at low rpm.
The twin clutch uses a lighter flywheel then even the 4.7 engine. It would seem that the lighter assembly would make it more challenging to engage the clutch at low rpm.
The question is how much of a difference ( if any) is there in engaging the clutch in typical low rpm driving

 

My car is finally finished, I'll start a new thread later this weekend when I have time to write a comprehensive review with all the interesting details. Stay tuned...