180sx: Clutch swap

One of the things that was always annoying about the 180 was the button clutch it came with. I got a exedy sports organic (japanese made one) to replace the button which should hopefully hold my power goal of 220-230kw along with being a lot nicer to drive on the street and gentler on the fragile sr20 gearbox.

Bonus it came with some cute stickers.

Dropping a box on the ground never not sucks. Need to win the lottery one day so I can buy a house equipped with a shed and hoist.

To be fair this was one of the more streetable button clutches I've driven but it still sucks like every other button clutch.

At first I thought the previous person didn't use a pilot bearing/bush but it just turns out the one in there was super worn out somehow. Never seen anything like that before. I've also never seen someone use RTV in place of thread locker before especially on flywheel bolts...

I struggled for awhile trying to use my pilot bearing puller because the brass bush was so worn out there wasn't enough of a lip for the tool to catch on. I almost gave up but then I decided to try breaking down the bush with a chisel which to my surprise worked!

Whoops nicked the crank a little. Be a little gentler and cautious if you need to do it as I just sent it.

All good with the replacement in.

I decided to block off the water line that runs behind the head for the turbo since I'm using the waterneck off my s14. Recommended for s13 peoples because the water turbo line always seems to roast for me due to heat from the dump/manifold.

Used some push lock hose with an appropriate block off bung.

Hopefully no issues because it's in a really shit spot to reach with the gearbox on/engine in.

If you've ever wondered how to tighten flywheel bolts by yourself.

Thankfully they mark which side of the clutch disc goes where because I can never remember.

Wouldn't mind one of those fancy billet tools or cut off the input shaft off a blown sr box since plastic is a little flimsy but it does the job.

Then this is how you tighten pressure plate bolts solo.

The short shifter that came with the car lacked rubber boots so this caused gearbox oil to splash out onto the tailshaft while driving which then flicked it everywhere.

Degreased and wiped it the best I could. Hopefully no more cooking gearbox oil smell when I drive.

Another small random job. One of the welded nuts on the tunnel had broken off at some point in this car's life. I used a nutsert to fix this for now to avoid needing to weld under the car.

The gearbox mount on there had seen better days and was tearing so I decided to upgrade to a Nismo mount. Also confirmed the car has Nismo engine mounts so now I've got the full set at least.

Josh came past and helped me get the gearbox in since I was struggling solo. We struggled too for a bit then I realised afterwards I left the box in gear... At least Josh didn't almost die this time.

I ordered a new OEM shifter along with the required parts. Hopefully it'll feel a lot nicer to shift and I won't have a smelly oily mess forming again.

I forgot how annoying the top snap ring is to get on but it's all finished. In hindsight I probably should've degreased and washed the box but I was feeling a bit lazy.

Probably should paint the boot retainer ring also. Was just too keen at the time to finish assembling it all.

I'm pretty much done driveline wise for the car atm. I just need to swap on a new OEM slave as it currently has a random aftermarket one along with a braided line. At least I can continue with tasks that required the gearbox to be bolted back in to have the engine aligned.