thenak

A few notes having just pulled the transmission on my 98 impreza outback: 1. remove the throttle body and the airflow regulator (I think that is what that thing is just to the left and under the throttle body). Might want to drain a little coolant first. This give much better access (once wiring is also out of the way) to the access port, enough to get a breaker bar on those darn drive-plat-to-tc bolts 2. you can rig up a system that acts like the special tool to replace the stopper and brace the top of the engine so that it does not fall forward: i bought three non-caster roller wheels for their brackets; removed the wheels and drilled a hole in the center of the plates. There is a place for a bolt parallel to the stopper, and you can use one of the bolts from the stay for the air intake to bolt one of the brackets to the engine. I then pinched slightly one of the other bracket's wings and fit a common bolt between the two brackets where the wheel would normally go; this allows the other bracket to rotate. The third bracket mounts to the existing stopper, and you can use a small piece of threaded bar and some nuts to connect the two free brackets together and even adjust to tile the engine backward a little if needed. USE THIS SOLUTION AT YOUR OWN RISK, but it worked for me 3. The nuts on the bottom of the transmission should be easy once the axles are off. BTW, unbolting the stabilizer allows enough flexibility for the axles to be pulled from the tranny without having to do much more than pop the spring (roll) pins. The passenger side nut was tougher for me, but much easier to work with from up top than down below. 4. With the stopper in place connected to the engine, as soon as the lower nuts were off, the tranny actually separated up top about 1 mm. Sweet! with a tranny jack on wheels, it pushed off nicely, but did have to finegal a little to slightly lower the tranny, push back, slighly lower, push back. The studs on the bottom are rather long! For me the oil separator plate was easy to access top side with the tranny out of the way. All but one screw came out with a screwdriver; no impact driver needed. The last one has the lock-tite on it so I cracked the old (plastic) plat off, cleared out the plastic pieces from under the screw and used locking pliers to get the last one out. All-in-all that part was easy. Recommended to use anaerobic sealant (had to order online), and remember to read the direction as the opposite mating surface requires an activator to be sprayed on it before assembly. I cut up some long match sticks to act as dowels in two bolt holes in order to keep the plat aligned when mounting the new one back on.

Duty solenoid is pretty standard. clutch pack comes out with the drum as an assembly yielding access to the pipe (which must be removed to gain access to the solenoid). The pressure plate and drive plates and driven plates (not a typo) are secured and removable via a snap ring. The piston and other "deeper" components appear to require special tools to remove, but not necessary to do so if just doing a simple overhaul of the clutch pack.

I find it easieast to remove the throttle body (four bolts, and move out of the way, no need to remove cables, etc.) and the airs flow regulator on the passenger side of the intake manifold near the throttle body (at least I assume it is an air flow regulator). There is a coolan hose in the back of that one to disconnect, the other in the front need not be pulled, just take out the three bolts securing it to the intake manifold and move it out of the way. Also, helps to pull the vacuum hoses and onbolt the metal bracket holding the wire harness connectors. May sound like a lot, but really isn't much work. You can then get a breaker bar with a 6 point socket on the bolts through the access port quite easily. position the bolt to the (slightl lower) left of the access port so that you can get leverage against the bell housing. this will prevent rotation of the engine/flex plate and without the need for special tools to hold the crank shaft pulley or any such thing.