Pics from 2022 clutch install on my 09 2.4l

[vibedrivermatt]

Hello, I found some pics from the clutch install we did on my 09 24.l vibe. This wasn't a fun. It's really tight underneath the 2.4l vibe. There's wasn't a lot of room for our wrenches. We also did this laying on our backs as it was a diy situation with stands stands. Heres the pics!

[vibedrivermatt]

So at about 107k miles my clutch was slipping. The clutch would hold well enough to still drive but it would slip the whole way until it got up to speed. It didn't feel nice to drive the car like this. It's a weird feeling of being disconnected to the road. The clutch replacement was necessary to continue using the car.

Right at the start we ran into issues. One of the first steps is to remove the starter. It was majorly frozen into the transmission case. We were prying at it and doing everything we could to get it out. It ended up coming out in chunks. We were nervous about cracking the tranmission case in our attempts to remove the starer.

If you ever change the starter on your vibe, I highly recommend to apply a layer of anti-seize where it mates into the transmission.
The starter on the 2.4l is designed with a rounded shape which is inserted into the transmission. Well, mine sure as heck didn't want to come out. We weren't able to fully remove it until the transmission was out of the car.

[vibedrivermatt]

So to get the trans out a whole bunch of stuff needed to get taken apart. At this phase I became more of a helper with the job. Now, I can do basic stuff with cars but doing a full clutch job was going past my skill level of what I can do on my own.

I had two very talented guys to do the job here. One was former pro mechanic. He was giving us pointers on what to take apart.

As you can see, this big subframe cross came off. We has to disconnect the steering rack from that. Fitting our wrenches under there was TOUGH..

One big ouchi occurred as we were removing the large bolts which hold the cross member to the bottom of the car. A large bolt near the wheel well snapped off into the frame of the car. I had the pleasure of snapping that one off myself. At this point I was pretty sure we could just send my car out to the junkyard.

My friend had to upside down weld a nut onto the broken off bolt. The heat probably loosened it too. Then he was able to back it out.. whew.

[vibedrivermatt]

Here's closer pic of the transmission. There still one peice of the starter in there! We had to gently pop that out with a hammer.. I ordered a new starter off Amazon for $80.

[vibedrivermatt]

Things started going more in our favor at this point. Here's the new flywheel and pressure plate. I torqued the flywheel on nice and evenly with my electronic torque wrench and gave a good blast to brake clean to wipe the packaging residue off with a towel.

The one pic shows the green jack which we used to temporarily hold the engine up. Later I believe we supported it from above. I'm not remembering all the finer details. We did this a couple years ago.

I believe the cost for the parts was about $500 and for the job that was free as we did diy. I thought about replacing the rear main seal and even bought one.. we opted to leave the original in place.

[vibedrivermatt]

The car is back to running great now. I'll finish off with pic of starter chunks. That was fun.

I appreciated those guys for lending me their time.. I swept my friends garage for him after that was done. Least I could do right? The car was in his garage for about 4 days.. when things were getting tough, we'd just call it day and revisit it the next morning.

The car runs good. I noticed the new pressure plate seems to have a little less clamping for than my original. It's easier to press down. It doesn't seem the affect the functionality though.

Oh yea heres parts I used. I bought the cheapest stuff I could find
Cheapest starter i could find on Amazon $89.
Duralast Clutch Set NU72456-1. Autozone $135
Flywheel LUK LFW245 rock auto. $87
rear main seal (not used) advance auto parts $40
Miscellaneous tools including ball joint separator, axle nut socket, brake clean etc.. estimated $100
Total $451

[tpollauf]

Nice work and thanks for sharing. Good thing you had experienced help to take on this job. My experience on these "newer" FWD cars is somewhat limited PLUS, I'm not a young kid anymore (officially on Medicare as of last year ) so I'm having certain jobs done for me, by others who I know & trust! Back some 40 years ago it was nothing for a neighbor to see me under a car/truck performing all kings of mechanical work. They were all rear wheel drive AND simple to work on.

[vibedrivermatt]

Thanks. Yea, I don't think I could have done without those guys. This sort of part replacement ended up being difficult in the end. I was glad for their help.

Hey that's an awesome G8! I always liked those. Has it been a pain to get parts for it being a holden? Those are such neat cars, also neat is the fact those were the only ones available to the US with manual trans. Is yours a manual? Later the chevy SS only had auto.