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In Jan 2020, we were planning a big trip to the South Island going from Auckland to Wellington, across the ferry and then a 2 day trip down to Dunedin. Of course just a few mere weeks before leaving, the clutch began to slip and it was clear the clutch needed replacement.

Just before Christmas was not the ideal time to try to find someone to do the work, and so with the help of my son and son-in-law, we bit the bullet and decided to get it done.

The way to replace the clutch is to remove the bed and open up the access panels at the rear in the floor. Remove the driveshaft, buy a chainblock, build a temporary gantry, support the gearbox, disconnect the handbrake, undo the bolts attaching it to the engine and slide the gearbox forward.

Because the box is electric over air, there are a lot of connections which I didn’t want to disconnect so I managed to just move the box out of the way. The gearbox is HEAVY and awkwardly shaped. If I did it again, I would make a bracket to hold the box so it doesn’t rotate once once its freed from the engine. There are things that het in the way, but with a little patience it comes out.

The whole clutch assembly needs to be unbolted and machined to match the new clutch plate and pressure plate. It wasn’t that expensive to do, then its all a matter of putting it back together again.

To align the clutch plate, I made an alignment tool on my 3D printer using PLA, you can see the alignment tool in this picture.

IMPORTANT : Once the cover plate has been bolted on, remove the red bolts ! I found this out the hard way .. very humiliating ! The clutch will work if you don’t, but only for a year or so!

Then put it all back together again. I must say the box was a pain to line up, but patience and help from two extra people got it in.

I certainly needed the clutch to be replaced, the streets in Dunedin were steep and narrow !! First gear in some places!

Anyway, after some subsequent lot adjustments the clutch works well.