derekf.com

28 Oct 2025
Clutch Slave Cylinder

Well, I screwed up.

To be fair - that could be a subtitle on half the entries on this site.

In my last real drive, I had a failure: the new GM crank bolt worked its way loose, and was hanging out by just a few threads - not quite sure why it didn't come the rest of the way out, it was hanging at something along the lines of a 45 degree angle and the balancer was just bouncing around on it. I replaced it with the old single-use bolt but did not trust it; so I replaced that one with an ARP equivalent.

It's supposed to be torqued to 235 lb-ft. This would have been a lot easier with more space, and this attempt destroyed my torque wrench (of dubious provenance) that could actually show 235... but it should be on now. I hope. And I hope it didn't do any damage to the threads while it was coming apart.

During assembly, I didn't shim the clutch slave cylinder, didn't know I needed to and didn't check (in my defense, the last time the transmission was separated from the engine the car had not moved under its own power yet).

It's not been a good year - too many other items got in the way of turning wrenches and the car has pretty much just sat. We had folks coming to restain the fence, so the car needed to be moved. Started the car, couldn't get the transmission out of gear even with the clutch in (but it idled fine). Stopped the car, tried again the next day and it wouldn't even disengage enough to start with the tranny in gear.

It's not surprising - I never seemed to have enough travel in the clutch pedal (see this update) so I adjusted the clutch rod longer, shaved the back edge of the pedal arm, and did anything else I could think of to add additional travel - and I expect I overextended the clutch slave cylinder.

Bought a new clutch slave, and a clutch slave shim kit, and it's time to do work.

I was worried that I'd need to remove the exhaust but it doesn't look like that's going to be an issue.

Step 1 is removing the shifter - so remove the console, then the 6 boot, then the shifter.

Then, of course, drain the transmission (not pictured)

It's only been 18 months but the bolts and u-joint saddle were rusty enough that taking this apart was harder than it should have been.

Eventually successful.

Here's where things go sideways.

I can't get the transmission crossmember out. I *assume* I can just unbolt the tranny and slide it back a little, then drop the front and slide it out.

I was wrong. I need about an inch more than this gets me, and of course given how bad the effort was last time and the time before, getting the input shaft through both disks and into the pilot bushing will take hours... so now I have the transmission far enough back that there's no way I'm removing the crossmember, I can't get it back forward, and just to add insult to injury the jack that was holding up the front of the transmission loses height so it's spent at least a little time supporting itself in the front by the input shaft. Hopefully it didn't tweak it.

I've tried to get a transmission jack from Harbor Freight twice now - my local location was out and pointed me at another location, which it turns out is also out.
Options on the crossmember include:

cut the crossmember and try to reweld it later
cut the crossmember and buy a stock replacement
cut the crossmember and buy a fancy modular replacement
unbolt the body from the frame on the pass side and lift the body hopefully enough to get the crossmember free

I suspect the body mount option will win. I think when I installed this into the car as an assembly, I put the crossmember in before the engine was bolted in. It may be that unbolting and lifting the engine might have helped before I unbolted the tranny.

	I still have paint issues. This seems to be getting worse...
.. and this is no longer just a bubble
	Hard to tell from the pic, but I didn't get enough color here, you can see a fog of primer under the clear.
I think I welded up a hole here, apparently not well.
	and this is just disappointing.

Also not pictured - the mirror on the pass side (which I've never been able to use to look behind me because it's in the wrong place) had the glass fall out and shatter. Rather than replacing that glass, I think probably better to remove it and weld up the screw holes; so now I get to paint (at the least) the hood and both doors. Sigh.

Additional to-do list for the Camino:

Correct the AC condenser location
Finish tuning (the WB o2 sensor has failed, so I'll need to replace that first)
Fix the horn wire in the column so it stops randomly grounding out and sounding the horn while driving
Add cupholders of some sort
Wire up the seat heaters (which requires figuring out appropriate switches, and finding the buried wires)
Mount the door lock switch somewhere (which requires finding where the connector is under the carpet)
Repaint the behind-the-seat side panels, they're already chipping and showing their blue color. If someone reproduced those, I'd likely replace them with black ones.
Recalibrate the speedometer - it's wrong.
Maybe put the air-lift airbags in the rear springs, I think I decided they were wrong when I had the wrong rear springs
Fix the upholstery on the sail panels

At least it's not a long list?

Go back to the previous day (23 Dec 2024)

	I was worried that I'd need to remove the exhaust but it doesn't look like that's going to be an issue.
Step 1 is removing the shifter - so remove the console, then the 6 boot, then the shifter. Then, of course, drain the transmission (not pictured)
	It's only been 18 months but the bolts and u-joint saddle were rusty enough that taking this apart was harder than it should have been.
Eventually successful.
	Here's where things go sideways. I can't get the transmission crossmember out. I **assume** I can just unbolt the tranny and slide it back a little, then drop the front and slide it out.
I was wrong. I need about an inch more than this gets me, and of course given how bad the effort was last time and the time before, getting the input shaft through both disks and into the pilot bushing will take hours... so now I have the transmission far enough back that there's no way I'm removing the crossmember, I can't get it back forward, and just to add insult to injury the jack that was holding up the front of the transmission loses height so it's spent at least a little time supporting itself in the front by the input shaft. Hopefully it didn't tweak it.