I need to get the bellhousing off the manual transmission so I can change the seal. To get at all the bolts, the clutch fork and its shaft needs to come out. But it is fighting me! I've been hammering on it using a rod through the access hole, without success. The set screw is out. What am I missing? Is there a specialized tool or something?

 

I'll offer these suggestions and they are non-Jaguar specific.

The shaft is meant to rotate in the bell housing and if this is still true, the shaft is stuck in the clutch fork (a given). Has the shaft moved at all in the fork? If it has, even 1/16 or 1/32, there might be a burr formed by the set screw being turned into the hole in the shaft. If that has happened, your fixes may be limited, a very small square-ended stone on a Dremel comes to mind. Trying to force a steel shaft with a burr through a close tolerance hole in cast iron usually doesn't turn out well.

After all this is said, apply some heat to the clutch fork in the area of the shaft hole and smack it a little and see if that helped. If that seemed to be beneficial, squirt some penetrating oil in the set screw hole and at each end of the fork hole. Be careful using too big of a hammer, breaking the down-stream bell housing ear off would not be out of the question. Also, don't peen the end of the pin with your punch/rod, although the better pins are machined with a small chamfer on the ends to prevent this, if it gets peened.......well, just don't tippy-tap on it.

Dave

 

Could it be that the shaft is bigger on one end then the other? Hence it would have to come out opposite of the way it went in. Makes you kind of wonder how they drilled that hole in the first place. Note the bushing on one end but not on other?

Larry Louton

 

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Dave: Yes the shaft is chamfered, and I am careful not to mushroom it out. Heat would be a good next step, I agree. Larry: Yes, what if the shaft is smaller at one side, or there is a step in the ear. But the drawings don't suggest anything else than a straight shaft that could exit on either side. That is why I post this here instead of going looking for a bigger hammer, in hope that someone else has had the bellhousing off their transmission before. Because of the construction of the bellhousing, there is no real way of applying pressure from the other side unless I make up some sort of contraption with a slide hammer at the other end.
Stuck and corroded pieces are really the most annoying part of fixing up old cars. I also have the distributor from the same engine (Lucas 22D) with the vacuum capsule, or what is left of it, frozen solid to the otherwise fine distributor body. Easier to replace the whole thing there though.

(Edit: Yes the shaft IS stuck in the fork, and pivots freely in the ears. No sideways movement whatsoever.)

 

Hello Martin, Does it look like you could drill a access hole inline with the pivot pin to go the other way? Perhaps what ever is binding won't bind if you go the other way. A 3/4 inch hole saw wouldn't affect the integrity of the bell housing in any matter if done with fore thought. I used to drill a similar hole in a E-Type so as not to pull the motor for a clutch job.


Larry