or "Everything I wished I'd known before changing my clutch". This may prove to be the longest single post ever.

Thanks to Kerr20v and JBT for the help and advice.

First, a generic video on changing a pull type clutch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEhL87zf8rY

that doesn't all apply to the coupe (eg. the release bearing lever doesn't need the arm removed as they show) but it's a
good general overview of the job and is worth a watch.

To start, car is on axle stands under front jacking points and front wheels are removed.

- Remove Battery + battery tray

- Remove Clutch slave (but leave connected to hydraulic line) and move aside. I wedged it up behind strut brace
- Clutch slave bracket off
- Gearbox front earth cable off
- Gear select cables - 2 ball joints lever off
- Prise out C clips just along select cables
- Slide select cables out and move to back onto steering rack
- Remove dipstick tube with dipstick
- Cover dipstick hole on gearbox with tape
- Remove starter bolts (3 bolts, or if you're lucky someone hasn't refitted one before and now there's only 2!)
- Pull starter back but leave connected
- Disconnect the 2 gearbox sensors (speed sensor and reverse sensor)
- Drain gearbox oil from rear plug, 2L Laser plastic oil bottle from Halfords is ideal
- Remove hub nuts on both sides (Laser thin walled 36mm impact socket from Eurocarparts) - Try to lever up the
"staking" on each nut to avoid damaging CV joint thread
- Remove pinch bolt at wishbone ball joint on each side
- (optional) Remove droplink bolts. If you have the wishbone puller tool (eg. ebay # 172816243532) then you won't
need to do this, but if you don't then it'll help for next step
- Separate ball joint, both sides
- (optional) remove nearside arch liner - partially or completely, note ABS cable mount if completely removing
- Separate nearside drive shaft from hub
- Pull complete nearside drive shaft out of gearbox, remove complete drive shaft
- Separate offside drive shaft from hub
- Offside, remove 3 bolts at half shaft bearing
- Pull complete offside drive shaft out of viscodrive and gearbox, remove complete drive shaft
- Pull viscodrive out of gearbox and remove
- Note: Viscodrive may pull out of gearbox with the half shaft, in which case separate and remove visco before
removing complete drive shaft as the visco won't fit through the half shaft bearing mount and will fall off the half shaft if
you try.
- Cover both drive shaft seals on the gearbox with tape
- Support engine at exhaust protection plate under sump
- Remove front gearbox mounting bracket (3 horizontal bolts to gearbox, 1 vertical bolt to chassis mount)
- Remove lower/rear gearbox mounting bracket (3 horizontal bolts to gearbox, 1 vertical bolt to chassis mount)
- Remove bolts securing gearbox to engine (4 bolts, 1 nut on stud at front and 1 nut on stud at back)
- Push clutch release arm back towards slave mount

At this point we're almost ready to wiggle the gearbox off the engine, so have something below to support it as you pull
it back. I used a proper gearbox support adapter plate on a trolley jack but you might get away with a normal trolley
jack if you're careful.
- (optional) I found as the gearbox was pulled back the gear selector mechanism was hitting the aircon pipes, as shown
here:

after wasting hours trying to avoid this I gave up and just removed the pipes as my aircon system was empty anyway.
This also means you can remove the aircon dryer filter and bracket which gives more room at the front of the gearbox
too.

Apparently this is not absolutely necessary but I found it made things a lot easier.
- Wiggle gearbox back off engine, you first need to get the studs front and back clear, as shown here:

- This is the tricky part... now rotate gearbox anti-clockwise (looking from nearside) so that diff at the back moves up ,
then pull it over onto the subframe to rest on the front wishbone mount, as shown:
Close up:

And from the front:

You can see the release arm on top of gearbox is blocked by the aircon dryer filter mount here (even with dryer
removed) so as said above removing the complete dryer filter + mount makes things easier.

- Clutch ready to be removed now, so fit flywheel locking tool if you have one as it'll make removing and refitting the
bolts easier

The Fiat flywheel locking tool looks like this, but is no longer available:
I got a BGS "universal Fiat Flywheel locking tool" , but it didn't fit:
so I cut off 3 of the teeth, leaving only 1 (like the Fiat tool) and then it was fine:
The old wishbone balljoint pinch bolt + nut are ideal for securing the flywheel locking tool.

With clutch off, if your flywheel looks like this:

then you might want to consider removing it to have it skimmed, as those hotspots won't help.

If it's done well it should look like this, note that the contact surface has been rotary ground after being cut back as that
helps the new clutch bed in.

If you're near Glasgow I recommend these guys for skimming the flywheel:

http://www.dgilmour.co.uk/index.html

Now onto fitting the new clutch.

I'd been told that there can be a problem with fairly recent Valeo pull type clutches where the release bearing pulls out
of the cover plate.

I haven't heard this mentioned on here but it's a known issue on the Alfa forum, eg. :

http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/alfa-gta/980210-alfa-156-gta-clutch-release-bearing-issue.html

A possible solution was fitting the snap ring from the old bearing instead of the one supplied with the new bearing,
suggesting that the snap ring itself was the issue.

Having managed to separate the old bearing from the old clutch cover (with the specific Fiat tool, part # 1875084000) I
made some interesting measurements.

Both snap rings (old and new) are exactly 2mm wide and the same overall width/size. It seems that the lip on the
centre ring in the cover plate where the snap ring sits is wider on the old cover plate though.
Old centre ring:

New centre ring:

clear to see that the lip is much wider and thus more secure on the old ring.

So, I highly recommend using the old snap ring and the old centre ring. It's quite easy to remove the centre ring from
the old cover plate by bending the fingers down and pulling each of the 3 clips clear one at a time as you rotate it.
The original bolts for securing the clutch to the flywheel are no longer available and the alternative parts are shorter,
but these are used on just about all other Fiat/Alfa clutches and are apparently still within spec. :

Finding a clutch centering tool also proved to be a problem. I tried 3 universal sets (all slightly different) but none fitted.
Then I got the proper Fiat centering tool as mentioned in the coupe service manual (part # 1870081000) and it didn't fit
either!

Turns out it needs to be 16.2mm diameter, which isn't available in any off the shelf set or individual tool, so I had one
custom made by modifying one of the bigger adapters from the "universal set".

I used this engineering shop for making the custom part:

http://www.okr-engineering.com/

Very fast turnaround and reasonably priced (only £20 an hour) so would recommend them for any small jobs like this.
When refitting the gearbox, cable tie the release arm back so the release bearing is clear of the cover plate until you're
ready to snap it back into place.

As shown in the service manual:

When refitting the gearbox, lining it up to push it back straight onto the engine is the hard part. I used the flat gearbox
adapter plate on the trolley jack at the left side (near the engine) as that allowed some horizontal sliding movement + a
trolley jack at the very right end of the gearbox (away from engine) as shown in the "front on" pic above. You can see
in that pic that the front stud is a good few inches below the hole, so the gearbox also needs rotated back around
(clockwise) to its original position before it'll line up.

Adjust the engine end of the gearbox to the correct height, then bring up the far end to almost max height on trolley
jack (block of wood probably required here for the extra height) so that the front stud on the gearbox is lined up with
the hole and going in dead straight. Feel around the back to be sure the rear stud is also straight and lined up with the
hole, then push gearbox onto engine.

At first it'll go on about half the length of the studs but until the input shaft on the gearbox is lined up with the clutch
disc it won't go all the way on, so that requires some more pushing and wiggling up/down + left/right and then it should
push all the way on and you'll feel it go flat up against the engine.

It doesn't need much force so if it's not pushing completely on with the 2 studs partially in place then it's just not quite
lined up with the clutch disc, so keep trying and eventually it'll slide on. Don't be tempted to pull it all the way on by
tightening the bolts until you're sure the input shaft is properly inserted in the clutch disc.

If you can't get it to line up and push all the way back on then it's worth trying to rotate the flywheel/clutch slightly to
help the splines on the gearbox input shaft slide into the clutch disc. You can do that by using a long ratchet/bar on the
big crankshaft nut at belts end of the engine, but you'll need to remove the small wheel arch liner cover there to access
it.

Having access to that big nut is also useful if you don't have a flywheel locking tool, as you can "lock" the
crank/flywheel in place by leaving a long ratchet/bar on the nut there and against the ground to stop the crank rotating.
The main crank bolt is on at 360NM so there's no way you'll release it by pushing the clutch or flywheel bolts against
that.

Once the gearbox is secured (4 bolts + 2 nuts on the studs) you can snap the release arm back which should
permanently seat the bearing into the cover plate.

Before doing anything else it's now a good idea to refit the clutch slave + mount and you can test that you have good
clutch pedal feel and the release bearing doesn't pop out of the cover plate.

If you're happy with that then you can proceed to refit everything else as the reverse of the removal instructions
above.

Remember to refill gearbox oil via dipstick tube.

Replacing gearbox seals on 20vt

or "Everything I wished I'd known before changing the drive shaft seals on the gearbox".

I'd read that these seals can leak just by pulling out and re-inserting the drive shafts but having accidentally pulled the
nearside shaft out (when changing the wishbone) and it being OK when everything was back together I thought I'd
leave them both when recently changing the clutch.

Turned out both were leaking enough to form a small puddle on the floor overnight, maybe the seals dried up because
the gearbox was drained of oil for so long this time, who knows.

I'd just fitted (and staked) new hub nuts with threadlock and really didn't want to do those again so worked out that it's
possible to pull both drive shafts out of the gearbox enough to replace the seals without splitting the inner or outer CV
joints, so there's actually no need to remove the hub nuts.

Remember to drain gearbox oil (about 1.7L) from rear drain plug before you start.

You only need to remove the pinch bolt at the ball joint and then pull the wishbone down away from the hub carrier.
Wishbone puller tool is highly recommended for this (eg. ebay # 172816243532). If you don't have the puller tool you
may need to remove the drop link bolt as well, to make separating the ball joint easier.

On driver's side you also need to remove the 3 bolts securing the half shaft bearing, but that's all.

From there you can pull the complete hub carrier and damper back to pull the drive shaft out of the gearbox.

If you're also replacing the o-ring on the drive shaft (part # 14457881) at the outside of the viscodrive then you'll need
to remove the hub nut on that side to pull the drive shaft out far enough to remove the viscodrive from the drive shaft,
but if only doing the gearbox seal there's no need.
On passenger side it can help to partially or completely remove the wheel arch liner at end of the gearbox , but it's not
absolutely necessary. If you do remove it completely then be sure to seat the clip for the ABS sensor wiring correctly
when refitting.

Once the drive shaft is out you can rotate the steering wheel fully in the appropriate direction to help push the hub
carrier back and pull the drive shaft even further back to give more clearance at the gearbox. Then support the hub
carrier at the track rod end ball joint with an axle stand to hold everything back out of the way. On the driver's side I
used a small socket to support the half shaft at the bearing mount and that kept the viscodrive end nice and clear of the
seal at the gearbox.

It may be easier to prise the seals out of the gearbox at this point, but if they're stuck you'll need to tap them out from
the back after removing the drive shaft cover plates. It's best to fit the new seals with the cover plates removed
anyway, so don't worry if the seals won't come out yet.

Remove the 4 bolts securing the cover plate, then pull the plate complete with the seal away from the gearbox. Note
the orientation of the cover plate as it has to be refitted the same way. There's a notch on the inside of the cover plate
so note which way that faces for refitting.

Grip the cover plate in a vice and tap out the seal from behind if you didn't already prise it out. Remove the old o-ring
from back of the cover plate and clean everything up. The big o-rings are still available from Fiat, part # 14460880 and
it's best to replace these while the covers are off.

The drive shaft seals are apparently no longer available from Fiat (at least the visco side one) but I found suitable 3rd
party equivalents at under £20 for the pair.

For driver/viscodrive side (big seal) : Corteco # 12014056B

For passenger side (small seal) : Corteco # 12012697B

The seals are an extremely tight fit so best installed with a big socket + pressure in a vice, where the seal can be
pushed in absolutely straight and with even pressure. A little gearbox oil on outside of the seal will help.

For driver's side I used a 52mm socket, for passenger side a 44mm socket. Note that on passenger side cover plate
there's a lip around the outside of the seal so only a thin walled (chrome vanadium) type 44mm socket will fit, a normal
thick walled 44mm impact socket (chrome molybdenum) won't fit. Ask me how I know.

A freezing + penetrating oil spray like rost off ice is also useful to freeze the metal ring of the seal before installation as
that helps it get started and fit straight into the hole. Once it's started and even then push it all the way in with the
socket + vice.

The driver's side seal seats down onto a lip in the cover plate so isn't too bad to fit, but the passenger side has no
internal lip so is more difficult to get seated evenly. Make sure to check by eye on the front and back of the seal that it
appears to be flat, even and fully installed.

When re-fitting the cover plates with the new seals installed the 4 bolts torque to 25nm. Apply some gearbox oil to the
seals and drive shaft ends before re-inserting the shafts to the gearbox.

Line up the drive shaft with the seal and then move the steering wheel back towards centre slightly to push drive shaft
closer to gearbox, then check alignment to the seal and then move steering wheel back to centre before giving final
push of shaft back into gearbox.

Pinch bolt at the wishbone ball joint goes to 70nm when refitting. Refill gearbox oil via the dipstick tube.