Chris' Mazda 323F V6

[hoodedreeper]

Since the day I went to view and test drive the car, the clutch biting point was very high. To the point where my foot would only rise half an inch after the bite to the end of the pedal travel. Knowing this I've been driving with care to prolong the life before I could get it changed. It hadn't slipped at all up until 10 or so days ago.

My friend Danny came to the rescue and offered to help guide me through the job. I've only changed one clutch and that was on my Colt CZT with the help of another friend.

I apologise for the lack of photos, I did make a short video for Youtube but was unable to do a full on one due to copyright music in the background.

First start off by disconnecting the battery and remove the battery clamp, battery and battery tray. Next up is the intake hose and airbox, make sure you mark the vacuum hoses and put them back on the correct way.

Locate the starter motor on top left side of the gearbox underneath the distributor. Disconnect the two 12mm nuts and unplug the space connector on top. The starter motor has 3 bolts fixing it to the gearbox.

We decided to keep the slave cylinder connected and removed the 2 bolts that holds it to the side of the gearbox. Follow the clutch line along and it'll join to a short flexible hose which is attached to an L shaped bracket, this needs to be unbolted from the top of the gearbox.

Behind this towards the engine block is a large bracket that secures part of a electrical loom, this also needs unbolting.

Further to the right towards the rear of the engine block is the fuel filter in a cage bracket. I removed the long 10mm bolt on the cage bracket and pulled the filter out. There's two trim clips holding the electrical loom to the same bracket. Follow the bracket along the back of the engine and there's a bolt and captive nut, we slackened this to allow the bracket to move more freely.

In this area there's two plugs, one is the speedo drive and the other is the reverse light switch.

The last thing to do (from memory) at the top of the gearbox is to crack off the bell housing bolts. At the top centre there are two and one more to the right. On the left hand side of the gearbox, there's two more bolts and a third the opposite side (exhaust downpipe) which we originally missed.

Time to raise the ramp and start the removal underneath.

There's a horizontal curved brace with 2 bolts either side, this needs removing. Next was the long brace that goes from the cross member to subframe. The front has 2 bolts and the rear has 2 nuts. Towards the front of the brace is the front gearbox mount, there's two nuts here. With all of those removed the brace can be lifted away. The front gearbox mount has a single bolt that passes through, the round mount will then pull out. Make sure you don't loose the large washers and rubber bushes for the long brace.

You'll see two rods coming from the bottom of the gear stick,one is longer than the other. The short one is the gear selector and has a single bolt. The other goes to the gearbox and has a stud, the nut on mine stopped turning so it ended up removing the stud too.

We'll come back to the rear engine mount in a moment.

Drain the gearbox fluid. The drain plug is on the bottom of the gearbox, its a large bolt 22mm or 23mm (I can't remember sorry)

It's time to remove the wheels. The driveshaft hub nut is 32mm. Unbolting the lower ball joint will help swing the hub up to the side, giving you more access to the driveshaft once its been released from the hub. There's two options to remove the ball joint.

Option 1: Remove the pinch bolt leaving the ball joint on the suspension arm. This carries a risk of splitting the protective boot.

Option 2: Remove the ball joint from the suspension arm. There's a nut and bolt nearest the front and a single nut on top.

We went with option 2

The driver side driveshaft has a centre support bracket/bearing. There's two bolts attaching it to the engine block. With those removed, use a pry bar to help lever the driveshaft out from the gearbox. You may need to wiggle the inner joint while doing this to help.

The passenger side drivehaft is shorter so no need to remove any additional brackets. Removal from the gearbox is the same.

Lets re-look at the rear mount, this had 3 bolts. Two are above the passenger drive shaft and the other is slightly lower down next to the longer gear selector rod that you removed (the one with the stud)

With a transmission jack we took the weight of the gearbox and removed the bell housing bolts. Making sure nothing was getting caught on and around as we slowly lowered it down. Luckily it didn't need lifting/tilting, it came straight down.





We gave the gearbox a thorough clean inside and the areas which were damp on the outside. I checked the clutch plate went on the input shaft spline to check fitment and it was all ok. Using an alignment took, we could make sure the plate was central on the clutch cover before we bolted it to the flywheel.

The release bearing supplied was wrong. Left is the original and the right is the one supplied



Although it slid over the selector fork fine, the top part of the release bearing where the cover/cage crimps to itself that was fouling the inside of the gearbox. It's the part at 12 o'clock, on the right side item. We had no option but to re-use the old one.

The old (ADL Blueprint) correct release bearing FCR54-58



The new replacement (ADL Blueprint) and incorrect release bearing TKS54-33K



A photo of the old release bearing installed. You can see the clearance at the top near the casing



While I was making sure the clutch plate and cover was aligned, Danny gave the face of the flywheel a clean with some brake cleaner and sandpaper.



Clutch installed and torqued to spec



Refitting was the reversal. Make sure you refill the gearbox with 75W90, capacity is 2.7L.



Some Torque Setting

Front Hub Nut - 236>319 Nm
Clutch Cover - 17-23 Nm

My Youtube video can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBK5y1KLZh4