Hoping someone will know a trick here but I am trying to change the clutch on my 94 xj and have removed all the bolts around the bellhousing, starter, slave cylinder, shifter, wiring, tranny mount, and drive shaft. I cant tell why it will not seperate from the engine, but tried moving it up and down, several positions, shaking, pushing, pulling, and I know that it is in neutral. Does anyone have any advice?

 

Some times you gotta give them a good wiggle remember its been on there a while.

 

I have heard that you need to need to leave it in 3rd gear or be able to engage the clutch to make the transmission release, does anyone know if this is true?

 

Mine is a '97 XJ, but likely the same installation as yours.

Going from memory, here. Did you get those two self-tapping looking bolts that go in from the front, one on each side? They hold on that adapter plate/dust plate between the engine and tranny. Be careful when removing, the xmsn will want to come down for sure after that if everything else is loose. May want to thread in a housing bolt somewhere else just to keep it from coming out before you're ready.

I cussed around for about an hour before I found those two bolts and then only saw them by accident.

 

thank you for the response and yes I did I actually found three of those bolts, also on accident after about an hour of fighting with it, but still can't get it to budge. I'm sure that there are no more bolts so I'm waiting until tomorrow for a new clutch line so that I can try pressing the clutch in to make it release, hopefully that works. I have done 3 other xj clutches in the past and never had this issue

 

There might be something here> http://borntourist.com/gallery2/v/mo...tch/?g2_page=1

 

Alright, so I finally got the new hydraulic line in and was able to put it in 3rd gear, but it still wouldn't budge. Then I got aggressive with shaking it and still nothing. After walking away for a while I decided to try spraying the $#!+ out of it with penetrating lube and it finally broke loose and came right off... but what would you expect with 401k miles on the original clutch

 

Ah...wouldn't expect trouble till 402K... What waz sticking you think? Maybe the pins?

 

It wouldn't come off easy with a 401 K investment holding it on....

 

Botta Bing...

 

Unfortunately, did all that work and it still doesn't want to go into 3rd gear without grinding, now looking for a used ax15 transmission with little luck... any thoughts about trying to rebuild it?

 

It will not matter the gear it's in to pull the transmission. You should check out my latest thread in this section on AX-15's and third gear.

 

Thank you to everyone who has responded to this discussion and I did manage to get the clutch changed out, and no it didn't matter which gear it is in but I ended up spraying penetrating lube through the hole in the bellhousing where the slave cylinder mounts to lubricate the shaft, gave it a little wiggle and it came right off. Unfortunately, after changing the clutch and putting everything back together, it did not fix the original problem which was grinding when letting off the clutch pedal in 3rd gear only, I think it may be a worn out synchro fork or key but I never opened a transmission and dont know if I can fix it myself. I would be more comfortable putting a new transmission in if only I could find one 92-95 ax-15. Does anyone know how difficult it is to rebuild the transmission?

 

Have you ever change the fluid in it ?

 

Do i need to drop the exhaust system to get the Trans out in my 95 XJ? Im having a heck of a time getting it out...