MT: Won't shift, Shifts only when engine off. New Clutch cable.

[Johnny Mullet]

I did my clutch in about 5-6 hours in the shop I work at. Not a bad job at all.

[7milesout]

Not a bad job at all.

If you have a lift!

I do not. I am relegated to jack stands and sliding my big ass up under my cars in the driveway or garage. Sucks.

I just spent this past Friday from about 6 pm to 9 pm replacing a rear wheel bearing (had to remove the driveshaft). Only to have it not work when my son went to give it a test drive. Then Saturday 8:30 am to about 11:30 am fighting it trying to figure out what was wrong. Only having to disassemble it and found that I was shipped the wrong friggin bearing / hub assembly. Of course I could have checked the axle splines to the bearing before I put all that crap together, so bad on me. 2.5 hours driving to from Z1 Motorsports to get the right hub / bearing assembly. Then another couple hours on the driveway putting it together again. I worked on that car from 8:30 am to 4 pm Saturday. Sucked. Oh well. And Z1 Motorsports is a helluva great place. Wrong bearing ... mistakes happen. Great staff there.

I like to think I could do a clutch on the Blueberry if I needed to. But I don't know if I'd have enough room below it to get the clutch out if the front end were sitting up on jack stands.......

[foama]

If you have a lift!

I do not. I am relegated to jack stands and sliding my big ass up under my cars in the driveway or garage. Sucks.


I like to think I could do a clutch on the Blueberry if I needed to. But I don't know if I'd have enough room below it to get the clutch out if the front end were sitting up on jack stands.......

I changed a good number of clutches on Suzuki Swifts some almost 20 years ago myself, and that took about 90 mins each time from start to finish being alone. I had no hoist or lift. Mirage are similar, albeit the gearbox is heavier.
It went like this in short: The car was jacked up as high as possible front on both sides, level, and supported on wooden blocks so the tyres were about 20cm (8ins) above ground. The left tyre was taken off, and the lower ball joint disconnected. The engine supported from underneath. After everything was disconnected from the drained gearbox, the left driveshaft was pulled out. Then the entire gearbox was pulled out towards the left, with the right hand drive shaft coming off in the process. After the clutch replacement, with the gearbox on my chest, it was wiggled and slid back on, checking that the right hand drive shaft goes back in correctly. The left shaft and ball joint followed. There was a good description on TeamSwift, maybe its still there.
These cars are quite similar.

[littlemoule]

Looking at the average from fellow friends here, 3 hours or 6 hours or 90min, so average about 4 hours. Even at $120/hour, this should top out at $480 CAD + tax. So I am expecting cost to be under $600 CAD all in since I am supplying the part.
But that shop where my car is at right now quoted me $1200 CAD + tax (labour only, since I already bought the part from ebay). I think I will try a second shop since I have a CAA subscription to tow the car somewhere else.

[7milesout]

Shops should simply just charge $1,000,000 per hour. And then in just a day or two of work, THEY'D BE RIIIIICH!

[Fummins]

Shops should simply just charge $1,000,000 per hour. And then in just a day or two of work, THEY'D BE RIIIIICH!

What a bargain.

[littlemoule]

Last few posts feels like I am talking to 5 year olds. So I am going to bring this back on track:
Most shops in my area quote $120/hr but they use slip streaming which effectively makes their rate close to $180/hr.
In this case, because they know I cannot drive my car until it is fixed, I have little choice (according to them) so they decided to quote $1200 CAD + tax. Now I have options, I can either put it on a 0% credit card and go ahead with this and pay slowly monthly. Looking at some youtube videos, the job looks evolved but maybe more like $600 job. My clutch arrives on August 15th. My car overall is in good shape so it might be worth fixing.

[foama]

My thoughts are with you, but there is really nothing I can do about it from the distance.
If I were in that situation, I would do it myself. Its really just a routine job, nothing special, and $1200CAD+tax sound like a cut-throat ripoff. If you don't have much or any experience at mechanical things, maybe you know somebody who is, or who knows a mechanic? Ask around. Maybe there is a small repair guy working in his own small garage or business in your area? Maybe you could put up an ad looking for someone who can do it?

[Fummins]

I’m
Offended

[littlemoule]

My thoughts are with you, but there is really nothing I can do about it from the distance.
If I were in that situation, I would do it myself. Its really just a routine job, nothing special, and $1200CAD+tax sound like a cut-throat ripoff. If you don't have much or any experience at mechanical things, maybe you know somebody who is, or who knows a mechanic? Ask around. Maybe there is a small repair guy working in his own small garage or business in your area? Maybe you could put up an ad looking for someone who can do it?

We have something called Kijiji, its like craiglist where people post small jobs or services. I will look to see if there is someone working from his garage or a weekend mechanic who can do this. If I was in Germany, I would have paid you to do it .
If you are really confident this is not a $1200 CAD+tax (13%) job, then I will search for a small mechanic first. I have CAA so I can still get it towed for free.

I’m
Offended

Now now