E30 Zone

Right chaps i've got to remove my my clutch and flywheel so what is the quickest and easiest way of getting the gearbox off?

Cheers
Dave

There is no quick way its a horrible job. Remove exhaust, heatshields, prop, shifter, reverse light connector, clutch slave cylinder, starter and all the bellhousing bolts, support gearbox remove gearbox mountings pull back gearbox and try not to drop on the floor. Easy on a 4 poster nasty on axle stands or ramps.

It's not too bad on a 4 pot, if you have the car nice and high, and have lots of extensions for your socket set then it's really straightforward. When removing the bellhousing bolts, remember that there is a little 10mm bolt on the o/s of the box going into the bell housing the opposite direction to the rest of the bolts. Think you need e10, e12 and e14 sockets for the torx bolts btw.

The only bit i'm unsure about is the prop to be honest!

I've only just put the engine back in, i'm halk and half with taking that back out or dropping the greabox. Can have the engine out in 2hours and back in in an afternoon whereas the gearbox is sounding a bit of a pain but i was thinking that could of been quicker.

It is an M42 by the way!

I've just taken mine out of 325i and aint looking foorward to trying to get it back on.

The way I did it was to put car on 4 ramps, very difficult acces to top bell housing bolts and were VERY tight!

I put a ladder under engine and g/box with one end on a wooden box in front of car and a trolley jack under other end of ladder to rear of G/box, thus had a stable lowering platform. Will do in reverse to fit.

Needs patience of a saint may well be easier to remove engine if youve got the gear certainly took me longer than two hours with lots of cussin thrown in.

Good luck.