Hey guys,

Given the pandemic at the moment, I thought I'd take on a small project which ended up being a clutch job in the trusty daily run around, Ford Focus 2001 (a job which usually costs more than the car is worth). I've never undertaken anything like this before and I encountered a fair few challenges along the way. 

First issue: Left hand drive shaft removal. This was a complete pig to remove and in the end I bought a slide hammer but I failed to attach it properly and ended up tearing the boot off the joint. Grease everywhere! Yummy! I bought some CV joint clips and stuck it back together, which was fun. Like handling a bag of eels.

Second issue: The rear gearbox mount bolt snapped inside the subframe. I had to spend 3 hours drilling the damn thing but it still wouldn't release itself. In the end I employed the use of a butane torch, applied some heat and it almost fell out. My god, what a relief! Drilling vertically upwards from underneath the car for that length of time felt like a breach of the Geneva convention.

Third issue: Putting the gearbox back on. If I had known how much of a pig it is (if you don't have the muscle to bench it off the ground) to reinstall I'd have simply scrapped the damn thing. But I managed it in the end, after increasing levels of violence and completely destroying my shoulder in the process.

Final issue: After putting everything back together and starting the car for the first time (and thinking thank F for that, there's now a thudding noise coming from underneath the car with each rotation of the driveshaft. It's either gearbox or driveshaft related, it occurs in neutral regardless of clutch position (although this could be the result of not bleeding the clutch properly) and increases in frequency from 1st gear to 2nd gear. If I try to engage 3rd it sounds like the gearbox is going to explode. The driveshaft is spinning on the left side in neutral (while it's off the ground), which I believe is normal.

Obviously, it wasn't doing this before I attempted the clutch replacement. I thought it could be the driveshaft, since it no longer has the same amount of grease in it (though not much really came out in the end, it just looked worse than it was). But the fact I can't engage certain gears (without the soundtrack from chitty chitty bang bang), suggests to me like it's gearbox/clutch related. But what could cause this? Is it likely to be an alignment issue? Or can hydraulics cause this if the slave hasn't been bled properly? The clutch pedal does feel rather light to be fair, but I've heard this is actually normal and tends to stiffen up after a few drives? 1st and 2nd gears engage without any initial crunching and 3rd/4th just sounds like scaffold tower collapsing. I've not tried 5th or reverse yet. I'm too scared. What would happen if the driveshaft isn't 100% mated with the gearbox? There does appear to be a small gap actually, but I can't remember if it was there or not before I employed the use of Thors hammer to break it off the transmission.

Does anyone have any ideas what this issue could be and what needs to be done to correct it? I've tried googling it and looking it up on YouTube, but I can't find anything exhibiting the same symptoms.

Cheers in advance for any help you can offer to the mechanically challenged.

You have put fresh oil in the box? Lol 

1 hour ago, stef123 said:

You have put fresh oil in the box? Lol 

I did indeed! Tbh, I'm starting to think it's a disconnected inner CV and it's getting mashed up with each revolution of the shaft. Which means getting Thors hammer out again! (And draining out the fresh oil I just put in it).

Have a visual check of the shafts/joints. No need to remove the shaft if the inner joint has come apart but I find it unlikely you wouldn’t have noticed it.  

6 hours ago, stef123 said:

Have a visual check of the shafts/joints. No need to remove the shaft if the inner joint has come apart but I find it unlikely you wouldn’t have noticed it.  

Just playing around with it a bit more, if I rock the (front left) drive shaft back and forth there is a significant knocking noise coming from the inner cv. But if I simply rotate it in a single direction it’s fairly silent. Doesn’t appear to be any catching or anything like that from inside the box itself.

I turned the engine on and activated the brakes which stops the drive shaft from spinning and obviously that stops the knocking sound. However, if I put my foot on the brake and try to engage first, it won’t go in unless I take my foot off the brake... what does this suggest? Is this a faulty clutch installation? I’m pretty sure I centred everything up the best I could with an alignment tool. Could hydraulics cause this?

So with the brakes applied/effectively car sat on the ground, you cannot engage gears? Did you put the friction plate in the right way

39 minutes ago, stef123 said:

So with the brakes applied/effectively car sat on the ground, you cannot engage gears? Did you put the friction plate in the right way

Yeah I'm certain I put the friction plate in the right way round with the protrusion pointing towards the bell housing and the flat edge against the flywheel.