Top 2 bellhousing bolt access?
 

Successfully completed the jdm ge swap that I was posting about a while back.

Was shaking the car down for a couple days, and the pressure plate on the clutch lost a couple fingers. :egads:

So now gotta go back and pull it all out again.

When I pulled the engine I just pulled the engine and tranny together since it seemed that the top two bolts on the bellhousing were inaccessible.

Did a search and it seems that people just drop the tranny mount and let the trans hang. Does this get enough angle on the engine to get at the top two bolts?

you need 2 12 inch and 1 6 inch extension and a swivel at the end with a 17mm socket and you feed it in from way down by the center bearing of the driveshaft ...if you remove the mount before removing the top bolts you run the risk of stripping the thread as it is removed for if tranny comes off dowel pins the bolts take all the weight

I take the trans mount off, support the trans with a jack, and lower the trans as far as the motor mounts will allow. Then I use the long extensions like lexforlife said. If you need more angle, you can loosen the motor mounts and let the trans drop down even more.

^^ yep, that's exactly how I've managed it; super long extensions and resting the tranny on the jack for even a bit more clearance. I am curious how people have managed to re-torque those bolts to spec when reassembling though. I just had to guess on it; there's sooooo much flex in all those extensions and the universal joint that a torque wrench setting becomes useless. Maybe there's a scientific way to estimate/quantify all that flex and compensate for it, but I certainly couldn't figure it out at the time.

I just crank on them until the old elbow clicks to indicate the proper torque has been reached :D I have calibrated elbows and wrists.

Going to be doing this soon, want to make sure I get them tight. Anyone? What about a trans jack? Would that work just as well?

Exactly or if you don't want to loosen the motor mounts, the motor moves fairly easy with the trans mount off, I dont know if your on the ground or on a lift but either way you can carefully place a jack under front of oil pan, and then jack it a lil. It really gives you an easy angle to work with:thumbup:

As far as getting them tight, as was mentioned before, it's kind of left to the experience of the wrench man. One way to get a "feel" for the proper approximation of necessary torque is to practice on the lower ones (that are same size) and that can be accessed directly with a torque wrench. That way you can double check what you've done by feel with all those extensions against the true measurement. It'll get your elbow calibration pretty close any way.

Also, there's lots of good applicable info/pics in these threads for you:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/per...ap-thread.html

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...ml#post6155804

BTW, I can't remember if it's mentioned in those threads or not, but it's a big help to have the car lifted up about a full 20" or so (but only if you know how to do so safely!).

i just went through this experience with changing out my clutch the second time. I did have the luxury of air tools, but air tools or hand tools the best way is to stack a bunch of extensions together and feed the socket from the back of the tranny. Dropping the tranny mounts helps get the access you need. You can barely get your hand up there to feel where the bolts are and sit the socket on them. I would undo these bolts first, then work your way down. Make sure the tranny is secured on a jack so it doesn't fall on you.

For torquing them down as mentioned earlier it's about feel. It's hard to get the proper torque with several extensions stacked on top of one another, so give it a bit more torque than you think is needed. If you're really paranoid or anal about torque specs, put on a few more ft-lbs on the torque wrench to compensate for the extensions. good luck and be safe!