Ever have one of those days? I was hoping to get the engine in my Bird fired up this week after having the car apart for too many years. Went to tighten the left rear wheel after replacing the rear axle seal. Car was rolling so I put it in gear. Still rolling. After much investigation I determined that when I installed the large input toploader and reused the slightly used 11" diaphragm pressure plate I created a problem. The front bearing retainer that the throwout bearing rides on is too large in diameter to go through the pressure plate fingers. When I bolted it together it pushed the fingers foreward and effectively permanently disengaged the clutch. The only practical way to get the clutch out on the Bird is to pull the engine and trans as a unit. Got the drive shaft, shift linkage, and transmission mount out. Need to continue taking off parts and pull the engine. I should have caught this on assembly but not something I ever dreamed of and wasn't looking for that particular problem. Why do I mess with this stuff?

Madness isn't it?! 



"Came too close to dying to stop living now!"

Yes! I love a challenge but sometimes it gets ridiculous.

Removed the engine and transmission from the car. Removed the transmission, bell housing, and clutch from the engine. Fingers on the pressure plate were bent so its trashed. Don't need it for this project but would have been nice to be able to salvage it for future use. No such luck. New clutch and pressure plate arrived from Summit. Disk is fine but pressure plate won't bolt up. Called manufacturer. Apparently they make two slightly different size pressure plates for the 429 CJ. As my luck has been going I got the wrong one. Called Summit and made arrangements to ship it back and they will send me the one that will fit. Off to the post office in the morning to ship it back. Set back for probably a week until I get the right parts. I will post the proper part numbers when I get it sorted out so someone else in the future will know what to order. A labor of love.

I wish I read this earlier, I have the toploader with a 11" Centerforce in my 55 bird and I remove the clutch without removing the engine or removing the transmission. The trick is to rotate the transmission and pushing it back as far as you can, remove the throughout bearing, remove the clutch fork, unbolt the pressure plate and it will drop out the bottom of the bellhousing. I had a Hays clutch that was a little bigger and I had to loosen the bellhousing a little for it to come out the bottom, and the flywheel will come out too. Now I also can remove the toploader without even removing the bellhousing, I removed about 5 inches of the top flat portion of the "I" beam at the intersection of the "X" frame with a sawzall (a piece about 1/2" x 5"long). This allows the transmission to be pushed back enough to clear the bellhousing to remove it, for the 50 years before I did this I would remove the bellhousing to get the transmission out. The toploaders have different tail housings and my transmission is a HEH CG from a 1966 Galaxie, the tail housing is RF-C6AR-7A040-B. I hope this helps in the future.

  Vic Correnti

Mine is an RUGAU1 as I recall out of a '70 429 CJ. Don't know it its physically larger or not. Never thought about trimming the frame. Removing that much material shouldn't hurt anything. I am thinking as thick as it is it would take a while and a few saw blades to accomplish though. I had an all syncro 3 speed out of a '64 390 Galaxie in mine before and I have slid it back to remove it and to change the clutch before. Its a bear but can be done. Problem is I am 71 now and just not wanting to try it. I looked at it for a long time and am not sure the 4 speed will go back far enough to get the clutch out. Decided it was physically easier and safer at my age to just pull the engine and transmission. Sure easier to get the transmission lined up and re installed on the stand on the garage floor than on my back under the car with the transmission on my stomach. A floor jack can be of help but not always.