Freelander 1 td4 clutch replacement (I hope)

OK here we go, in order to avoid the cost of a professional clutch replacement on the Mrs' 2003 "Free"lander which would be more than half the value of the car, I am about to undertake the task myself.
I am aware that these bigger jobs are best done with a lift or pit, access to every possible tool imaginable and years of experience,...However
Circumstances dictate that I will be attempting this task at the side of the road with my fairly basic toolkit and no experience whatsoever of replacing the clutch in a vehicle with a transverse engine, as you may imagine I'm really looking forward to this.
I'm going to be taking this very slowly and methodically to lessen the risk of making the situation even worse
Day 1: (yesterday) battery, battery tray, undertray, inlet manifold, intercooler hoses and various wiring connectors etc all disconnected and/or removed.
Easy jobs but all went well, So far so good. Today it becomes more serious.....

Day 2:
Jack up car and support on axle stands
Remove front wheels and side dust shields
Remove and throw away the rusted remnants of the flimsy front brake backplates
Drain oils from IRD and gearbox
Loosen ball joint nuts
Disconnect tie rods,
Undo remaining bolts and ball joint nuts
Remove front subframe assembly
Disconnect front drive shafts and tie up out of the way
And that's enough for today, apart from some badly rusted and extremely tight bolts today went better than expected.
Many thanks to @paul99 for recommending the video
which has been of great help.




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Well, the guy does driveway clutch jobs for a living and I know he had at least a couple of Freelander videos up, so I thought he would have a few decent tips for the job. You can tell he's done more than a few, lol. I hope that yours goes smoothly. I have a stupid Nissan Pixo to do. Grrr.

paul99 said:

Well, the guy does driveway clutch jobs for a living and I know he had at least a couple of Freelander videos up, so I thought he would have a few decent tips for the job. You can tell he's done more than a few, lol. I hope that yours goes smoothly. I have a stupid Nissan Pixo to do. Grrr.

Click to expand...

Good luck with that mate, it sounds like a tiny little thing though, couldn't you take it indoors and do it in front of the telly?

Lol, it's just three inches too wide to get through the doors, even when I fold the mirrors in.

I was confident that today would see the gearbox out ready for the new clutch to go in tomorrow, but no, the first obstacle was the connector on the master to slave cylinder pipework, I was struggling with it for over an hour and was considering cutting the pipe when it finally came apart.The rest of the day was taken up by trying, and so far failing, to remove the last bolt, hidden away and with virtually no access I tried every combination of extension bar I had I tried with one of those universal joint things but still can't get any leverage with either bar or ratchet. Tomorrow I'll have to get another UJ adaptor, or two, and try again. I HATE this car now.

Well she said it went 'clonk!' before losing drive!

This Freelander is now back together and on 4 wheels again, though obviously the clutch still doesn't work and refuses to bleed properly so I have ordered a vacuum pump thingy to try with that.
I just hope that it only needs bleeding and that I haven't made a mistake which means I have to go through all this again. One thing that is for damn sure is that if the clutch goes on mine it'll be taking a a one way trip on a J. Davidsons truck.

I can't believe I'm actually typing this, I thought the day would never come, It's only fckn well done!! finished, working reclutched and reassembled. After buying both a vacuum pump and a giant syringe and pushing around 750ml of dot4 through the system it still refused to bleed properly. It turned out to be the ridiculous plastic ring connecting pedal to master cylinder had slipped to the end of its shaft presumably causing misalignment of the operating rod.
So would I do the clutch on a td4 again, until an hour or so ago I'd have said NO! Never, but with hindsight, and more importantly the assistance of my younger brother who is able to confront problems calmly and methodically unlike myself who tends toward the view that every unyielding nut and awkward to reach part is a personal attack which should be met with extreme annoyance, if not hammer blows. So I think ...possibly if need be then I may one day try another, but not I hope for a very long time indeed.
All that is left to do is to
Check the levels in IRD and gearbox (it was measured in but now it's circulated a bit I'll check it again on level ground)
Double check subframe etc bolts
Refit undertray
Not real Land Rovers? Really? I personally find there are lots of similarities, such as being Cold, wet, Oily, Greasy, Angry, Frustrated, Wearing the fragrance of Eau de gearbox for a couple of days then another couple wearing the great smell of Brake (fluid). Having more washes in a fortnight than than can be healthy for me but still being filthy all the time. And finally the sense of satisfaction when it is done and works as it should once again....Yep, it's just like I never stopped owning a Series.
Now I can start work on fixing my own...
Happy Land Rover days are here again