Is it necessary to seperate transmission ( 5 speed ) from bell housing to remove/replace throwout bearing?

Question

I know how to do this procedure. Just wondering if transmission to bell housing is necessary, without loosening motor mounts to 'angle' the engine, bell housing & transmission downward to leave room to seperate bell housing from engine block.

need to know if seperation of transmission from bell housing is necessary to leave enough room/distance to pull out as one unit in 1st generation Mazda Miata.

This is NOT a front wheel drive car. In 'Additional Details", the first one, you'll see I added that the car is a Mazda Miata. They are ALL rear wheel drive. i.e same as doing a Camaro, PU truck, Jaguar XK-E ( but you have to pull the complete engine out of the 'E' as far as I know. I reassembled an 'E' that some other 'shade tree' mechanics attempted to change the clutch in, and wouldn't finish it. The owner finally brought it to me along with 4 boxes of nuts & bolts and since I wasn't the one who 'tore it down', it was trial and error as to which bolts held the pressure plate on, which bolts attached the starter, etc.
I'm not going to replace the clutch plate, nor the pressure plate. I realize I will be removing the console to remove the shifter assembly as well as the tranny crossmember and just now realized 'YES' the whole unit, excluding clutch SLAVE cyl.,( because I don't know exactly where it is or which side it's on will be angled slightly downward & will be no biggie.

Answer 1

You didn't specify what kind of vehicle you had. Some you can replace the throw out bearing on the transmission itself without taking off the bell housing. It's really no big deal if you have to take off the bell housing anyway. Because if you are that far into it you might as well check out the clutch and replace the pilot bearing if your vehicle has one. The only thing you would have to buy is an alignment tool to reeinstall the clutch on the flywheel and you can buy one cheap at places like harbor fright.

Answer 2

I'm not really sure what you are trying to do here.

You will have to pull the transmission completely anyway.Once you do that the engine will "angle" because you have removed the rear support. If you are then wanting to replace only the release bearing, and leave the bell housing connected to the engine, yes you can do that. I would advise though pulling the tranny and housing together. On re-assembly, you can then verify the release arm an bearing is assembled and working correctly.

Answer 3

seeing that the bearing is gone it is a good bet so is the clutch. as a rule these are almost always changed together. to change either and the other fails you have to do all that labor over again.