I'm working on replacing the clutch in my son's Maxima and I'm not sure whether or not a part needs to be removed before lowering the tranny. The part is the module where the shifter linkage is connected. Not the bracket, but the shifter unit with 4 bolts attached to the top of the tranny. I have everything else removed/disconnected and wanted to verify before unbolting the tranny. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Yes/No

Yes remove it, you'll have more room to rotate and then remove the transmission.

No, you don't have to remove it to drop a transmission, it's been done once, but I will never do it like that ever again.

 

aackshun,
Thank you for the quick response. Can you tell me how the gear selector is removed. I loosened the 4 bolts (in case of unknown spring tension), placed it into neutral, and tried lifting the housing to no avail.

 

Are you talking about the actual shifter mechanism? Where the cables go? I would not remove that at all!


Ive dropped the 6sp in a 5.5 many times and its easy.


Main thing is to unbolt the cross member to the whole engine lowers down some then the trans comes right out.

Unbolt it from the front rad support, and the rear where it mounts to subframe part. Have a jack under the crossmember and you can lower the engine down enough to get the trans out very easily.


If you don't lower the engine then yes its insanely hard to get the trans out.

 

I was able to remove the gear selector mechanism by placing it into neutral, removing 4 bolts on the top and 1 14mm bolt on the side. It slid right out and made more room for removal of the transmission. After re-installing the transmission, the gear selector went right back together.

 

I know this is an old thread, but I took a quick look at what I needed to take off and wanted to tackle this sometime this week, but I'm having hard time time taking off the control cable mounting bracket. I'm not sure if it is threaded off or anything but I can't get any sockets to get any kind of grip.