Clutch Clinic
Rob Hawkins visits AES near York to follow them replacing the clutch and dual mass flywheel on our ex-CM Mk4 Mondeo.
Replacing the clutch and dual mass flywheel on the 2.0-litre diesel-engined Mk4 Mondeo is quite an involved job, requiring the front subframe assembly to be removed – there’s not enough space to extract the gearbox with it in situ. It’s a job that hopefully only needs to be completed once in the lifetime of a vehicle that’s been regularly maintained but is nevertheless an undertaking that should ideally be conducted using a two-post ramp to sufficiently raise the vehicle, and a couple of transmission jacks to help support the engine and gearbox.
Typical of a front-wheel-drive vehicle, the job begins with removing several components in the engine bay to access the top of the gearbox. Then the underside needs to be dismantled to extract the driveshafts and eventually remove the subframe, by which time there’s little left to do to remove the gearbox.
The dual mass flywheel on the Mondeo’s diesel engine can have roughly 10-15mm of rotational movement, but as we found on the vehicle shown here, there was a lot more.
Set aside a long day to replace the clutch on a Mondeo, and anticipate problems along the way, such as corroded nuts and bolts that may refuse to undo.
Ford Mondeo 1997cc turbodiesel
1 Remove the engine undertray, which is secured with eight 10mm bolts. These will probably be corroded, so spray over them first with penetrating fluid and clean their heads with a wire brush.
2 Remove the smaller plastic bumper undertray, which is secured with a mixture of 8mm and 10mm bolts and several plastic trim plugs. A trim tool is useful for extracting the trim plugs, although it may be easier to start with a small flat blade screwdriver.
3 Detach the induction hose between the air filter housing on the nearside of the engine bay and the throttle body. Also, detach the electrical plug connected nearby to the MAF sensor.
4 Carefully lift the entire air filter housing out of the engine bay. It sits on locating pegs, so needs to be wiggled a little, but make sure the feed pipe doesn’t get caught and breaks, like
