My clutch died today. I am sort of between garages right now, so I have no practical place to work on the car. I do have a huge, reasonably flat dirt/gravel driveway. So I was thinking, the ghetto-fabulous solution would be to get a jeepload of crushed rock and a couple sheets of MDF and make a temporary platform. My neighbors will love that. Do you think that will work? Any other suggestions?

 

I would jack it up, put jackstands on all 4 corners, and do it that way. Just lay a sheet down under the car.

 

have a shop do it?

 

Just look for an abandon house and use its driveway

 

ive done all kinds of work on dirt/gravel driveways. put down a tarp so you dont get wicked dirty (if its clean gravel you can prob. skip this part, and then use some good sized pieces of thick plywood under the jackstands.

 

Cruched rock and MDF will work well, just put the jack stands on good solid blocks of wood to distribute the force a bit. MDF is tough stuff overall, but the jacks could work into the matirial and maybe punch through. therieldeal has the right idea there.

Allow for drainage too if possible. Mud from the roadbase up on the MDf will suck big time. One of the more unpleasant experiences I have had working on cars was laying in a pile of greasy dirt while doing a turbo swap. There were ants in it.

 

I swapped out the auto tranny on my old '94 Jeep ZJ on a sloped gravel driveway. It wasn't ideal but it worked. I used 7/8" plywood as a work platform underneath so the tranny jack would be as stable as possible.

 

did the clutch die, or do you just need to swap out the slave? because that's a 20 minute job and you just have to remove the passenger front tire.

 

Same thing happened to me the other day. I thought the clutch was shot, but did some searching. Turns out the slave leaks, but the fluid is held in the rubber boot that protects the rod that pushes the clutch. Remove the front pass wheel and you can see the slave cylinder. Grab that rubber boot and pull it back. If it is full of fluid then it is leaking. Don't rebuild it, a new one is only $35.

 

Clutch is slipping, so I am pretty sure it is shot.