Well all, I guess you might want to hear my good fortune. I recently bought
an Alpine from a buddy that ran like a raped ape! I mean, it was a 1600, but
it moved like no tomorrow! Well, the clutch never disengaged right, so there
was a little gnash of gears. I noted that the master cylinder was brand new
(not rebuilt) and the slave was also new. I decided to pull the trans and
replace the throwout bearing and noted that the flywheel had fore and aft
movement of about a quarter of an inch! The springs in the disc had busted,
binding the clutch so that it took a great force to actuate it. I dropped
the pan, and found that the thrust washers had worn, then fallen out to the
pan! The crank had washed out the bearing cap and journal. All this in an
engine that has 195 PSI in each cylinder. I had intermittent tears and
laughter. The fastest 1600 Alpine I hve ever seen and the engine is waste.
Grand. The beauty of it is that I was planning on driving this car on
Monday. Oh well. It happens.
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