[Fot] Clutch problem

[Tony Drews]

You didn't put the clutch disk in backwards, did you?  It acts really 
strange if you do.  I triple check when assembling because it's a 
very easy mistake to make.

- Tony

At 06:51 PM 6/5/2009, George Harmuth wrote:
>I have a problem here I've never seen before. My son has a 72 Spitfire for
>the street, we picked it up last year and only out a 1000 miles at most on
>since then. His clutch disk broke last week, when we pulled the tranny off
>the car all that was left of the clutch was the center hub, the rest was
>worn down and broken off. The pressure plate had groves worn in it over a
>1/4 inch deep, the flywheel was fine. I figured the clutch had been on it's
>way out for a while which explained the hard shifting he had.  I bought a
>new pressure plate, clutch disk and throw out bearing, cleaned everything
>up, changed the tranny oil and put it back together. We had replaced the
>clutch master and slave cylinders over the winter due to leakage, so all
>the wearable parts of the clutch system are new.
>We fired it up today and I couldn't engage it in gear. I shut the engine
>off, was able to run through the gears and tried to start it up with it in
>gear. With the clutch pressed all the way in, to the floor boards, it
>wouldn't completely disengage, the car would creep forward unless my foot
>was on the brake. When I did let the clutch out, there was a grinding noise
>and shuddering as the pedal came up. Once it was in gear, the noise stopped
>and I was able to shift gears.
>
>I pulled the slave cylinder and made sure the pin to the throw out bearing
>arm was engaged properly to the internals of the slave and it was. I worked
>the pedal and I had at least an inch of movement on the piston. We put it
>back together and watched the operation,  the arm was moving forward. In
>case there was any air left in the system from the cylinder replacement, we
>bleed it again. I made sure the slave was positioned as far forward in the
>notch and the collar was tight so there was maximum throw on the arm, still
>no good.
>
>Looking back, I'm thinking that we had an existing problem that caused the
>old clutch to wear abnormally and fall apart. We're going to pull the
>engine again tomorrow and check the throw out bearing arm for bends or
>cracks although a casual inspection and cleaning when I had it out didn't
>raise any suspicion. It looked like the tranny had been removed before,
>there were some newer bolts in the housing but the guy I bought it from
>never used the car, it was a project that he picked up a few years ago, so
>I have no way of contacting the owner who did the work to compare notes
>with him on what he saw or did.
>
>Does anyone have any ideas on this? Anything I should check either before
>the engine gets pulled or after? Could I have the wrong diameter slave
>cylinder? Would that cause me to lose some throw? I replaced what was there
>but I don't know off hand which size I have on there.
>
>thanks
>mike
>
>63 Spitfire race car
>70 GT6
>71 Spitfire
>72 Spitfire
>79 Spitfire
>80 Spitfire
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