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bugeye clutch again

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BRSLimited

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Ok, so after the last debate as to which clutch I broke down and bought the correct one and not the ebay one, get the flywheel resurfaced, put on my nice shiny new parts. Everything good? Hardly. After putting everything back in I fire it up to go test out my new clutch and the pedal goes down about an inch and stops dead, clutch won't disengage. I pull everything back apart, make sure everything is right, put it back together and the same problem. I can have a partner push down on the clutch while I look and the slave cylinder is moving the clutch fork. What is the likelyhood I got a defective pressure plate? I ordered it from VB and it looks identical to the old one (minus the grove worn in it from rivits). Any way to adjust the pressure plate? Any ideas?
 
When this same exact thing happened to me I found that I had put the clutch disk in backwards. Hopefully this is not your case!
One thing that you should look at is to see if the clutch yoke is hitting the back of the tranny hole when it locks-up, if so then you have either a wrong yoke, a bent yoke or too short of a throwout bearing.
Start looking!
Bill
 
How long has it been since you started it all? Could be the disk is stuck to the flywheel. If that is the case, start the car in gear and take off and keep light steady pressure on the clutch and "goose" it just a little so it bucks and it should break free. Otherwise, I don't know.
 
could the fork be bent?
 
Fork not bent, changed out with a good known one, disk is in the correct way, fork arm not hitting edge of hole, almost seems like the pressure plate fingers are bottoming out before it has enough throw to disengage the clutch. Got the flywheel resurfaced and put new clutch in yesterday, took it back apart today to make sure I hadn't screwed anything up, put it back in and same problem. Pedal only goes about half way down and feels like it's hitting a wall. I guess my next option is to put the old pressure plate on and see if I have the same problem. That would pretty much narrow it down to a pressure plate issue. Just a pain in the a** doing it over and over again, and then having to call VB yet again and get them to send me another one. I've never had one go back together so easily when doing a clutch job, should have known there would be a catch. Remind me again why I like working on 50 yr old cars with no local parts availability?
 
Hopefully you don't need a new 948 pressure plate, I just searched the world to find one, think I must have gotten the last one :smile:
 
new pressure plates are available thru the mail order places but are rather expensive. I bought the 3 piece clutch kit that has the original type 6 spring pressure plate. Unfortunately for a new Borg&Beck pressure plate it's just over $200. Just had another thought, maybe the disk is too thick? Anyone have any specs on how thick the disk should be?
 
The longer center part on the clutch disk with the splines on it goes toward the rear of the car, the disk should be marked.

If this is backwards you will indeed hit a wall.
 
Well it appears that I probably have a defective clutch. Got ahold of VB and they are going to send another one. Hopefully I'll have better luck with this one. Be nice to know just what the problem is with this one though.
 
Problem figured out I think. I compared the old and new pressure plates and it appears that the new one the plate itself is set about .020 closer to the flywheel than the old one. Waiting on VB to send me another one, hopefully I won't have the same problem.
 
God, I forgot. I had one of those a couple of years ago and had to get another as well.
 
.020 shouldn't kill you. Is the slave locking up? I had that happen on a Hyundai that sat for a while. Same thing, goes down a bit and WALL !!!
 
Bet what's happening is that the release bearing isn't moving the pressure plate diaphram spring in enough to release the disk. Pushrod in the slave may be too short, pivot bearing in the release arm may be worn, bolt in the arm may be worn and the pushrod pin may be worn. Also, the pivot bolt that passes through the release bearing arm may not be properly tightened to limit side to side slop. All adding up to not disengaging the pressure plate that holds the clutch disk tight. Some of the slave cylinders (both 7/8" and the 1") have snap rings inside the bore. The metal cup that receives the pushrod may be stopping at that ring. That will cause a solid "stop" of the clutch pedal. The metal cup has to go further back in the bore of the slave cylinder to increase stroke via a longer pushrod. Also, a bent release arm takes away the amount of forward movement. Too long a pushrod can do the same thing. The arm stops at the end of the opening in the bell housing.

The 1098 and 1275 release bearings also have different offsets than the 948. These can be used to reduce the distance between the pressure plate collar and the front of the release bearing.

Check everything. What might have worked with the old parts may not work with the new ones.

HTH,
Mike
 
Problem solved, VB sent me a new clutch, when i put it on the fingers were about twice as far from the pressure plate as before. Put it all in and it works great. Appearently just the plate being that little bit closer to the flywheel makes the differences between working and not.
 
Good news! The replacement solved your problem. Sounds like the pivot on the actual pressure plate portion may not have been in specification. Glad you're back on the road!
 
Only took 3 times pulling the engine and trans and putting it back in. Fortunately they are fairly simple to do. At least after the first time you know just what to disconnect and where. At least VB was good and sent me another one right out and didn't have to wait to send the old one back. I send them enough money it sure seems like they could trust me that much.
 
This might be a little off base but I didn't like the idea of being beholden to using the special rivergate clutch disc. I made a jig out of aluminum for chucking up in a lathe to turn the lip down on the Midget flywheel so that there was then room to drill and tap the bolt holes for a Datsun/nissan pressure plate. I had to cut out a metal space to make up the distance but in the end you can buy a clutch for any 210 or nissan pulsar(and probably others)and it works, and so does the pressure plate.
 
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