Pics: Whats wrong w/ my clutch?

[laxmax327]

a while ago i posted about my idiot friend shifting into 2nd at about 90 mph. then the car would idle kinda rough and not fully disengage the clutch. so pretty much everyone agreed that it was a broken strap on the pressure plate. well i finally got around to finishing up dropping the trans. i expectied to see something broken. but didnt. while the disk and pp did like well worn, i didnt see anything actually broken. but then again, ill be the first to admit, i really have no clue what im doing here also there is massive quantities of what id assume is clutch dust. plus around the bell housing there are a few nice sized scratches. something was obvisouly swinging around hitting it, but dont see what it was... have pics of everything except the bell housing. i just forgot, can get them tomorrow if it would help. so whats going on here? if its something obvious im sorry, but this is my first time doing anything like this and have no idea what to look for. also how is my flywheel condition looking?







all 3 of these look the same

 

[NotSoSlowSHO]

That clutch certainly was used hard. And was slipped a lot too.

The heat marks on the flywheel show that.

Beyond that, it just look like the oh-so-typical premature throwout bearing to pressure plate finger wear. I do not see any major damage.

 

[laxmax327]

yea i dunno if you can in the pics, but the disk is actually starting to fray around the edges. but it really drove fine before that shifting incident. but i never really had a problem driving it. it drove perfectly fine... he fudged up the shift... and it instantly went to shit. so would the wear on the pp where the tob contacts be the cause of this? i guess it really doesnt matter. but im just really curious. what would be hitting my bell housing?

 

[SonicRiot]

A mishift usually ends up in a busted trans or worse... a blown engine.

Your flywheel is heat spotted, but its hard to tell the condition of the clutch from the pics. The TOB and PP are probably shot, but it wouldn't neccessarily make the car idle like crap. If the clutch was not fully disengaging, it would most likely stall often.

Sounds like you have a misfire issue. Or worse... Hows the input shaft on the trans? Check it for end play and check the splines for damage. Also, check your harmonic balancer. If it's broken or seperated, you're going to be looking at a more serious issue. Check the endplay of the crank while you have the transmission out.

To check the endplay, take a deadblow and hit the crank in one direction. Take a measurement. Hit the crank in the opposite direction. Take a measurement. The difference should be no more than about .003" (three thousandths.) If it's greater, you may have destroyed a thrust bearing, which would cause a poor idle, loud knocking, and a loss of power.

The reason I suggested the thrust bearing is simply because I've seen damaged thrust bearings with a mis shift. I've also seen blown transmissions.

A shift to 2nd from 90 is bad. Really bad. I hope you find no serious damage. Let us know what you find. Good luck.




p.s. hows the shift fork look?

 

[laxmax327]

well im done working on it for tonight. but will look again tomorrow. but i was playing w/ the input shaft a bit and didnt notice anything. its hard to explain, but i strongly feel its a clutch issue. but it wasnt really and idling problem. the engine idled fine and responded as normal. but just felt kinda rough. like i was missing a small chunk of flywheel or something. and once you were in gear it would drive fine. but like you said, if you tried to stop while in gear it would slow down the revs, almost stalling, but never quite did. as soon as you put it into neutral its fine. just a kidna lumpy idle then. plus i can see for sure that something was swinging around the bell housing and hitting it. so that must be something fromt he clutch. the fork looks fine as far as i can tell. but i really dont know what their supposed to look like. although, that reminds me. with the bearing still attacted, it was quite difficult to move the lever back and forth. it was getting pretty jammed up. but once took out the bearing it moved very freely. i just assumed that it was all gummed up as there was alot of junk there. perhaps the fork or bearing or something managed to get slightly bent out of shape?

 

[SonicRiot]

If the clutch is frayed, it's junk. If the clutch is junk, the flywheel needs to be resurfaced or replaced and it's HIGHLY reccomended you replace the PP along with those two components. Replacing the TOB is standard whenever you replace a clutch.

From your last post, it does sound like a transmission issue. It might not hurt to open the halves to the transxale and inspect everything inside, visually. Any broken gears or stiff, overheated bearings will need to be replaced.

I would just hate to see you throw a pantload of cash at the car and have it still not run properly. The reason I suggest checking all of this is because of the nature of the misshift. Think about this: the rev limiter will stop the engine from going over 7200 RPM via the gas pedal. That doesn't mean it wont spin much higher than that. The transmission input shaft is spun up to 7200 RPM at the top of the 3rd shift. Bang! Now the trans is in 2nd, which spins the input shaft well over 10,000 RPM and the stounad behind the wheel is forcing the clutch onto the flywheel that's attatched to the engine. Granted, the clutch slips and the input shaft and pilot bearing splines collide, but still, it may spin that engine over 8000 RPM before you know it!

Most of the time, I see damaged tansmissions from misshifts. The engines can usually take the beating, but the transmissions have much lower limits. Overspinning the shaft bearings or syncros in a trans will cause some nasty results from heat damage and usually some broken or stripped gears.

I would at least dump all of the fluid from the transaxle and look for signs of loose metal, froth, or heat-damaged fluid. It just saves possible headaches in the future if you don't miss any underlying issues.

 

[AREA 91]

Get the MTX video from shonutperformance.com
It's a step by step guide for the tranny. Since you don't have a quaife yet, replace your differential roll pins!!! Your diff will thank you. If you can't find the roll pins, P.M. me, I have some.

 

[laxmax327]

lookin inside of the trans everything looks shinny and new. i also drained the fluid. it was rosy red and perfectly slick. and its been in there for god knows how long. not a single particle in it that i could tell. the trans acted the same exact way in every gear. so i dont think that a gear could have been damaged. i was just really hoping not to crack it open. removing it was enough of a pain for me, dunno if i really want to get into that. when he did it, i really think the clutch just slipped major. you could hear the engine rev up a little higher than the 7k, but not much. plus he realized before he completly let off the clutch pedal and quickly put it back in, so i really dont believe that the engine was spun much over 7. i dunno, i guess i may just take the trans to a shop and have them rebuild what they can in it. prob wont be too much money as i already did the difficult part of removing it and will be reinstalling it.

 

[Super Matty P]

Lax, if you're in need of a new clutch or flywheel I'm running a GB on performance SPEC units. There is a thread in the GB section if you're interested.

Good luck with your rebuild.

 

[laxmax327]

thanks i saw that, but im pretty sure i alread know what im getting. i just want to make sure that it will actually work when its all done. i dont wanna have the same issue after installing a brand new clutch. how difficult is it to crack open the tranny? and if do end up opening it up, what should i replace while im in there. i see the diff pins were already recomended.

 

[SonicRiot]

It's just a reccomendation to avoid future headaches. If you really feel the trans is ok, put it back in. If something goes wrong, yank it back out. You'll be good at it the second time around. I'm not being sarcastic, it's much easier to do the second time. If you are questioning your capabilities, dont pull apart the case halves until you have to.