LOL...I am surprised how little damage this caused...Photos!

[FauxDiablo]

I'm in the process of doing a new flywheel and clutch in my 2002 BS.

The flywheel was not a "planned" item, as upon inspection I discovered that the DMF had little or no rebound back to it's starting point, and had way too much travel.

At any rate, I know know EXACTLY why my clutch was so crappy. It was not slipping, it was just noisy and the pedal felt kinda rough and hard to depress.

In this first photo, you can see where PART of the clutch release was being handled by the clutch fork. The other part was being done by basically half of the throw-out bearing. Notice the arrow, a clutch fork is not a bearing. Aside from a bit of a rub, the fork is fine!




In this second image, we see that the throw-out bearing has been custom-profiled by small demons inside the bell housing, or lack of lubricity on the guide tube, take your pick. One side of the bearing has literally been ground-down almost a quarter of an inch, leaving the fork edge to pick up the slack. This could have been a lot worse.

[Nine8Six]

Oops

What is the history of that car? Previous accident(s), you know? wild guess....

[FauxDiablo]

Originally Posted by Nine8Six

Oops

What is the history of that car? Previous accident(s), you know? wild guess....

The last 20k miles are unknown, but I have checked everything, and the car is straight as an arrow.

Near as I can tell about what happened, is that the TOB guide tube became gunky and dry, combined with a clutch at the end of it's life expectancy.

The throw-out bearing PROBABLY became stuck on the engine-side of the clutch fork for a bit here-and-there and probably did not (surely did not) seat itself properly, resulting in one side of the bearing and one side of the clutch fork becoming the contact point for the clutch spring "fingers". The clutch shows abnormal wear where the fork contacted them.

I have never seen this type of failure where the clutch still works.

My guess is that the last person who "threw a new clutch in" did not inspect, lube or replace the TOB. In fact, the disc and the cover plate were from different manufacturers, which to me, is a no-no.

[thstone]

Wow, surprising that it still worked and that the damage was fairly minimal. If you had told me what happened, I would have expected a lot of seriously damaged parts and a clutch that was a no-go!

[JayG]

When my clutch went out recently, the throwout bearing was toast, the DMFW as aly way out of spec, you could almost spin it like a lazy susan. Surprisingly, the actual clutch disk had a fair bit of life left at 82K miles.

What happened to me is suddenly the clutch engagement point dropped from near the top to the bottom and I was getting some slipping.

Replaced all of it and its now smooth as butter.

Can't wait to abuse the hell out of it at the track

[FauxDiablo]

LOL ... I ordered a new clutch release lever from Pelican just to stay on the safe side.