new clutch in - no grip?

[Kreator]

ajsfdghlajsdfsaldfh

****. lost. put like 50 miles so far driving around, slips badly when i press on the gas pedal somewhat aggresivelly. Anyone has a thought on which of the parts is failing? Weird thing is... everyone says 6-puck has really harsh engagement. But from what i can tell, it doesnt grip any harsher then the stage 1 organic clutch in my 240sx. Actually, aside from a much firmer clutch pedal i cant tell a difference from stock. Is this pressure plate's fault?

edit: is there anyone who actually does run the Z62-HD** kit? Just want to make sure this DOES actually work on the bp g series tranny before i try to find out whats wrong. A bunch of people recommended the SS kit, but im not sure if anyone actually is running it....

[Geoffwhite18]

Any clutch should be broken in first. Every clutch will slip when first installed. The reason is because the clutch face has to wear it's way into the pressure plate and flywheel. They arn't perfectly alligned when you install them and take time to wear together. What you have done by slipping the clutch is created hot spots on the flywheel, and pressure plate, and glazed the clutch disk over! It's proly not recoverable at this point and needs to be replaced. You'll have to surface the flywheel and purchase a new disk and pressure plate! Learning the hard way sucks but it happens!

[Kreator]

well finally got the guts to pull the tranny off again. Much more smoothly this time. Took about 1.5 hours this time. God i love power tools.

anyways here is what we found:





Is it just me or does the clutch seem to be only gripping on an outer edge? Probably due to a faulty pressure plate?

PS. And no, 6-pucks do NOT require a break in period. The quote above was taken from the act site, and the customer service representative confirmed it. Which makes sense - puck clutches are used in race cars, some of which have engiens with only a 500 mile lifetime. Noone is going to waste a $10K engine to break in a clutch.

[THEGOLDPRO]

yeah def not normal.

[Kreator]

possible reasons besides faulty pressure plate? I'm guessing that if the slave cyllinder was at fault and didn't release all the way (although it seemd like it did... the throwout bearing was somewhat loose on it) the clutch would've still been worn across the whole surface?

[scortadict]

the same thing happen with my bully clutch, it was working perfect i did the breaking periode and after like 2000km i been to the drage strip and the clutch started too slip a week after. never found the problem. i wonder if i should change the slave cylinde becose i dont want to scrap the act clutch.

[Kreator]

well word from act - everything tested out fine. the said groves on the pressure plate indicate preload and they are 90% sure thats what it is. they said adjust the pusher rod under the pedal to pull the clutch rod out more.

now i got the clutch yesterday. put it in today. as we put the tranny back on, and like i thought before - the rod doesn't exert any pressure on the throwout bearing. the bearing barely moves though. I got under the 240sx (since its up on jacks too), and noticed that the throwout bearing lever on the 240sx has about 1/2" more ov movement towards the clutch slave cylinder, in other words that the throwout bearing itself has like 1/2" - 1" of movement further from the pressure plate.... the bearing in the escort does not. even though i can compress the escort clutch cylinder rod...

could someone with a car on jackstands and blead (sp?) clutch check how much play they have? And if it is what the problem is, how do i adjust, and where should i look for the problem? I'm fairly confused, as i can't figure out what could be adjusted inside the tranny to accomodate this?

Thanks alot.

[TheMightyEscort]

if the tob isnt putting any force on the pressure plate.. and you can prove this... i wouldnt worry too much about it... as long as the system's bled so that is absolutely doesnt do it...


as for the wear pattern on your disc... it very well could be the pressure plate... however.. it could also be the flywheel... where did you have the flywheel itself re-milled? one of my focus buddies toasted 2 high performance clutches before he figured out the crack-heads that were remilling his flywheel werent doing it right... just something to look out for...


if the act thing doesnt work out... a spec stage 2 will probably work well for ya.. its organic/puck in design (just like the centerforce) AND its sprung!

[mike_moss]

Back in the day, I killed a clutch by not breaking it in...it can be done, trust me.

[Kreator]

uhhh guys, you didnt read the last post, did you? I think i know what the problem is, but i'm looking to get some thoughts on what might be causing it (eg the throwout bearing to be stuck against the pressure plate). It's raining for the 3rd day here, so i feel a little awkward going into the rain to take tranny off and inspect... might see the problem when i do that though :-/

and no. non-sprung, aka puck, clutches DO NOT need to be broken in. call act and ask them.

[mike_moss]

No, I must say, I didn't. I never had the intent of doing so. I was posting out of experience just to note I HAVE had that happen to me, so for people that have no clue, it's a possibility. If they have a puck clutch, they should know **** about it and do their research before installing it.

Regardless of the **** anyone told me (including ACT), I'd still take it easy on the clutch and give it a break-in period. To me, it's worth the peace of mind.

[Kreator]

Regardless of the **** anyone told me (including ACT), I'd still take it easy on the clutch and give it a break-in period. To me, it's worth the peace of mind.

rofl. you telling me i didn't do my research? And you deduced that from which post of mine?

break in is a problem of sprung clutches, clutches that are supposed to slip while engaging. Puck clutches are NOT supposed to slip, they are supposed to grip right off. They do NOT require break in. thats what act site said, and thats what 2 different technicians i spoke with at act said. They said something along these lines: "to break in a puck clutch, just give it a couple hard slips and you should be good". Which does make sense. Like i said before, some of the race engines have lifespan of a race or two. Which is much less then 500 miles which is the standard break in time. Noone is going to be using these clutches if they'll have to waste a race engine just to break these in.

It's quite similar in my case. Although i don't have a race engine, the car barely sees real roads - mostly driven on the track with maybe 10-20 miles at a time.

[mike_moss]

I posted up an experience I had with a clutch so people wouldn't get the wrong idea, but you took offense to it.

You just did it again, I posted what I would do - nothing to do with you, or even stating it's the right thing to do.

Quit being paranoid and thinking people are out to get ya.

[Kreator]

"If they have a puck clutch, they should know **** about it and do their research before installing it"

i'm sorry, i fail to see how this is not targetted towards me, especially considering i'm the only one with a puck clutch to post in this thread, and probably the only one on this board.

As for research, when i happen to go see how should i break in a 6-puck clutch, i would have 2 types of opinions: 1) from people with puck clutches telling me they don't need a break in and 2) from people with regular clutches (like you) that would apply the sprung clutch break in process to non-sprung clutches and post that 6-pucks have to be broken in. Now unfortunately, they never write whose opinions are right or wrong, so untill i actually spoke with act i was completely unsure as to which side to trust.

But since you didn't read the very last post of mine, you were responding to more then a month old posts, problems which i already figured out.

And now, there is no particular reason for me to be getting this offensive about what you said, and really i'm not. Just realize, that at some point, someone will find this thread while looking on how to break in a 6-puck, and will decide it does have to be broken in due to misiniformation which was posted here, even if not on purpose.

[mike_moss]

Dude, you really have to learn how to read posts COMPLETELY. 'nuff said.

Enjoy your clutch.