Where did my pressure plate go? Clutch/Tranny problem

[Adam]

Hey guys and girls,

We replaced the clutch, pressure plate, and throwout bearing were replaced in the spring. Since then the car has been driving, recently the friction point started shifting towards the floor. That is when I saw the clutch pedal was cracked.

I had my clutch pedal repaired, checked the firewall to confirm that it is solid, changed the clutch cable and confirmed that it moves through its entire travel, tightened the adjustment nut from a few turns to bottomed out and the clutch fork moves through its entire travel, but nowhere in there are we getting any resistance from the pressure plate. The pedal effort is so light that the pedal does not return to resting position on its own.

We changed the clutch fork, but that did not improve the situation, we have since installed a new pressure plate and are still having the same problem.

Could it be a damaged clutch disk or throwout bearing causing this? We have verified that there is no debris between the clutch disk and flywheel or pressure plate.

At a loss as to why we aren't able to disengadge the clutch. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Adam

[boogiedude]

Did you put the return spring back on the pedal?

[Adam]

Yup all springs connected... you can push the pedal to the floor with almost no resistance. Almost like its not pushing against the pressure plate.

[narfire]

The fork has a wierd conection on the end that is in the bell housing. If it is bumped it can come loose and then it is not Anchored at the far end. Wish I had a pic. Remember it has a fitting for a ball and a clip to hold it in place...sort of.
I had something similar when first putting the car together and that ended up being the problem.
Chris

[Adam]

New clutch fork as the clip on the old one was broken... both my mechanic and I are stumped. He was measuring the throwout bearing with a micrometer to see if it was off. Got a new clutch kit, including pressure plate and throwout bearing, to see if that fixes the problem. New pressure plate alone did not improve the

As I originally said, the clutch pedal was repaired as it had a crack. the firewall is solid, when you push on the clutch, the cable is pulling the clutch fork through it's entire range of motion, but there is little resistance. Feels like we're not hitting the pressure plate.

Really turning into a head scratcher. thankfully we are no longer working on an hourly scale.

[124JOE]

witch leaves me to ask how many diferent clutches did they put in over time?

[thefiatek]

Did you have the flywheel machined too far down? It should be stepped slightly above the outer flywheel on the clutch mating surface, as in a couple of millimeters at the very least. If it's machined below thte outer surface, it's likely that your pressure plate is not moving far enough to disengage the clutch. Also, did you put the correct release bearing in?

[vandor]

... the clutch pedal was repaired as it had a crack.

I wonder if somehow they repaired it wrong, and now the pedal's fork does not pull enough on the cable.
The rule of thumbs is that if you have a new problem, look at the last item you touched

[So Cal Mark]

I'd also question the flywheel machining, but the pedal could also be causing this

[131]

With the cable disconnected from the gearbox end, you should be able to move the clutch fork back and forth and feel the throwout bearing hitting the diaphragm spring fingers. If it "feels" alright, you can push the lever forward with a shifter or something similar, (be careful of your knuckles if it slips). With the transmission in gear, the tailshaft should be able to be rotated with the clutch fork pushed forward. If not, it's a clutch problem, if the tailshaft rotates you've got a cable/pedal problem.

[Adam]

Moving the clutch fork by hand fails to contact the pressure plate. I'll double check the fly wheel. I have no idea how many times the clutch has been changed prior to my owning the vehicle. The car was driving but it felt as though the friction point was slowly moving towards the floor. This is what lead to the discovery of the cracked pedal. I'll see if I can grab a local flywheel and see if it fixes the problem.

Thanks for the input.

[Adam]

Confirmation that the throwout bearing was the incorrect height and the flywheel has been machined flat.
The new bearing is able to disengage the clutch and while it is apart, we mine as well change the flywheel.