Mike, On the Spit engines and the TR6/GT6 when the thrust washers wear out
they fall into the oil pan. Check and make sure that you don't have too much
crank end play. The pedal travel that you need to disengage the clutch is
used up in moving the crank ahead in the block. Lorne
> To: fot@autox.team.net
> From: harmug@us.ibm.com
> Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 19:51:49 -0400
> Subject: [Fot] Clutch problem
>
> I have a problem here I've never seen before. My son has a 72 Spitfire for
> the street, we picked it up last year and only out a 1000 miles at most on
> since then. His clutch disk broke last week, when we pulled the tranny off
> the car all that was left of the clutch was the center hub, the rest was
> worn down and broken off. The pressure plate had groves worn in it over a
> 1/4 inch deep, the flywheel was fine. I figured the clutch had been on it's
> way out for a while which explained the hard shifting he had. I bought a
> new pressure plate, clutch disk and throw out bearing, cleaned everything
> up, changed the tranny oil and put it back together. We had replaced the
> clutch master and slave cylinders over the winter due to leakage, so all
> the wearable parts of the clutch system are new.
> We fired it up today and I couldn't engage it in gear. I shut the engine
> off, was able to run through the gears and tried to start it up with it in
> gear. With the clutch pressed all the way in, to the floor boards, it
> wouldn't completely disengage, the car would creep forward unless my foot
> was on the brake. When I did let the clutch out, there was a grinding noise
> and shuddering as the pedal came up. Once it was in gear, the noise stopped
> and I was able to shift gears.
>
> I pulled the slave cylinder and made sure the pin to the throw out bearing
> arm was engaged properly to the internals of the slave and it was. I worked
> the pedal and I had at least an inch of movement on the piston. We put it
> back together and watched the operation, the arm was moving forward. In
> case there was any air left in the system from the cylinder replacement, we
> bleed it again. I made sure the slave was positioned as far forward in the
> notch and the collar was tight so there was maximum throw on the arm, still
> no good.
>
> Looking back, I'm thinking that we had an existing problem that caused the
> old clutch to wear abnormally and fall apart. We're going to pull the
> engine again tomorrow and check the throw out bearing arm for bends or
> cracks although a casual inspection and cleaning when I had it out didn't
> raise any suspicion. It looked like the tranny had been removed before,
> there were some newer bolts in the housing but the guy I bought it from
> never used the car, it was a project that he picked up a few years ago, so
> I have no way of contacting the owner who did the work to compare notes
> with him on what he saw or did.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas on this? Anything I should check either before
> the engine gets pulled or after? Could I have the wrong diameter slave
> cylinder? Would that cause me to lose some throw? I replaced what was there
> but I don't know off hand which size I have on there.
>
> thanks
> mike
>
> 63 Spitfire race car
> 70 GT6
> 71 Spitfire
> 72 Spitfire
> 79 Spitfire
> 80 Spitfire
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