Hey guys:

I've been following the PP tech article on clutch replacement.
On page 3 it mentions shimming the arm's pivot ball if the travel is greater than about 1/2".
Mine travels about 3/4" even after replacing the plastic cup provided in the PP kit.
Does this mean something else is wrong? How am I going to shim the ball 1/4"?
I'd need a whole stack of washers! Has anyone else ran into this problem?
Any ideas on what I should do? Am I missing something?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Andy...

QUOTE (914zim @ May 18 2005, 03:26 PM)

Any ideas on what I should do? Has anyone else ran into this problem?

yes.
i have seen it twice ...

i forget what the cause was, but i vaguely remember it had to do with the flywheel being machined down too much (re-surfaced too many times) ...

we ended up bending the arm because you can only shim the ball-socket so much before you're out of threads ...

btw. bending the arm worked just fine!
Andy

Did this happen after you install a new clutch and flywheel or before?

The PO had one washer on mine until I replaced the clutch and flywheel. I would not recommend the washer since the one I had on mine pulled the last couple of threads off the ball and caused it to leak. I retightened it but it still would wiggle its way off. That part is $30.

BB

QUOTE (914zim @ May 18 2005, 05:26 PM)

.. How am I going to shim the ball 1/4"? I'd need a whole stack of washers! ....

You don't need 1/4" of washer shims to reduce the travel by 1/4".

1 washer can make a big difference. It's geometry, but I don't understand it.

Thanks a lot for the replies guys.

I probably should've mentioned before that the clutch pedal would not engage the clutch until way high in it's travel... the last couple inches. I wonder if this issue I'm coming across now is what was causing this. This was before I started the clutch replacement project a few weeks ago. I'm starting to put everything back together now and I ran into this "too much travel" issue mentioned on the tech article.

Because my car has only 76K miles, I thought (assumed) the FW was OK. I didn't really look at it THAT close, just cleaned it up a little. I mean, it LOOKED OK. The disk was not worn that much, but it was a little oily (it was slipping). I did not get the FW machined at all, just put it back on. As I went along, I came across this TO arm travel issue. Maybe the PO had this FW machined already... too much.

Good point about only needing 1 washer to get the proper travel decrease... I hated geometry!
Maybe I'll try to put one on and see what it buys me.

Looks like I may need to bend the arm as well. What's the best way to do that without trashing it?

OK, so if I DON'T machine the FW, bend the arm, and shim the pivot ball, with the new PP and disk along with the other parts from the kit... will everything be OK once I put all back together?

What do you guys think?

Thanks again,
Andy...