installing kep kit to sbc 307, anyone out there i can bounce questions off of??

jim

heck, just post your questions.

I know Felix and many others have experience with KEP.

Including me. =-)


Rog~

just found out that crank has no 7/16 dowel pin and flaps does not stock it.

how neccessary is it ??

jim : )

Fairly... I'd wait and get one personally....

Any GOOD hardware stores around? Home depot might even have them.

BJH

how hard should the clutch fork be to move by hand ??

Jim

Jim the clutch fork should be pretty hard to move by hand (assuming the clutch,pressure plate and bellhousing are all installed?) What you are attempting to do is engage ALL of the pressure plate fingers with no more than the pressure from your hand. Not gonna happen! Linkage and leverage werk wonders ! So are we gonna have an install party or maybe a group ride party??

clutch fork? U mean when the engine and transaxle are mated?
that should be very difficult.

If you're talking about when the clutch fork is free, then it should be easy.

harmonic balancer pin? Mandatory. =-)

scotty
roger

yes - we had tranny mounted to engine and the first thing we noticed was that the fingers on the pressure plate moved to almost flat position versus outward towards the tips of the fingers which seemed odd ??

We tried to move the fork by hand and with a pipe on the end of the fork but it seemed like we were gonna break the fork if we pulled harder??

going without pin unless i got some wrong kep parts.

Jim

---

Yes it seems backwards but it is actually correct. The fingers move inwards and release the pressure from the cltch disc. This ensbles the disc to spin freely of the flywheel, thus allowing you to change gears. When the clutch pedal is released the fingers put pressure back onto the clutch disc and transferring the load back to the drivetrain.

OOPS I just re-read your post. Were the fingers depressed BEFORE you tried to engege the fork?

the fingers are already depressed when tranny is not even connected to the engine but pressure plate and clutch disk are bolted flywheel on the engine. The pressure plate when not mounted has outward fingers but once bolted up to engine they get paralell to the kep adaptor plate - aka depressed.

we are juts now replacing the studs in the tranny housinf behind the throw out bearing - as mayne the fingers are designed to go flat but we needed more travel??

jim

jim

when the pressure plate is bolted tight to the flywheel the fingers are supposed to be under pressure. the clutch plate is being squeezed.

when your transaxle/engine/clutch cable assembly is installed, your clutch fork will push those PP fingers and release the clutch plate.

Yes the fingers do pull down when your torque the mounting bolts down. How much on a SBC I'm not sure, but if the correct pressure plate is used and the correct torque is applied there shouldn't be aby worries. IIRC the fingers on my Jeep clutch were almost parallel and go concave when the fork is pressed.IIRC

i made the mistake of mating my engine/trans without torquing the PP.

what i found was that the cluch fork wouldn't allow me to mate the engine/trans due to the PP fingers not being pressed in by torquing them down.

so there U go. =-)

thanks guys

just added some pics to my blog

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?aut...blogid=312&

will call KEP first chance

using a 12 inch piece of pipe over the clutch fork I can pull/push the PP fingers forward between 1/8 and 1/4 inch - maybe with a differnet pipe some more?

jim

bump - can't install assy into car until i know the force to move clutch fork is typically really high ???

i got a tip that 1/4 inch movement at the pp fingers may be about right.

so possibly that fact that they are parralel to the kep plate once the pp is torqued to the flywheel may be typical.

dtf

jim

actually it was not good as Mr Kennedy proposed a double disc for my Jaide 8" clutch but his employees said otherwise. I changed everything to Renegade 9". I'm sure KEP would have worked but I had mostly Renegade parts and wanted to stay consistent.

Andyrew and Nick Mirinov used KEP, they may help if you PM them. If they are not online, search their threads

a few pieces of advise:
check the mount screws under the clutch arm don't interfere
make sure the TO bearing is positioned in the arm fork when mating the tranny
the arm should be tight but not so much the clutch cable cannot move it - a long pipe has more force than your foot...

thanks,

after we realized the mistake - we replaced the studs/nuts that hold the front tranny seal cover on with the supplied small bolts provided by KEP - but this is not what we think our problem is.

The TOB is in the clutch fork once it is mounted to the tranny - can this come apart during tranny attachment?

we have about 1/2 inch of free play in the clutch fork and then move up against the fingers of the PP the pipe can move it forward some - somewhere about 1/4 inch which puts the fingers almost concave or concave - need to look at it again closer.

thanks again

jim

Hey Jim,

Travel of the fork can be a real pain in the butt, and you are right to be concerned. I had my trans out 10 freaking times before I got it right. A couple things you need to look at:

1)Make sure you have a Stage 3 or lower clutch combo. The guys at KEP sold me a "Stage 4" clutch package, and guaranteed it would work in my application. After installing in the car, I couldn't get the damn thing to release. I tried everything in the world to get it to release (bend the fork, grind the fork opening in the bell housing etc), with no luck. Then I talked to Scott at Renegade, and he told me that no matter what I did, a Stage 4 will never work in a SBC 914. So I sent it back, got a Stage 3, and everything worked fine on the first try. (BTW, Renegade sells the KEP stuff)

2) Make sure you have removed all the spacer washers from underneath the fork pivot ball. If there are any under there, that will reduce your fork throw. Keep in mind the ball threads into a hole that goes all the way into the trany case, so I would recommend putting sealer on the threads before re-installing.

Good Luck, and Merry New Year

Oh, I forgot:

"The TOB is in the clutch fork once it is mounted to the tranny - can this come apart during tranny attachment?"

No, not as long as the fork pivot holder thingy is installed

make darn sure you have the correct pilot bearing in the correct location!!!

wow - thanks

I ordered and assume I received all stage three from kep.

it is gonna take a ground down socket to get that pivot ball out as the nut portion of it is completely recessed - due to this I assumed that all the washers had already been removed. also due to the free fork play we have in the clutch engaged position I assumed we did not have a range problem - at least not in the clutch engaged end of the range.

thks

jim

--

Even with a washer or 2 under there, it will still be recessed. My 1/4 SnapOn drive deep wells were able to get in there with a little persuasion.

dang - still recessed - hum - thanks

I took a socket and ground down the edges to fit in it..

Asside from that I dont remember much, because it went together super easy.. Sorry...

BTW.. make SURE you have the right TOB... MAKE DAMN SURE.

Give them a call..

Or after 500 miles, you'll need a new PP/Cluch/TOB..

Andrew

ok - spoke also to a local buddy and we decided to actually put an additioanl washer behind the clutch fork pivot ball because I had too much TOB free play - engine and tranny are coupled again and will go in this week - fingers crossed - concerned shift linkage may interfere with our home made engine mount bar ??

i'll have to see if dr evil ever designed a cable linkage for 914 tranny ??

new pics in blog.

jim