BIGPHIL

My dad and I installed an RST clutch not to long ago, but it has come out of the car due to an issue with the floater plate. The directions that ship with the kit have no torque specification for the three floater bolts (should be 25ft/lbs and red locktite according to McLeod general installation for a twin disc clutch). The symptom I was having appeared after the initial break in for 500 miles...all was good. Then after the break-in, if I came to a stop in gear (any gear) and pressed the clutch pedal all the way in and tried the put the car in neutral, the shifter wouldnt move. It would take excessive force to get the shifter into neutral. Whats odd is that it would happen sometimes, and sometimes it wouldnt. Rarely you could also smell the clutch burning. So upon removal of the clutch, it was obvious that the floater was loose. I could back all three nuts off with my fingers! The floater had hot spots all over it and was obviously the cluprit of the clutch not disengaging all the way.

A good test to see if the clutch is not dissengaging all the way: Jack the rear of the car from the pupkin and put the rear end on jack stands so the tires are off the ground. put the shifter into neutral and push the clutch all the way in and start the car, keeping the clutch pedal depressed. now put the car into first gear with clutch still depressed. the wheels SHOULD spin about 1/4 turn. do this several times to confirm if the wheels spin more than that. When I did this, my wheels averaged about 5/6 turns so their was definately a problem.

After working with Lee from McLeod on the issue, it sounds like they are going to be assembling the adapter ring with floater properly from the factory and hopefully they adjust the directions that ship with the kit so everyone knows the torque spec. The McLeod customer service has been top notch so far and I praise them for their great efforts to correct this issue for me. I am also going to be buying one of their steel flywheels. After removing the clutch after only being used for 1000 miles, you can see that the stock flywheel doesnt contact the bottom clutch disc material entirely (misses by about 3/4 in. on the inner part of the clutch disc!). Their flywheel should fix this problem and should utilize all of the clutch disc material.

I have an Edelbrock E-Force supercharger and we ended up taking the manifold/blower off and it made life a whole lot easier. It doesnt take very long to remove the blower and might be safer than dropping the engine by loosening the k-member bolts. Tape up the head's intake ports and you are good to go! It makes getting to the top two tranny bolts very easy! also...I have a tr-6060 6 speed using the stock throwout/slave cylinder. The depth of the tr-6060 is about a 1/2" shallower than the tr-3650 5 speed and there are no issues using the stock slave with either transmission, so dont let others fool you into thinking you might need a different throwout/slave, the stock one will work just fine, so if you have some miles on your car, its probably worth it to buy a new stock slave and install it at the same time as the clutch.

Again, the McLeod clutch is awesome with stock like pedal pressure and their customer support is great. I highly recommend this clutch, but be sure to check the installation procedure...particularly the three floater plate nuts! Another good thing to check with some calipers is the clutch disk thickness. At the time of this writing, the bottom disc should be .325 and the top disc should be .305 - .310. If the disc's are not within these specs, you could have some clutch issues!

BIGPHIL

I never posted an update to this...totally forgot. Anyways...below is what ended up happening with this situation for me.

Well, after getting the clutch rebuilt and re-installed, the same issue persists. The clutch will not dissengage properly if you come to a stop with the transmission in gear and the clutch pedal depressed. It also has a rougher than average engagement from 1st to 2nd, or 2nd to 3rd for the TR6060. It doesnt happen every time, but probably 50% of the time. After taking the transmission out for the third time in 2 months, I have to give up on this clutch. I dont know whats wrong with it, but the install was by the book and triple checked for accuracy. I really do commend McLeod for trying to fix this for me. Their tech support has been superb and it seems they have done all they can but it just isnt working in my car for whatever reason. I also what to say that the vendor I purchased it from (Lethal Performance) has been great to work with and very accomodating. They issued me a full refund for store credit and their service people have been very nice to work with. In the end I got a Spec 3+ clutch and it has been flawless to this point (about 8k miles on it so far...zero issues). Anyways...just wanted to update this thread with the outcome!

hammeron

well the important thing is that you now have a clutch that's working
good in your car.....the nightmare is over.

moosestang

I found that dropping it a few inches and turning the trans 45 degrees is the easiest way. were your B bolts, for the rear of the K member, hard to loosen? I think I asked you that before. I even sprayed mine with some lube, but they are tight coming out and tight going back in. The threads don't look burgered.

hammeron

yes and they always had a lot of resistance being turned. good to
see you back on the boards.

moosestang

I've been around, just haven't been posting.

I just pulled my clutch and the disc still has plenty of material. The problem was the grease I used to try and pop the pilot bearing out. I failed to get it all out of there and it seperated from the heat. Needless to say, the oil in the grease rain out and contaminated the flywheel/clutch disc. At first I thought I had a rear main seal leak, but the seal was dry.

so the spec stage 2 would have gone way more than 20k miles. I'm hoping the 3+ feels just as good, but now I wish I had just ordered a new stage 2. I looks like I could have reused the pressure plate, but the flywheel friction disc got hot.

I got my own slide hammer/bearing pull, so the pilot bearing is replaced now. If I could go back, I wouldn't have even bothered to try and change the pilot bearing.

hammeron

let us know how you like the 3+ moose

moosestang

The other problem with lowering the motor is it doesn't want to line back up when you put the transmission back in. My shifter brace no longer reaches the transmission. The engine doesn't look like it's moved forward, but it must have.

I had this problem last time and I don't remember what I did to fix it. You can move the whole shifter forward some, but I might not be able to hit all the gears. The other thing is your front end alignment might be off, because the whole K member moves.

Did you have problems with the engine being further forward?

hammeron

i didn't have any alignment problems, maybe cause i had those
threaded rods in place.

moosestang

I got it all back together.

Just another tip, push the hydraulic line into the top of the plastic elbow before you put it on the transmission. I thought I had it pushed all the way down, but it popped off the first time I put the pedal all the way to the floor. Brake fluid all over the transmission tunnel.

Took the elbow off so I'd be sure it clicked into place. Now I might have to replace the orings, cause it looks like it's leaking. At least it's not popping off. I'll look at it in the morning and might just replace the whole plastic elbow.