Thread: Clutch Issues

As some of you know, in the past year I've gone through 3 clutches. The first got burnt up pretty badly and started this whole ordeal.

The 2nd clutch had a spring pop out after about 2months, and the 3rd the same after 1month. Finally I just decided to go unsprung, and that one gave out too. Here's what happened:





As you can see, the teeth inside the clutch disc have been completely torn away by the input shaft after about a month and a half of regular street driving. The clutch material is still in great shape, as are the pressure plate and tob. Here's a better look at the backside:



I'm simply trying to find out what's causing all these failures. Something has to be common with all these clutch issues. The dowel pins are all there and bolts in place, although on this most recent trans removal I found a couple that worked themselves a bit loose. Would an isolated loose trans bolt cause an issue like this? I just don't want clutch #4 to fail as well. Accuracy through repetition is not what I'm going for with trans removal.

I'm actually having the same issue. I believe one of my dowel pins was missing for me though.

what company made the clutch? and was everything bolted right good?

ACT clutch. and by 'bolted right good' you mean...torqued properly? yes. aligned? yes (hard not to be, hehe). Nothing out of the ordinary for bolts except the one or two that were a bit loose on removal.

Are you hard on/off the throttle ? Was there much wear on the input shaft itself? I'm surprised that you'd clean the splines off like that, would seem that there must have been an excessive amount of backlash on it. Notice any issues before it let go ?

Not very hard on the throttle. This happened while i was maintaining speed around a corner. Nothing excessive. And nothing stood out as wrong or odd before it let go, it just happened. The input shaft also looks like new, no wear at all, but that's to be expected. The clutch is intentionally softer than the input shaft for exactly that reason, to destroy the clutch before the trans.

Same story on the previous clutches. Nothing out of the ordinary, no signs or warning of a problem before the springs popped out of them jamming the discs and the pressure plate.

As of now I'm going to run with the theory that the old bolts simply weren't holding after being torqued, and the transmission had too much wiggle room against the block. The only 2 other theories I've heard is the disc wasn't the proper one and engine harmonics are causing excessive vibration. Considering it's a stock engine, I'm confident ruling out a harmonic issue, and if the clutch was indeed wrong then a replacement will solve the issue anyway.

If anyone has any other ideas on how/why this is happening let me know, I really don't want to do this again because of a lack of insight. I'm going out and replacing every single bell housing bolt and motor mount bolt, the dowel pins, and the 6 pressure plate mounting bolts before a new clutch goes in. If you can think of anything else to check let me know!

I'd be more thinking that the centre was a poor/bad material maybe, bad batch, poor spline tooth shape, under-spec hardening (if it was hardened to any 'specific' level).

If you align the transmission to the block with the dowels then bolt torque (assuming all the bolts haven't fallen out) shouldn't even be an issue. The dowels would get damaged (or the casing more likely) before you'd notice any issues due to under torqued bolts. Plus there would be other signs/damage on the casing face and the sandwich plate from the movement.

What kind of power are you pushing? have you contacted the company that made the clutch to see if they're intersted to inspect it at all ?

Certainly a bad run, few springs popping out and now this, at least its not the exact same issue 4 times in a row (i guess...) !

same transmission everytime? is there any shaft play? very odd.. usually burning through clutches so fast is due to over power or missing dowel pins but i see you got the pins..

Heres a idea, Just thinking outside the box and i know someone that had this happend. How is your clutch cable adjusted? Is it high? Cuz if its staying slightly engadged as your driving yoru car it coudl be why your burning through clutches. If you normally have your clutch engage high, OR engage to low to where its not being fully engadged which can be fucking it up. May not be the problem, you may of already thought of this, but its just a idea . Or also do you have a oem cable or the cheap aftermarket one, because ive heard of people having issues with the cheap aftermarket ones.