2006 Exige S

General Owners Cars
741

I’ve managed to obtain the dimensions of an OE release bearing and they’re identical to the competition Clutch bearing that I have here, so the bearing is not looking like the cause.

Based on the fact the hydraulics seem ok and the bearing is clearly making contact with the pressure plate I can only think of three things:

  1. Pressure plate is broken and isn’t lifting the pressure surface when the diaphragm is compressed

  2. Friction plate is mechanically or chemically stuck to the input shaft and/or flywheel

  3. My slave cylinder for whatever reason doesn’t have the reach/power to push the pressure plate enough.

I think I can try to tackle 2 and 3 this week, I’ll get the car on its wheels and roll out onto the road and try starting it in first gear(with clutch in), see if I can shock the friction plate loose.

In the meantime I’ll see about sourcing a longer slave pushrod to try and put a bit more force onto the pressure plate.

If neither of those yield results, I’ll drop the box at the weekend and hope I find something obvious inside.

742

Did you lube the input shaft on reassembly ?

743

I did, using the rather vague instructions that came with the clutch of “lube it but not too much” :lolno:

744

Yep seem the same, enough for it to work but too much and it flings everywhere, so do it right, but we can’t say what that is

745

I think the only remaining installation issue I could have is the pressure plate. I Was well read on torquing up gradually in a star formation but maybe I just got it wrong and distorted the diaphragm somehow? What worries me most about that scenario is that it’s probably not going to be obvious when I take the box back off, so I’ll be left with a decision to remove, refit and hope for the best (at the cost of another several hours effort) or do what? Throw the clutch away and try a new one?! :neutral_face:

746

At 20nm you won’t have bent anything.

Found this which mentions about the pivot pin needing greasing, I’m sure you’re already ahead of the game

Several of the US boys seem to take 1000grit to the input shaft before greasing, again I’m sure you’ve thought of it anyway

747

Yeah the pivot got greased (it creaks like a bitch if you don’t), I didn’t wet&dry it purely because it felt very smooth already. If the bearing was catching on there I’d expect to feel it in the pedal, or expect to physically lose travel.

I need to inspect my original pressure plate to see how exactly they work, I assume there’s some sort of linkage that converts the push-force on the fingers to pull the pressure plate away. If I can see that working on the bench then I at least know what to check for when I get the CC one back out.

748

Hmmm maybe some progress. I got the car up to temp and bled coolant and all that stuff, once it was up to temp I turned it off, then tried starting it a few times in 5th with the clutch depressed. After a few stalls (and some awful clanging and banging) I can now shift into 1st and 2nd without it stalling, but there’s a terrible smell of slipping clutch. If I apply any gas at all, it stalls or turns the axles depending on brake pressure.

I think it’s partially disengaging, but not fully - so hopefully the longer pushrod will help.

749

The friction plate is in the correct way round, isn’t it?

750

I believe so, I had other people verify it at the time and have posted pictures since and everyone thinks it looks right.

No labelling on the disc though!

751

Yesterday I got the car on its wheels and rolled it out onto the road to see if a bit of “real world” resistance would bring the system to life.

It didn’t. :frowning:

I also hacked down an 8mm allen key to emulate an extended pushrod for the slave cylinder and it made no difference either.

With the car on the road, I couldn’t select any gears with the clutch depressed. If I put a bit of pressure on 1st gear, the car would try to lurch forward. Gears are all dead easy to select with the engine off, so if I tried starting it in gear, it would either stall (if in a higher gear) or start moving if in 1st, 2nd or reverse.

Pretty much committed now to getting the box back out. I’ll try one more bleed this afternoon/evening and then crack on with it tomorrow.

Even though it would come at cost to me, I’m hoping to see some sort of devastation in there, disintegrated friction disc or bent pressure plate fingers or just SOMETHING that would explain the issues. If I take it all apart and it looks “fine”, I’m going to be in a bit of a pickle.

752

Sorry… me again.

I had a flash of motivation tonight, decided if I wanted to fix it this weekend then I had to get the clutch out tonight to give me chance to buy another one if it was trashed.

On first glance all was looking well, no bits of clutch hanging in the bottom of the bellhousing and no missing pressure plate bolts etc. There was a small scuff on the face of the splined hub where it looks like it maybe took a glancing blow by the input shaft on the way in, but it pretty much wiped off with my finger, no damage to speak of.

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I took the pressure plate off, I decided (not sure why) to undo the bolts sequentially, sort of “following the clock”, I loosened 3 off, then removed three, then did the same with the final 3. As I got round to the 4th bolt (I think) there was a loud twang as some tension was released and one of the bolts that was loosely in had a snapped washer that had splayed open. I’ve got no idea if this is expected behaviour undoing the pressure plate like this, it clearly had some pent up tension in there… but that’s the point isn’t it?

There are some slight burn marks on the friction disc, pressure plate and flywheel - I imagine effect rather than cause of me trying to start the car in fifth and other such shenanigans. Is this detrimental? Obviously it’s not ideal, but I’m hoping the product can stand up to it and it not make an appreciable dent in the lifespan of it.

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I’ve taken some reference measurements from my OE clutch and everything seems to be within 1mm of each other, certainly within thresholds of wear. Wondering if I’ve ended up with a 1ZZ flywheel (for example) that might be just subtly different enough in its offset from the crank to cause issues, but really CLUTCH’ing at straws at this point.

I’ve got new pressure plate bolts coming on Saturday, so have at least 24 hours to investigate and try to find a smoking gun. I think the pressure plate bolt washer and the ‘twang’ I heard is about as close at I’ve got at the minute, but I’m not overly confident. As ever I appreciate input.

753

So frustrating, hope you figure it out

754

Kyle 1ZZ Flywheel wont fit a 2ZZ PCD of bolts and centre bore is different.
Got both in stock as well as stage 2 clutch (like yours) and stage 4 if you need to look /check yours against others

755

Cheers Dave, will give you a ring shortly - you were on my list of people to call today… :mrgreen:

756

Looks like I’m heading in the right direction, had loads of assistance from lotuslee and Type116 particularly (amongst a load more suggestions from various Internet Lotus people) but seriouslylotus stepped up today with a very kind offer to compare my clutch with one he had on the shelf, just to rule out any incorrect parts issues I may have stumbled across.

My heart sank a little bit when the clutches were all identical, but then we moved on to bench test the clutch that I had using Dave’s hydraulic press. We found that when simulating the action of the release bearing pushing on the diaphragm that the pressure plate wasn’t lifting away from the friction plate, at least not all the way around. 2/3 of the plate seemed to lift up but 1/3rd was left pushing rather hard down onto the clutch still. This 3rd of the clutch also coincided with the burn marks from my forced attempts to slip it.

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To make sure the test was accurate, a brand spanking new clutch went on the press too and we were able to easily lift the pressure plate away from the clutch and it all worked perfectly.

That spanking new clutch is now home in my garage, will sort out a warranty claim (hopefully) on the old one - and I can get on with the rebuild this weekend.

Massive thanks Dave :thumbup:

757

Glad you’re heading in the right direction, Kyle. And every credit to Seriously Dave. Community spirit :thumbup:

758

Fantastic news! Great result and good darts from Dave to lend some assistance!

759

I was hoping to have everything back to where I was by the end of this weekend but Royal Mail let me down by not showing up on Friday, which means no pressure plate bolts. I’m 99.5% sure I could have just reused the old ones without drama but I want to leave absolutely nothing to chance this time!

On that note, it did let me have some time to do a little housekeeping on the gearbox.

I mentioned on a previous post that one of my slave cylinder bolts had a bit of a chewed thread. It’s not too surprising, when you refit the slave you’re pushing against the pressure of the spring and brake fluid pressure to compress the piston all whilst lining it up with bolt holes that you can’t really see, and also trying to fit the SC support bracket to the same bolts. I’m wondering if the damage was done years ago when the SC was swapped, might explain how the bracket ended up snapping if it was never bolted in right in the first place.

Anyway… I stole an idea from some other thread I did and put some studs in instead, makes the whole job a lot easier. I did this whilst the box was in the car previously and I was happy with it, but now the box was out I thought it was a good opportunity to see just how bad the threads are:

Hard to see on the photo but the first few threads are missing completely, but the ones further in are sound and will easily take the load… but as I said before, I’m leaving nothing to chance - so I drilled it out and tapped it to M10.

Followed by an M8 helicoil and fresh stud.

Looks exactly the same as it did before, but I’m much happier with the threads now.

I’ve done what I can with the clutch, which is getting it lined up with the pressure plate to within 0.2mm (which is well within the tolerance range for my eBay verniers!). Again I was confident clutch alignment was fine on the first install because the box went back on so easily, but this is bang on.

Flywheel also scrubbed up fine, the burn marks came off with a bit of brake cleaner and scotchbrite so happy to reuse it on that basis. ARP bolts cleaned up, refitted and torqued back up to spec.

As for the release bearing, this was a bit of a dilemma. One of my early theories on the disengagement issue was the fact I’d used a Toyota OE bearing (under advise that it was likely of higher quality), I’ve since measured and compared it with the two CC bearings I now had and they’re dimensionally identical, but despite this I’m not sure if I want to ‘risk’ putting the Toyota one back in, so just to rule it out completely I’ve gone with a CC bearing instead. If it start chattering away in a few hundred miles I’ll be annoyed, but hey ho…!

Splines cleaned, regreased and ready to go. Gearbox is sat on the motorbike jack ready for install and hopefully that will be tomorrow, then I can spend a few nights rebuilding the car to be back to where I was a week ago.

Really, really hope it works this time!

760

I am looking forward to Mondays update that everything is now working as expected.