advice sought on clutch clearance

[Greg Johnson]

I just did one of those crashes where the engine is running in the
carcass while the clutch bell is locked. :-(

I was expecting to have reamed out the clutch bell liner and to have
splayed out the arms on the clutch.

Surprisingly enough, the liner was a bit worn, but not reamed out. And,
the clutch arms looked OK. They were not splayed out, and I could see no
evidence of cracks forming at the bases of the arms.

I measured the outer diameter of the clutch and the inner diameter of the
clutch bell, and found that there is about .01 inch of clearance (about
0.25 mm for the 99.5% of this group that lives in metric parts of the
world ;-)).

Here's my question: What do you consider an acceptable clearance? Is
..01 inch too much of a gap? Should I ream out the current liner and
epoxy a new one in there?

The thing I worry about if the gap is too large is flexing the arms over
too great a distance and weakening and eventually cracking and breaking the
arms at their bases.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Greg Johnson

[Tom Minger]

Greg -

..010 is OK for a clearance. A thing to check for is possible heat damage
of the bond between the clutch liner and clutch bell. If the clutch got hot
enough to damage the bond, then you may experience early clutch failure
because the "hinge point" of the clutch arms may be weakened from
overheating. With that in mind, if it all looks good I'd put it back
together and run it as is.

Tom


"Greg Johnson" <gregflies1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8faa960.0304011334.27eecb2e@posting.google.co m...
> I just did one of those crashes where the engine is running in the
> carcass while the clutch bell is locked. :-(
>
> I was expecting to have reamed out the clutch bell liner and to have
> splayed out the arms on the clutch.
>
> Surprisingly enough, the liner was a bit worn, but not reamed out. And,
> the clutch arms looked OK. They were not splayed out, and I could see no
> evidence of cracks forming at the bases of the arms.
>
> I measured the outer diameter of the clutch and the inner diameter of the
> clutch bell, and found that there is about .01 inch of clearance (about
> 0.25 mm for the 99.5% of this group that lives in metric parts of the
> world ;-)).
>
> Here's my question: What do you consider an acceptable clearance? Is
> .01 inch too much of a gap? Should I ream out the current liner and
> epoxy a new one in there?
>
> The thing I worry about if the gap is too large is flexing the arms over
> too great a distance and weakening and eventually cracking and breaking
the
> arms at their bases.
>
> Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Greg Johnson