Clutch Fitment

[barney911rs]

Just need to vent a little. This morning I woke up in a good mood knowing that a friend was coming over to help me install my tranny and engine back into my race car. It's been awhile since the two have seen each other.

Started by checking the plugs and giving the engine a good wipe down. Got it off my make shift engine stand (Harbour Freight Motorcycle stand) and onto my jack. Pulled the tranny around to get ready to mate the two together. Had a little trouble getting the clutch fork onto the throw-out bearing, but we managed to get past that. Could not get it to slide the rest of the way on. After several attempts, pull it off, push it on, repeat.......

We could not figure out what the problem was at first. We used the clutch alignment tool that came with the new fly wheel/pressure plate/clutch disc package. Everything went on with no issues. I had some work done on the transmission, but to the best of my knowledge it had the same input shaft.

I dug out my clutch tool and the old disc and did a little CSI work. The old disc fit on the tranny, the tool fit on the disc, so that looked good. Tried the tool on the disc on the engine and it would not go in at all. WTF, we used it to install it originally. Went back to the tool box, and found another alignment tool, and it was DIFFERENT. The first one said FORD as I expected, and the other one said VW Audi, and it went into the mounted disc with no problem. I got sent the wrong part and the splines are not even close. ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!

I called the company (no names at this time as I want to see what they will do.) It would be a lot simpler if this was a recent purchase, but it was Feb 2007. I'm hoping they will just swap out the correct disc.

So we pulled the pressure plate back off and pulled out the disc. Once I had it in hand it was definitely wrong. I don't know why I did not notice it before. Probably because I did not have the tranny at home when we installed this to see the spline on the input shaft. So after a 1/2 day of work, I'm farther behind then I was when I got up.

Moral to the story, never use the clutch alignment tool that comes with a new clutch disc. Use one you've used before and know to be correct. Sometimes I wonder why I do this stuff.