ian65

A dark, rainy, Friday morning rush hour at a junction on a busy highway and it lets me down... glad the insurance provides free breakdown cover.



Never been so glad to get back into the modern car.


I'd given it some stick to overtake a truck on the highway and struggled to change up from 1st to 2nd.
Eventually got it into 2nd and then just about got 3rd and 4th.
Got to the junction and completely lost the clutch. Couldn't put it into gear at all. Had to push the bloody thing in all the traffic off the highway onto a nearby bar parking lot.
Pedal just went to the floor. I was hoping it might just be the hydraulics but had a quick look whilst waiting for the recovery truck and couldn't see any fluid leaking anywhere... I still hoped the seal could be passing.

I double checked the hydraulics today, bled them and still couldn't get a pedal so decided to get the car up in the air and drop the gearbox... a pretty simple job on a 1st gen




This is what I found in the bottom of the bellhousing.....remnants of the clutch plate...




Doesn't look good does it???

Dropped the clutch off next and this is what was left of it.... no wonder I couldn't get a pedal and completely lost the clutch.... it had totally disintegrated.









In nearly 30 years of working on and restoring my cars, I've never had such a
catastrophic clutch failure on a road car.

It's also taken the slave cylinder with it as well. Following the disintegration of the clutch plate, it meant that the piston and seal in the slave was allowed to travel further down the bore than usual and the seal then passed the rusty bit at the end of the bore, scoring the seal and causing it to leak. Great.

So far I'm up to a new clutch and slave but I might as well go for it and fit the Elford turbo stuff so I'll get the bits together and pull the engine next.

If you're going to wreck your clutch, you might as well do it right!!

jinxed4dub

iTrader: (7)

ouch, well on the bright side of things you'll have a new grippy clutch soon. I have the same additude as you, I like to see carnage if I have to fix it. I shattered a u joint in a cv axle once, and twisted the other axle. Car still limped home was just very noisy. but once I got it appart I was excited to see what all went wrong.

Starfox07

that is some serious carnage. be sure to replace the release/pilot bearing while you're in there.

orion84gsl

iTrader: (5)

I know how you feel. Blew the 12A last year and now I have a ported 13B, entirely new suspension and steering, and wheels and tires on the way, racing seats next on the list. RX-7 projects don't snowball, they avalanche.

ricerockettuner

did the same thing with my clutch a week after i bought the car... drove it home by starting it in 1st gear and shifting lightly without the clutch and matching revs. got a nice new beefed up clutch in there now thats made by a local shop around here. grabs nice and no slippage so i guess destroying it was a plus in the end..

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

Odds are slow failing of the slave led to the clutch giving up, rather than the other way around.

A leaky slave that doesn't let the clutch completely disengage causes it to drag, leading to accelerated wear & heat. Judging from the dust buildup in your bell housing, a lot of the clutch friction surfaces had already gone the way of the dodo.

Was this a inter-sprung (stock) clutch with a cushioning spring between the faces, or a solid-face performance clutch? Looks to have been solid-face, judging from the bits remaining.

Any worn-away rivets?

How's your flywheel look?


Good thing about carnage; at least you know where to start looking for the problem!

Kentetsu

Be sure to get the flywheel resurfaced (or replaced with a light weight?) before installing the new clutch. Otherwise it will die a premature death.

Good luck on the salvage project.





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zaridar

iTrader: (3)

yeah i didn't do that when i replaced mine like an idiot.. didn't know any better that was 4 years ago... itS a centerforce dual friction. still holding up tho. when i turboed it it started to slip pretty bad... im took a cheap way out which will probably screw me over but just sprayed a ton of brakeclean in the inspection cover on top and had my dad engage and disengage the clutch while idling.... no more slipping but im sure its not good for the clutch disc friction material...

lesson learned.... do it right the first time!