Am I not installing my clutches correctly??
 

Hey fellow brotards,

I swapped a tranny a few months back with a six puck racing clutch into my s5 NA. The car it came from when I did drive it grabbed really well, actually almost too well. When i installed it in my vert it didnt slip but it did chatter and was irritating as hell to drive.

Anyways, I took that engine out of the car to swap it into the other and while it was out I put a different clutch into it from my 86 base that had myabe 25k on it max. Now it engages really late and slips like hell. I must be doing something wrong.

I simply remove the bolts from the pressure plate. I dont mark or align any of them. I replace the clutch, using the alignment tool, with the clutch facing the right way. I of course cleaned everything with brake parts cleaner. I slide the PP over it and bolt it back in. Simple as that. Am I missing something? That is two clutches in a row that were perfect before I installed them myself.

Did you resurface the flywheel?

What clutch?
You can adjust the pedal btw.

did you spray the clutch surface with the cleaner? if so you could have contaminated the surface

yes I did spray the surface. I sprayed everything the second time around. I did not do that the first time with the six puck clutch though. And the flywheel was the same good flywheel I had on it before. The only reason I changed the clutch was to use the racing clutch I had from the other car.

The slipping is more than likely from the brake parts cleaner oil still on the plates. It may go away, it may not. I'm not to sure on that one, maybe someone else can chime in. You're not suppose to spray cleaner on the surfaces themselves though. If you did, I'd recommend you have it ALL resurfaced.

imo put the six puck back in chatter usually comes from bad mounts on engine or tranny which explains why it happened in yours not your friends same thing happened on my car mounts were the culprit

I have a s4 NA with the 6 puck -the chatter is not bad at all once you learn to drive around the clutch a bit.

Err. Are you 100% certain of this?

Per another thread I wrote, a highly experienced mechanic recommended I use brake parts cleaner to clean off my clutch - insisted that it would not be an issue and would not leave any residue/oil.

I agree with above. The brake parts cleaner leaves no residue. That is the whole point.

I've always been told not to touch or put anything on the PP, clutch disc, or flywheel. I just take it all to a shop and get it done. Sorry about that...

The parts come oiled a bit, so thats a very bad idea.

???

But, did you resurface the flywheel? Before the first clutch? Did you resurface it after the first clutch before you put on the second clutch?

Do it right once, do it wrong over and over.

OP, what clutch is it?

The clutch i had in there before was a racing beat six puck clutch and when I drove it in the other car it was very clampy and engaged early and hard. When i put in in the vert it was like driving with a stock clutch and it would chatter when downshifting.

And no I did not have the flywheel resurfaced. I am not taking that thing off just to change a clutch. It was very clean and very smooth.

i know its a pain but you should have your flywheel resurfaced each time. i didn't do that on my first seven and i had almost no clutch after that. and brake parts cleaner like crc is just fine. it evaporates away.

What if you take it to a place that resurfaces flywheels, and they say it is within spec jackhild59? Aka, they say there is not really a need to resurface it?

that cant possibly be it though. The flywheel surface is perfect. It cant be possibly making that much of a difference. It was fine when I had the first clutch in it. I never needed to change the clutch. I just wanted the racing beat in there.

My question is there a certain way to tension the PP bolts or align them a certain way. It seems pretty straigh forward. Am I not aligning the clutch properly? I am using the $3 tool from Advance.

then you tell them their stupid blaen, because untill you start cutting it you cant really see high spots, UNLESS their micrometering every mm of the damn thing.

don't be cheap, resurfacing a flywheel is 30 dollars. eliminate it from the list of possible problems.

That most certainly can be your entire problem. you cant see with your eyes if it is off by .020in from one side of the flywheel to the other.

Did you torque the bolts in the correct order to the correct torque specs per the FSM while you were installing the pressure-plate after you did not resurface the flywheel?

Because, you see your original question, the title of this thread is and I quote "Am I not installing my clutches correctly??"

No, you are not, or they would work right.

I mean sh*t, here is the second thing you haven't done per the FSM and the manufacturer of the clutch(es) and you are in double denial. WTF do you expect? Success from half-@ssed work?

Do it right once.

Now that I have been harsh, I will admit that I have done several clutches in my life (not RX7's) where I did not resurface the flywheel. They were all low power, low rpm applications. I got a way with it mostly, except for once on a toyota pickup... That time, I had to re-do the job and guess what? My disk was glazed from the slipping. I had to buy a new one, plus do the job twice.

I learned from this.

dltreezan there's no magic, you just torque the bolts to the spec in the service manual. It's a good practice to torque them in a star pattern just to promote keeping the disc centered as you tighten things down but it won't make a world of difference.

I suspect your pressure plate and/or flywheel wear surface is carrying some deposits from the old clutch causing the chatter.

brake clean should be ok... it's carb spray that leaves a residue...

anyhow check your motor/trans mounts... if they are broken or move a lot they can make the clutch chatter