About 2 weeks ago, I got a call that he was broke down out in Vancouver, Lisa and I buzzed out checked over his car, sure enough the clutch was toast.   We talked back and fourth, The Dr. was tied up with a clutch job and an exhaust job.  He could have taken it to Mr. Clutch and paid them to install a stock clutch, or saved the install cash and put that towards a "Good" clutch.  So after some wheeling and dealing, we came to a solution.  

        The car was towed here to my place.  "HE" is doing the work, I am simply providing the space to work, the air tools and pointing him in the right direction on what needs to be removed.  Seeing as I have a fair bit of experience doing tranny / clutch swaps in my driveway, I knew what needed to be done and in what order.

                        So we started on the car around 5pm, got hung up on a few things relating to the E-Brake cables not wanting to release, and a few semi stuck bolts.  Surprisingly enough, the 4 upper Y-Pipe to manifold bolts came out without snapping or stripping, even thought the threads were pretty rusted.   Same deal with the lower down pipe to cat converter. 

The real shock came when we started dropping the cradle out.  I noted before we even started that the front of his engine was sitting a bit low, to the point the dogbone was angled down a lot.  

      I suspected his front mount was totally shot.  So we went on about the business.  As I lowered the cradle, I was amazed at what I saw.   The front mount was fine, however there were NO BOLTS AT ALL holding the bracket to the front of the engine, only thing that was keeping the front of the motor from falling out to the ground had been the dogbone and the CV Shafts.  With the dogbone out and suspension dropped, if we we would have un-bolted the trans, the motor would have literally fallen onto the ground.   About that time I said, dat was enough, it was getting dark, and I was going to need extra light to locate and adjust the motor to get the new bolts in.   The bracket is bound up and I HOPE I REALLY HOPE its not too twisted.  As getting those bolts to line up on a good day with a good bracket and clean bolts can be an exercise in patience / futility.

Well here are the few quick pics I snapped today.     Sorry I did not grab any later in the day as it was getting dark quick. 

*Whistle's inappropriately*

Now there's a good looking boy.

     Side note, if anyone wants to come over to see how its done, we are going to get back to work on it, Thursday after 4pm, and then again on Friday.  We are hoping to get it done for Arlington, just going to be one heck of a time crunch. 

Romeo wrote: *Whistle's inappropriately* Now there's a good looking boy.

Hey now, I'm sure we have club rules against that kind of stuff!

Interesting about the front mount not being attached to the engine. When weird things like that are discovered, you can't help but wonder what kind of nimrod was working on the car previously.

You didn't expect a Fiero clutch replacement to be trouble-free did you?

Newb!

          Actually, as Tristan can agree, I commented several times that the previous mechanic must have had a good head on his shoulders.  Nothing was cross threaded, proper antisieze had been used.  All the nuts and bolts with the exception of 1 were of correct size.  (one of the exhaust bolts had been replaced with a 13mm rather than the correct 10mm and a nut had been spun on the end of it.     When I pulled the drivers lower control arm from the cradle, I was able to just about push the bolts out with my fingers.  I didn't even have to use a breaker bar.  Just a 1/2 drive ratchet and 18mm on the bolt head and 18mm wrench on the nut side.

                 I am guessing that the front bolts got wiggled loose.  OR there was a secondary mechanic that did not do the major jobs on the car.    The rest of the car was too perfect, for those bolts to have been responsible of the main mechanic.        Patric you should come over and check out the build tomorrow.   Just bring ICE and your own face rag, I kept running the garden hose soaking towl a toil and putting it on the shoulders to keep the sun and cool damp on my shoulders. 

Well I am off to bed, need some sleep. 

Well anyone that wants to pop over, give me a wring on my cell and leave a voice message.

Capt Fiero wrote: Side note, if anyone wants to come over to see how its done, we are going to get back to work on it, Thursday after 4pm, and then again on Friday.

Capt Fiero wrote: Patric you should come over and check out the build tomorrow.

Actually, I'm considering it. I don't want to be bucking rush hour traffic for the 4 PM start though. Maybe what I'll do is have a relatively early dinner and then head out your way towards the end of the rush hour at 6 PM or so.

Anyway, I'll contact you before I head out just to make sure plans haven't changed at your end. Thanks.

I've got some things I need to do today as well before I can come out, but it's good to know that I have the option to come out earlier than previously thought. Thanks, I'll be in touch before I head out.

Holy CRAP its HOT.

Yesterday in the shade at 2pm it was 37.5C   Its just after 12 now, and its already at 33.8  I guess its just because we are at the top of Johnson Hill we are in a little weather pocket all our own.  Tristen when you come over today, bring lots of fluids. 

Its 33 here now in the shade.   The top number is the inside temp, thats inside my garage with all the doors open and fans running.  The outside temp is a remote thermostat under a white picnic table next to the house outside. 

So has Tristan turned up?

I'll have to stick to my original plan. I'll leave here shortly after 6 PM.

Yep he got here around 4, I was able to rob the 2 missing bolts from my spare engine, then used a mixture of hyd jacks and prybars and mind-power to convince the bracket to straighten out and let me shove the bolts in then torqued them down with the impact.  The engine had been riding so low, the CV shaft itself has a shiny spot where it had been grinding on the cradle.  I am really surprised his crank pulley was even still there, as at rest, there is less than 1" between the pulley and the cradle.

     He pulled most of the mounts, then I grabbed the few that were kinda odd to get to, and then I pulled the bell housing bolts.  He is out there right now getting the last of the damn inspection plate 10mm bolts out.   Once those are out, we can yank the tranny out and sit it on the ground.   Which means today is going to be a short day as he was not able to get a flywheel done in time.     However Patric if you want to come over, we will still be out here sorting things out and getting it ready to go back in.    If we get totally stalled, I'll stop and do some cleaning on my 88 as I don't think I am going to have a lot of time to do it tomorrow.

I'm just eating my dinner right now, but I saw you were looking for a flywheel. Any chance the flywheel off an '87 duke is of any use? I have one here already resurfaced. I suspect it's a different animal though.

Just wanted to say I have a bunch of pics from today, 40 in total, I am going to try and narrow it down to 15 and post them up.  Should be up before I go to bed tonight.

OK so here are the pics from today, I thought were was 40 to sort out, we actually took 60 pics.  (Patrick took some with my camera too)  We had a mini party going on, Patrick came over, Nigel came over, then Graeme stopped by as well.  

Well enough chatter here are the pics.

Cradle swung down

Tristan getting at the inspection plate bolts.

See lots of room to swing and get at things.

Only a few lines were to short and had to removed to allow it to drop

See that shiny spot on that bracket, that is how far up the bracket was and I had to pry it into position.  The bottom hole was all the way up where the top bolt was.  That engine must have bouncing like crazy.

See that golden shiny spot on the CV shaft, its because it had been grinding on the cradle.  Yikes.

Is the Alternator fan normally that close to the bolt?

See he is actually doing it.  I am only the spare wheel here.

Him posing for a pic for Patrick, man that disk is messed up.

Uhm, dual friction anyone.  Steel on one side and rivets on the other.  there is suppose to be clutch material on both sides.

Disk was completely destroyed, this was the only sign that it might have been a disk at one time.

Side by side, new puck race clutch vs the OEM style Luke Clutch.

New Pressure Plate

Note how massive the springs and rivets are.

This is the level Yellow pressure plate which is a great mix of street and strip use.

HMM, na that didn't get hot at all.   Isn't steel suppose to be BLUE all the time.

I am not even certain that this can be turned down. 

Patrick standing there looking at it with a stunned look on his face.

Inside of trans.  Lots of bits of disk in there.

Romeo himself.

Capt Fiero wrote: Patrick standing there looking at it with a stunned look on his face.

I always look that way around disassembled Fieros.

Don't let that calm, cool, and collected image of Tristan above fool anyone. When I got there about 7:30 PM he was furiously playing air guitar while complaining about the walls "melting".

Tragedy struck late in the evening as Dave and Tristan, both ripped on unknown substances, ran over Nigel with Nigel's own car while he was laying there playing with his tie rod.

A shot from earlier in the evening... Tristan encouraging Dave to find endless pics of naked women, and Dave drinking more of that strange yellow liquid.

After the mishap of having your own car driven slowly.............over you for maximum...........whatever you get the picture.

I have spent the day in bed, being served various healing foods and liquids by beautiful wenches - (all covered under extended medical I might add.) Feeling much better and should be fine for Arlington. 

        LOL< at all the posts.    Tristen and I just got back 5pm from my machine shops place.   Have the flywheel here and know the mad dash to see if we can get it installed.   If anyone is good at wrenching feel free to come by.

             OK so after sleeping in till noon today, I went back out and attacked the car.

           Actually I just skimmed my last post and realized that in my rush to get ready Friday night, I did not post what happened after we got back with the flywheel.

   OK we got back here with the flywheel Friday around 5pm.  Tristen cleaned up the bolts and I showed him how to put red lock-tight on them and we installed the flywheel.   No problems looks good as new.

          Pics are

Everything was looking great.   Flywheel was perfect, new clutch was lined up using my clutch alignment took, it was installed and thinking we might even have this thing on the ground Friday night.   Well until we started to put the trans back in.......   After nearly 3hrs of trying to get it on, I said, there must be something wrong.  I have done dozens of trans axle clutch installs and nothing has ever taking this long.   I told him sorry its just not going to happen. 

              Alright, forward to Sunday, I went out and got to looking it at.  I thought to myself, the only reason this thing should be taking this long is if "I" didn't get the disk aligned right.   So I pulled the trans out, found a socket that matched the inside of the flywheel and an adapter that matched the diameter of the clutch disk.  I found it was not perfect but still within the norms, however I still went ahead and loosened the pressure plate and made sure it was PERFECT. 

           I started putting the trans back on, this time using long bolts in the bell housing so I could get 6 bolts installed, then slide it straight into the engine.   It still stopped about 2-3 inch's from going all the way in.   I had been rotating the CV shafts with it in gear to make sure the splines on the input shaft were not binding.  Once they meshed up, I thought I was golden.  I didn't think much of the fact that I could not turn the CV's anymore as now I was fighting engine compression, which is normal.    I tried and tried again, this bugger just would not go on.   Finally I grabbed a 19mm socket and 1/2 ratchet, and tried to turn the engine by hand, I gave it a little yank, uhm, it won't move, I put some weight into it, and guess what, still no fricking movement.   I go back to the trans, loosen off the bolts so everything is slack, go back to the engine and turn it, moves just fine.   At this point, I new what was wrong.  PISSES ME OFF TOO.  I have now wasted nearly 2 days on this thing.  ITS THE WRONG PRESSURE PLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!   I pulled the trans completely out of the car again, and sure enough, I find places on the pressure plate where it must have been lightly rubbing and finally bound right up. 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.   I was getting really mad at that point.          So I went into the garage sat down and relaxed for a few mins.    

Well here are the pics, showing his old pressure plate vs the new one.  The outside diameter of the old one was about 8.5" the new one is 9.5-9.75"    I also found several area's on the pressure plate that stick out into the ring gear area.   I don't believe they should be sticking out that area, and I hope that it is a one time mistake on Clutch-nets part.    

             I am going to be sending all this pic's to Clutchnet and see what they can do, Tristen needs this car done ASAP, so we need the correct pressure plate here NOW.  

Well here are todays pics, I am heading to get some sleep.

Saaaad faaaaace...

Unfortunately, in my infinite wisdom of leaving my cell in your car, I now can't call you until I get home every day, but if you get ahold of them Dave, just send me a PM here, as BCIT has computers I can use.

Capt Fiero wrote: ITS THE WRONG PRESSURE PLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

...

Well, that certainly sucks!

Geez, for what that clutch cost and the major inconvenience this has caused you guys, I'd think the retailer should be responsible for air-freighting the proper pressure plate up here pronto.

Any updates on this?

I'm curious as to how this clutch feels as mine is on its last legs and I'm thinking of getting the same 6 puck one you're putting in.  Mine's been slipping since the Aircare 'tech' rode the pedal earlier this year.

Well there is a big feather in there cap (sorta)   The pressure plate did turn out to be the wrong one.

     The first guy I spoke to on the phone, said he did not have time to read the email and would get back to me.  2 days and did not hear from him so I called back.   Got a different guy, and this guy was extremely pist off with the first guy.  Sounded like a manager or something, said they had given the other guy several chances to get his act together............  

          OK so now I have a good guy on the phone, he was unable to locate the info I sent the first guy, and the first guy was not there.  So I sent more info, pics and even a link to this thread.    We did determine than the pressure plate was wrong, and they are going to have to send us a new one.   He wanted to make DAMN SURE, the one they are going to ship directly to my house is the correct one, I photographed the Luk numbers on Romeos old pressure plate and included measurements.    Clutchnet is getting a new pressure plate in and modifying it to Clutch nets specs and should have shipped on Wednesday to my house.   There is no shipping charge, and they did not even as for the old one back.   So at this point it is just waiting for the new one to get here and then we can get back to work on it.

           Austin, the clutch we are putting is Romeo's car is the same disk that I use on the V8 just with a lighter pressure plate.  From the little bit I drove my V8 with the 6 puck in it, I loved it.  Very solid grab and even with the 320lbs of torque my motor puts out, it had no problems at all holding it.   Clutchnet said it should be good to 450+flbs of torque.  Which if I ever put the Nitrous on the V8 it will be making.  

       As per our phone conversation, a MIG welder will save "my" bacon as well.  It got me out working on my exhaust again.  I am going to get all the pipe I need cut and joints expanded and put together.   Then when you fix the exhaust on your car, I can have you weld a couple things for me :) 

   So I take it you don't have one of your own then, eh? Well, time to dive into the basement!

Well, the welding wont even come to paying you back for what you've been doing, especially with my relative lack of experience (Enough to do the basics, but not enough to do fancy things).

Ya, we can move forward,

Lookie was came today.

New One

Original they sent us.

Note on the 1st one, how tight the lip is between the bolts and the edge of the pressure plate, barley enough room to a socket in there, however on the 2nd one, there is much more distance around the edge as the top is more curved in, vs straight up.    The measurements show this one to be 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch smaller at the leading edge of the pressure plate.  

           OK for any interested parties, Romeo will be here Friday evening working on the car till whenever we decide to quit for the evening, and Saturday until we get it done.  Feel free to pop by anytime after 4pm on Friday and as early as 11am on Saturday.  (don't know the exact time we are starting or ending, so if you want to come earlier or later, drop me a line on my cell.  

So, how'd you guys make out? Any luck getting 'er going?

Aw man, sorry to hear that.

Is there something unusual about the '86 V6 Fiero tranny/clutch setup? It seems absolutely bizarre that this company is having such a difficult time supplying the correct pressure plate for this relatively common application.

Wow, interesting.

There must be an awful lot of GM vehicles running around with transverse mounted 2.8L/Muncie 4-speeds in them. It seems unbelievable that ClutchNet is having so much trouble supplying the correct pressure plate for Tristan's Fiero.

Well, you know what they say... http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/third-time-lucky.html - Third time lucky .

I hate life.

Sorry about your driveway. Dave, you could start charging rent for me to keep the car there. You'd earn enough money to run the club for th next decade.

OK so here we are, over 2 months of the car being here, finally we have the right parts.   Clutch net even upgraded the pressure plate to the red level plate.  So this thing is going to grab like a mule on Sundays.

I am darn near falling over the computer going to sleep so I have to keep this post short.   Any admins if you see a screw up could ya please tweak the post for me.

OK Pic 1-3 are the front and rear of the pressure plate.

4-7 are the Luk numbers and the other related numbers.  Note

The pressure plate assembly was built buy Luke, then sent to Clutchent is taken apart, and everything is rebuilt to be stronger.

Pic 8 shows the triple bands on the side of the pressure plate vs the single that was on his Luke here.

Last shots, are the thing mounted to the car, man I hate hiding such a nice package of parts.  That clutch disc still makes me smile.

    Trans is back in, whoo hoo, all the trans mounts are torqued in, passenger side CV shaft is in its correct place, its just a matter of putting the suspension back on, hydraulics back on and she will be ready go.   Unfortunately I have to leave for Burnaby in 15mins so I doubt I'll be back in time to finish it tonight.  However I know I can get a few extra mins on it.   P.S. Brian, I am sure Tristen will be more than happy to let you feel his clutch, but just remember and this goes for the both of you,  NOT FOR AT LEAST 500KM.   Ya gotta take it easy on it for a bit.

         Ok so I got the hydraulics bolted in, the shift cable bracket and shifting linkage all put back on.   Then I ran out of daylight.  

I should be able to spend a bit more time on it tomorrow.  So Tristan know that the Clutchent issue taken up, when do you want to start making your appearance here.   Basically any time will work.  

          Well the sooner you get over here the faster it gets done.   I'll be home all day and night as far as I know.   (with one exception of going to Burnaby at 3pm, and returning here at 4pm)

HOORAY IT'S ON THE GROUND!

Anyways, I'm off as I have school tomorrow. But boo yeah, so stoked to drive again!

Yep when Tristen got here, I had the suspension done, all we needed was to install the rear brakes and setup the E-Brake, install the Y-pipe, install the shift cables on the brackets, remove and re-install the slave, then finally put the wheels on and drop it on the ground.

It will still need some tweaking, but with any luck it he will be driving it home tomorrow (Friday) night.

     Well Luck was on our side.  I got to work on the car at 9am, doing all the little stuff, by Noon it was on the ground and able to move under its own power.   I picked up Tristen around 3:30 and he came back to the house to work out some of the kinks and do some last min tweaking.  

          Man I had no idea how touchy that clutch was going to be on a V6.  Its "almost" stall the engine or do a mini burnout to take off.  Pedal feel is good.  It releases at half pedal and grabs at half pedal.  The thing is you have maybe an inch of pedal between full engage and full disengage, its a true race type clutch.  I think with practice you should be able to get to drive it all right, but a new driver will have a nightmare. 

       I guess it would be a great anti-theft device LOL.

"Well, luck was on our side." **

**Until I almost got home. I had forgotten to tighten down the shift cables, and one came loose, and the other completely blew the nut off the bolt, while going up a hill. I managed to whip the car around, make it go down the hill and park it in the cop parking lot. David and Lisa came down with an extra nut and bailed me out (Yet again) and since then I haven't had any issues (Well, any clutch/transmission related ones anyways). Like David said, the clutch is a definitive race type, with the car either stalling, heavily squatting or simply spinning my expensive tires off at every start. I've started to get used to the very limited travel needed, and I can now manage some semi-normal starts (Front end still kisses the sky mind you). Some of you may be reading this and thinking "My, that sounds terrible!" You'd be wrong.

The car is an absolute BLAST to drive now. Tires can be spun with reckless abandon, engine braking is an instantaneous affair, and the clutch finally has enough guts to grab at neck-snap velocity.

        So I have been thinking about this last night, while I was sleeping yet again in my office chair.  Seeing as this clutch has more than enough travel for full engage / disengage, you might be able to change to a slightly larger slave cylinder.  You currently have a 13/16's bore slave, if we moved you to a 15/16th's bore, it would effectively give you a much wider space between full engage and full disengage.   However it would also mean you will have to press the pedal all the way to the floor in order to shift quickly.  Which is actually a bad thing when racing,    The other issue is the 15/16th's bore  is MUCH more expensive.  The one you have is $39 SCC3795  I think the larger one is around $130 as it was a Fiero only part. 

         I really glad you are happy with it, and hope it was worth the near 2 month wait to get all the "right parts" together.   At least now we know exactly what parts to order from them in the future.   Oh quick P.S.  Clutchent will sell the individual parts if something goes wrong.  If you only need a new disc or only need a new pressure plate, you can buy just the parts you need to get your car running again.  Which will save you a ton of money in the long run.

       Well its totally weird that it worked fine all day yesterday and today it starts acting up, however as I mentioned on the phone call, bring it to the meeting and I can take a look at it.  The only adjustment that I did was correct the high voltage reading from the TPS which should not cause a low idle and even stalling issue.  I did not that your IAC values were pretty low indicating that it was trying to correct for a vacuum leak, I wonder if some how that leak fixed itself and now the computer has to re-learn the IAC position.   Just a test, pull the battery cable off for 60 seconds or more, then put the cable back on.   It will force the ECM to re-learn everything.

Ok Tristan, this post has been helpful for me to prepare for my clutch job with David...I would like to chat and see how you like it, Austin was interested also...got to call that man and see What's Up

I am heading to pick up the trans that Mister Transmission fixed up, Clutchnet & FS parts next week, exhaust MAYBE...thinking Kool Coat or hold off and Truleo upgrade next year with brakes:).

I am sure David and I will create a post...told the Clutchet guys (Oleg) this is maybe the 5th in the club from him?...either way, should have it right bu now we hope

Aw man, I saw this thread listed at the top and thought that Tristan's clutch had messed up again.

Can always send on Monday, I bet you it has not left his shop.

I just got home a little pissed as I went to pick up the transmission.  I got a call and said it was ready, I have tried all week to speak with John but he was always on a "test drive for an hour...call back".  I said ask him to call me please, he never did...either way, I show up and the owener said "sorry, they forgot to do the flywheel and paint the trans", being a NICE guy, I said no worries.

So driving back home on this BEAUTIFUL day in the middle of it all, I called and said my peace to the manager and said it's all about communication, I just drove from Burnaby for nothing...a call to say "we are not complete, sorry but give us another day" is all I could wish for...see you next Saturday.

Anyways...see you tonight, we may not be there until 7:30pm or so...

Bassman wrote: Can always send on Monday...

Heck, why wait 'til Monday... send it today! (Just in case they process orders on the weekend.)

They don't...when I called Clutchnet this week and asked for a time line, he said "we don't warehouse, we make specific"...in a Russian accent...lol.

We chatted about delivery charges, he does a lot of business in Russia, average cost $600 shipping...that's nuts!

I am sure it's on the way, should be at David's next week, it's the FS that I am suprised did not arrive this week...still have time to collect parts and get this ready for a smooth install...right David:)...lol

Romeo wrote: It's not grabbing as much as it used to, as if there's still air in the system...

Air in the hydraulic system has nothing to do with how well a clutch grabs (engages).

Romeo wrote: ...I do my shifts as quickly as possible).

We're sure you do

Any updates on how your clutch is holding?  or rather not holding? 

Bassman wrote: Austin...you can drive mine after it's done

Sounds good

If you can make it out, I am planning:

PCA: July 31st, Aug 2 & 8 at Pitt Meadows autoz

UBC: Aug 2 track day...I can take passengers now as a senior driver

Cheers