Failed clutch

[Zuffen]

The clutch in my car has covered about 3,000kilometres from new.

It became noisy and wouldn't disengage like it should.

At first I thought I had a failed throw-out bearing as it made a nasty noise when you deressed the clutch.

I've never seena clutch fail at this point and whilst I've seen loose springs in the clutch plate I've never seen a a loose spring outside the pressure plate.

I'd be interested in comments as to why it failed.

The washer on the plate is to cover the brand name of the clutch.

 

[Lextreme II]

Must be alot of noise... spring and loose fragment flying around..... I feel you bro.... last was my tranny too...

 

[cowboy bebop]

You got pretty lucky there. I had a pressure plate come loose on the dyno at 8000rpm, making 714rwhp at the time, and everything forward of the gearset was detroyed. The PP spun around on the input staft taking the bellhousing with it, the clutch fork was bent over, and the remants flew out from under both sides of the car. Lucky the flywheel didn't come through the floorboard and take a leg with it.

 

[Zuffen]

Strangely enough it's only since I started to rev the engine to 6,500rpm that it happened. Normally I shift up around 5-5,500rom.

I've seen flywheels explode before. Once you've seen one explode you don't want to be near another.

You can see the clutch plate cracked from the holes at the end of the cut. These holes are designed to stop crack propegation. Something went wrong here.

The right hand side is where the failure started as it has the straight crack. The left hand side basically tore off as it's jaggered.

Still a pain to take the engine and trans out as their combined weight is over half a ton!

 

[TundraEddie]

Does the name of the clutch manufacturer start with C an end in E,or maybe starts with E and ends in Y?

 

[200sx-v8]

I have seen this happen before. Several times. There is no perfectly good explanation why this happens. But all the clutch discs I have seen with this have been very worn.

I sell this clutch brand through my company, and have sold over 50 kits in 2005. I have never had this problem with any of them.

Luk is the manufacturer of this clutch disc. They together with Valeo are the most common manufactures for the performance clutch brands.

Zuffen, you should contact the company who sold you this kit, and they will probobly help you.

 

[Zuffen]

2oo.

Thanks for the advice.

As I was in process of getting the parts together to swap to an auto I figure the whole clutch was going to be a throwaway in another month or two so I'll leave the supplier alone.

I'd still like to know what caused it to happen.

 

[1uzvl]

that plate looks similar to my exteme plate that i bought is it sold under a different name?

 

[Zuffen]

Yes it is an Extreme clutch.

 

[Peewee]

Carbon Copy here Rod
http://forums.toymods.org.au/index.php?t=msg&th=86170

 

[Zuffen]

Thanks Peewee,

Still no reasons being posted as to why it happened.

I can see it fatigued and failed but the rest of the plate looks perfect.

 

[Peewee]

Yeah, just letting you know you are not alone.

 

[TundraEddie]

Overzealous heat-treating by the manufacturer perhaps?