[DeTomaso] Clutch Assembly Rebuilding

J B Reardon jbreardon at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 23 10:26:51 EDT 2008


The was a question about clutch assembly rebuilding recently so I forwarded the message to the company Fort Wayne Clutch who have done probably 8 clutch assemblies for me. I have never had any problem with their work. The reply...

Kim Herman" <kim at fortwayneclutch.com>Add sender to Contacts To: jbreardon at yahoo.com

This is a bit confusing to people.  

A rebuilt clutch is only as good as the people that are rebuilding it.
Believe it or not, I'm not giving you a sales pitch here.  At Fort Wayne
Clutch, the old pressure plate {which is called a core} is brought in
and COMPLETELY disassembled so you have nothing but the steel casting
left.  It is cleaned.  We replace everything!  All new spring, levers,
etc. even if the old ones are still "good".  When we finish it is
exactly like or better than a brand new unit.  Over the years, my guys
have seen several styles of clutches that may not have worked so great
as they were originally engineered.  So, upon rebuilding, often times we
use better parts than the original OEM, but it is still a rebuilt unit.
The clutch disc goes through the exact same procedure.  All of our
rebuilt kits are sold with new bearings and alignment tools.

Now, there are a lot of clutch rebuilders that do not follow this same
procedure.  We have "bought-out" other rebuilders. If I told you the
name you would definitely recognize the stores where they are sold in
almost every town in the US. The "rebuilt units" that they call
"finished" and ready for resale are brought into our facility and
completely disassembled because they are inferior and not ready to sell
to Fort Wayne Clutch customers.  So, remember, a rebuilt clutch is only
as good as the rebuilders you buy it from!!!!

There are a couple of reasons why people say it is not a good idea to
just replace the pressure plate or disc.  From you, the customers point
of view, it's pretty simple, if you have to tear apart the vehicle to
replace the disc or pressure plate, you might as well do it all while
your there!  But, in most cases, you probably really just need a disc or
bearings.

>From the businesses that sell the clutch, our suppliers have gotten to
the point that they would rather sell the entire clutch as a kit.  A kit
includes pressure plate, disc, throwout bearing, pilot bearing, and
alignment tool.  It really doesn't matter to us as the retail seller.
But, the vendors, pushing the customer to buy the whole kit, have raised
there prices so outrageously on the single piece item {just the disc, or
just the pressure plate}  that I can sell my customer a kit cheaper than
I can sell you just the disc.  I know, this makes no sense, but it's
true!  So, the retail businesses, for economic reasons, have made a
choice to stock the kits on their shelves as opposed to individual
components.  Therefore, if you go into a store to buy a clutch disc,
chances are the proprietor would have to take a disc out of a complete
kit to only be able to sell you the disc.  Then, they have to order a
replacement disc for the kit which usually costs the same, if not more,
than buying an entire kit.

So....I hope this helps you guys!  If you or your buddies have any
questions, feel free to give me a call, 800-258-8243.

Thanks,

Kim
Fort Wayne Clutch & Driveline

-----Original Message-----
From: J B Reardon [mailto:jbreardon at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 10:14 AM
To: Kim Herman
Subject: Clutch Rebuilding

I have used your rebuilt clutches and pressure plates and have never had
any problem with them. In the past I had sent them and you could match
the thickness of the clutch material. 

I recently was on a chat site and they posted a question about
rebuilding a clutch assembly. I also would like to know. 



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