[DeTomaso] Clutch help
JDeRyke at aol.com
JDeRyke at aol.com
Sun Jun 27 01:21:11 EDT 2010
First, I think your clutch internal clearance is much more important than
the free play measurement. When you shove a feeler gauge thru the access
hole, in between the disc and flywheel, the disc being free-floating on the
trans input shaft, it will slide away from the feeler gauge. So one really
cannot get clearance measurements on both sides of the disc that mean anything. I
would cut your free play to 1/2- or less- and drive the car again to see
the effect when hot. I've set several Panteras us with almost zero free play
(measured at the slave cylinder's external bracket). When I ran a stock
clutch setup, our '72 L had no external bracket (nor spring) to even measure
freeplay.
Second, older rubber brake hoses tend to lose carbon black to passing brake
fluid, and rust in the steel lines dumps iron particles into it. Rubber
seals other than the one you may have just changed also slowly deteriorate and
this doesn't happen overnight. So once-bled fluid is nearly always darker
than that fresh out of the can. Thats also why after driving the car a bit,
the pristine fluid in the reservoir darkens. If you watch carefully while
bleeding, you can see dark particles backing up into the reservoir while the
pedal is being used; this is normal unless you change everything in the system
at once. Good luck- J Deryke
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