Wow I didn't even notice that in your picture. At first I noticed the wear marks on your fork that were in the exact same place as they were on my old fork, but my retainer clip never rubbed like yours does.

Alright how the hell do you remedy this?

I could be wrong but I if I remember correctly, last year when I was having similar trouble with my clutch dragging, someone, maybe wrd1972, told me that they were able to grind down the bottom of the 'T' that the fork pivots off of. That would draw the clutchfork's pivot point inwards away from the pressure plate.

I never had to do it myself so I have no idea how much you'd need to grind off to make it work. It just sucks because you simply can't grind down that retainer clip on the fork without destroying it, and you need it on there.

Hopefully someone who's tried this before will chime in, or better yet maybe someone with a better idea than me.

 

From the looks of that clutch fork picture it would appear it was not fully seated onto the TB, as in, whoever did the clutch did not push the fork onto the TB as far as it should have gone. This may be your entire problem. It could have caused an uneven load on the TB/clutch fingers causing the clip to distort, break and, of course the clutch most likely would not have fully disengaged when the pedal was depressed. I would bet that is the cause of all your problems.

 

Thank you for the words of encouragement. I have everything back together I just need to go get some new U-Joint bolts, mine are pretty stripped. Then we'll see.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Obviously you cant do any clearancing on the retainer spring and clearly there is a good reason why there is contact here, just need to figure out what it is. So the question remains, why is the pressure plate so damn close to the fork to begin with? I have never had nor seen this issue in the past.

Do you have a flywheel shim installed between the crank and the flywheel? If you do and its of excessive thickness, that would push the pressure plate and PP toward the rear. IMO, a flywheel shim is pointless following turning the flywheel because the hydros will adapt and set a new home position to work from.

So what else can push the pressure plate toward the rear? Grasping at straws here but thats where your at. Is the crank the OEM crank? Could the thrust bearing be so trashed that the crank is now sitting further toward the rear than it should?

So what can cause the fork to sit further toward the front? If the pivot points on the fork or T-fastener are so badly worn, I guess it could. Like SSRRR said, the fork not being properly set would screw things up to.

Regarding the T-fastener. The early Mcleod street twins had a release problem and the solution was a different bore master cylinder that provided more push to the slave thus making the PP open up more. This solved the release issue but now the fork would hit the pressure plate. Their solution to this was for you to machine .050" IIRC off of the bottom of the T-fastener to pull the fork toward the rear. I guess the Mcleod ST PP installed just naturally sits further to the rear than the OEM spec PP. I have never owned one but that just makes since.

Now back years ago when the clutch kicked my *** and I was grasping at straws too, I had the T-fastener machined down .050" and it did nothing for the release problem. Thinking about it now, cutting down the T-fastener cant do anything for disk release but it could do a lot for providing needed clearance between the fork and the PP if the two are making contact. I am still running that shortened T-fastener to this day with no known issues.

I am anxious to here if you have a flywheel shim installed.

 

That fork is not in the correct position.

Here's what I encountered with my pressure plate:


The points where it was ground is where it was making contact:


I'm telling you I fully believe your problem has been nothing more than the clutch fork not being pushed in all the way towards the TB.

 

No flywheel shim. I had tried one before, but it hasn't been in there for awhile now. Also, I believe it is the stock crank but this car has been broken for the majority of the time I have had it. I haven't had a chance to check out the motor.

 

Does it seem like it wasn't pushed "up" enough?

I think you might be right. The fork seems to be sitting in a different position this time. Does this look right?

 

I got everything installed and started her up and I heard the fork rubbing against the pressure plate so I turned it off - not a nice sound at ALL by the way. I went to adjust the master cylinder but he (last mechanic) seems to have made it differently than I've ever seen before so I'm going to need to call him to see how to adjust it.

 

Yes the fork looks as though it is in the correct position. Even if it is still rubbing you may still have to grind the fork for clearance of the PP.

 

Does your MC have the adjustable "eye" on the end of the shaft where it clips to the clutch pedal?

 

That's how I made mine, I was under the impression that the McLeod units were the same, too. I didn't realize there were different types of adjustable master cylinders.

I'm starting to think that grinding down the T is gonna be his only solution here. Grind down a little at a time, lots of trial and error. Unless someone can figure out exactly why his clutch and flywheel are sitting so close to the transmission, very strange.

 

Doesn't seem to be. I have no clue what he did, but he said he "made it adjustable" and the pedal was sitting much higher.

What bothers me is that it is a new problem. The first 4-5 times I took off the pressure plate (because I couldn't get into gear) the pressure plate itself hadn't been scratched. However, after the "adjustable master cylinder" being "adjusted" to the top, it scratches the pressure plate and still won't go in gear.

Is this most likely all ONE related problem, or do I have two different issues occurring now?

 

I'm just confused to why I would need to do this. Many people have ran the CC and the Ram without having to grind the fork - I'm just worried there's something else going on too.

 

I have both a spec and ram PP. I will measure the thickness of both and post up what I find in the morning.

 

I measured both pressure plate alone and with clutch on a Spec Stage 4, Stage 3+ and RAM and they all measure close to the same. I can't remember the numbers off hand, but the difference was .010. Don't think that's enough to make contact. The only other item it has to be I would imagine is the flywheel? I dunno. I think you should just grind your fork the same depth as you see in the pic I supplied and adjust your clutch M/C accordingly and you'll be fine. JMO.

 

The problem is that part that is rubbing is the metal clip/spring thing.

 

So I completely removed the slave cylinder and the fork is still rubbing against the pressure plate. This was never a problem before, so I'll have to add it to my timeline of events.

And I guess the mechanic didn't install an adjustable master cylinder. He just extended the rod and pressed it back together. So I'll probably have to take the master cylinder out and do it right, but there's obviously another problem now.

 

New Chart:


So the problem has gone from the car not shifting while started, to the car not shifting while started AND the fork rubbing against the pressure plate.

 

I'm all out of ideas. Good luck.

 

Thank you for your help - and a big thanks for taking the time to measure those pressure plates. Hopefully I get this worked out.