OK, so i just got my transmission back from being rebuilt and noticed that the fingers on the pressure plate are not uniform in height/extension/whatever you wanna call it. it's a Monster Level 2 that came with the Level 2 clutch kit (pressure plate, aluminum flywheel, & clutch disc). it's been installed for a few months, and has about 1000 miles (maybe a bit less) on it. i had a local shop install it before, but didn't want to pay them again to uninstall/reinstall everything this time.

i was performing measurement "A" in THIS THREAD, and there is a difference of about 1/4" between the surface of the bellhousing where the transmission mates to it and the ends of the fingers on the pressure plate. on one side of the pressure plate fingers, the measurement is 2 1/16", and it gradually increases as you go around to the other side to about 2 5/16".

i snapped a couple photos, but it's a little hard to see due to the angle & whatever....but is this something i need to worry about, or is that within acceptable tolerances? is the pressure plate hosed?

 

also, i was just looking at the level 2 clutch kit from Tick Performance (where i got my clutch kit), and the fingers on mine look different from the ones on there....they look like the level 1 pressure plate....so i'm wondering if they gave me the wrong pressure plate and/or the wrong clutch kit entirely.....

 

well, i have an update, and ended up answering some of my own questions.

the shop that installed the clutch kit definitely did not torque the pressure plate properly, and it's debatable on whether or not the flywheel is actually torqued properly (haven't pulled it loose yet).

when i went to remove the pressure plate, the first bolt i broke loose was toward the bottom of the car, and it came loose pretty easily; easier than i would have guessed it should. then the next one toward the top of the car was extremely tight and took a hell of a lot more force to break free. the third was pretty easy, the fourth was even harder than the second (i thought i was gonna have to get a cheater bar, but it finally broke loose when i put my breaker bar on it instead of using the ratchet itself). the 5th & 6th bolts were VERY loose, requiring almost no force at all to break loose.

so it's pretty obvious at this point that whoever actually installed the parts at that shop were morons and didn't follow the instructions i provided them (the ones that came with the clutch kit), which specifically state to tighten the pressure plate bolts in 3 steps, going from 20ft.lbs., to 40ft.lbs., then to 52ft.lbs., in a bolt pattern of 1-4-6-2-3-5.

as i was loosening the tighter bolts, i could hear a "creaking" noise that i couldn't identify at first, but then shortly after hearing it for the 3rd/4th time, i looked at the fingers on the pressure plate, and they were returning to their normal "even" position. That's how unevenly torqued the pressure plate bolts were, that it was causing the pressure plate fingers on one side to not be able to fully extend out.

as a result of this, there are now hotspots on both the flywheel and the pressure plate mating surfaces, and pretty bad ones, too.

pics to come in the next few posts....

 

here are pics of both sides of the clutch disc itself....it looks a little glazed over on one side, is this something that will come loose once everything is installed properly and it has some miles on it, or is it gonna need a new one?

 

here's some pics of the pressure plate's fingers, now that all torque has been removed from them...you can clearly see now that they are back to normal, and there was no permanent damage to the fingers

 

here are some pics of the flywheel, showing the hotspots on it. you can also clearly see that whoever installed the clutch kit did not bother to clean the surface with brake cleaner like they're supposed to

 

here's some pics of the mating surface on the pressure plate, also showing the hotspots from the improper torquing of the pressure plate bolts

 

and here's a pic of the instructions showing the torquing procedure & torque specs that i provided the shop with....which they clearly did not follow

 

I've seen this quite a few times, installers not paying attention or just in a hurry. I would check the flatness of the friction side of the pressure plate to verify, as long as it's flat and the spring is flat you should be good.

I would also clean up the grease/oil on the flywheel and make sure the input shaft isn't lubricated and the pilot bearing isn't overly lubricated so there are no possibilities of contamination.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

 

im glad i did my clutch install myself. double and triple checked the bolts all to torque so I can only blame myself if something goes wrong

 

yeah, i would have preferred to do it myself, but at the time i just needed my car back up & running ASAP, because my only other ride was going to be out of town for a while.

i called Monster, and they say that they use the same pressure plate between Level 1, 2 & 3...the only difference is the clutch disc itself. they also say that although the disc does look like it's got a little damage from oil/glazing, it should be fine once everything is sealed well and the disc de-glazes...so i'm taking off work tomorrow so i can get everything put back together, and (hopefully) be able to finally drive my car again after close to a month....

one other thing they mentioned when i talked to them is that they have been seeing issues with the ARP flywheel bolts allowing oil get onto the flywheel (you can see that in my pics of the flywheel above, streaks of oil getting slung out from the bolts) if they are not sealed well with some red loctite. they say that they actually recommend the OEM bolts, because they have the sealant already applied to the bolts and tend to make a better seal.

so if anyone else uses ARP flywheel bolts, be sure to seal the threads REALLY well, or else you risk the oil causing failure of the clutch disc material.