Someone told me they shimmed their clutch so they wouldn't need an adj. master cylinder? What is the purpose of this? If you did it this way, would you need a slave cylinder?

 

This is how I understand it - someone please correct me if I'm wrong...

Shimming the slave puts it closer to the pressure plate fingers. So when you depress the clutch pedal, the pedal doesn't need to travel as far (because the distance has been decreased between the TO bearing and the fingers) and thus your engagement point on your pedal moves up.

You need to be careful how much you shim or you risk blowing the seal on the slave, which means you need a replacement. McLeod used to provide TO bearing shims with their original LS1 clutches. Not sure if they still do, but I hear SPEC sells shims for the other end of the slave now. Same result, different mounting location.

I used a McLeod adjustable, which I had completely rebuilt last April, the last 3 years or so. I didn't like it because the friction point always moved up or down with the pedal height. For instance, to get my friction point in the middle, the pedal would be an inch higher than the brake pedal. If I tried to get the pedals even, then the friction point was too close to the floor for my taste. I'm switching back to completely stock hydraulics (w/ master restriction removed) - hopefully I'll like that better.

 

Thats sounds about right to me .The shims can also be used if you have the flywheel resurfaced and the it makes up the difference the slave has to push now that the flywheel is a little thinner.

 

Yes, shim between the slave and tranny to raise the point the clutch disengages on the pedal.

 

If you take .010 off the face of the flywheel you need to make up that difference to get your hydralics to work properly. The shims that I have used in the past actually go between the flywheel and the crank shaft. When your shop turns the flywheel they need to know what thickness of material that they remove so that you can get the proper shim.

 

Hi Jim,

Let me know how your new clutch install finishes up. Especially the use of the bleeder line.

BTW, is there a set way of determining the proper shim thickness with a dial indicator? Seems there should be a specified height for the slave given the actual clutch assembly height. Similar to shimming a Tilton hydraulic slave.

Best Regards
Steve-D

 

Does anyone know the original thickness of the stock flywheel? O'Reily's got me again with an "Uhhh... I don't know"

I hate guessing at what the shim size should be.

Thanks

 

Jim is on the money. Ask the clutch manufacturer if they reccomend shims or not. Some don't because they can bend the fingers on the pressure plate by pushing them to far.

 

I use a McLeod adj. master, and did not shim. I definitely would have if I didn't get the master.

 

Hi Steve,

Haven't had a chance to speak with the shop since they finished the install. As soon as I talk to them I'll let you know. I see you're posting about the bleeder on here as well so I guess you're ready for higher volume

LGM told us that the Tilton race clutches came with specific distances to the 0.001" We could measure the distance, but didn't know what it was stock to compare. Someone in another thread mentioned 0.125" but I don't know how that number was obtained.