1G 1G ACT Clutch will not disengage, tried everything!

[JdawgDSM1G]

Hello all, im new to the forums here. ive had this issue with my race car for quite some time now. its been so frustrating that i had stopped bothering with the vehicle altogether for over a year and actually tried selling it a couple times. about a year and a half ago i installed a fresh stage 3 tranny from TRE and an act 2900 kit with my factory lightened and stepped flywheel. i put the car together only to find that the clutch wouldn't disengage at all. i then proceeded to pull the transmission back out and check over my work. i added a larger washer for my pivot ball shim. installed a brand new oem clutch fork. brand new ACT throw out bearing. and put it all back together. once again no clutch disengagement. so i started with the hydraulics. put a brand new master and slave and a stainless clutch line. bled the crap out of it and still nothing... i then tried the crappy extended slave rod as i was getting desperate, guess what. nothing.. i got so disgusted i let the car sit, until last week. i sat and tried to figure out what else could be wrong and finally decided to pull the clutch pedal assembly. turns out it was quite worn where the z bar connects. so i had shep rebuild it. i have now installed the pedal and boy did it help but i still cannot shift the vehicle in gear while its running. i have the master fully extended as far as i can go and the slave seems to be moving pretty darn good. so here i am hoping a fellow dsm,r can help me with my craptastic situation ...

jdawg

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

yeah as am i, i got rid of the piece of crap it didn't do a damn thing for me, my current setup is as follows, act cromoly flywheel, xtd 6 puck sprung hub, act 2900 pp, brakeware slave, slowboy stainless line, brakeware master, shep built clutch pedal. i just orderd the Symborski Shifter Kit to in hope that it will clear up my gratuitous amounts of slop in my shifter im doing the skate bearing trick also. only thing left would be oem slave and master and i am trying to avoid that as its soo pricey around here. are rebuild kits any good for the oem master? i still have my oem master but it had slight weepage so i took it out.

 

[EmberSpyder]

I am having the same issue but its with an OEM clutch.(from O'Rilley). I have a Spyder GS. i replaced the master less then 6 months ago. I only need the car to last 3 more months. I thought the quick fix would work long enough before i had to replace the clutch. it worked but not long enough obviously. i did the clutch and replaced the slave as well. It is a OEM clutch and OEM slave. the master is adjusted as per the video. the system was bled and bled and bled. I went through a small bottle of brake fluid. and i have some resistance to the pedal but it wont disengage the clutch. i made sure the pp and the throw out were the same size before i put them on. everything is torqued to the spec. I have just run out of ideas

p.s. its an oem flywheel as well.

 

[broxma]

Just tossing it out as a 'Sling Blade, It ain't got no gas in it' resolution, but do you possibly have the disc on the wrong way? The disc face not being centered on the disc spline shaft would bias the pucks towards either the PP or the flywheel. I had done this on accident many years ago and the car was essentially stuck in gear and would not release at all. I suppose, given a different brand of disc with a different offset, it may not have such a dramatic effect and only cause the clutch to drag rather than lock up.

My only other suggestion for the clutch ain't working crowd is take a bit of the money you have ready for a new slave or master cylinder and get a power bleeder, if you don't already have one. Any manual bleed I have ever done has never gone as well or been as good as one done with the power bleeder.

/brox

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

i know my clutch disk is in the right way, ive checked seeral times, and it also has a big sticker saying "flywheel this side" . i picked up a speed bleeder last night, hopefully that will help.

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

so, i rebuilt the factory master, installed the stainless line from master to slave, and installed a new slave my friend gave me as mine was found to be weeping, and installed a speed bleeder in the slave. and now my clutch is literally a hair from not disengaging enough. i have the master rod adjusted as far as i possibly can, ive bled 2 12oz bottles of fluid through the stupid thing and nothing. i absolutely sick of this damn thing :/

 

[NOSLO2PT0]

i know what your problem is. Using an XTD clutch disc with an ACT pressure plate. You canNOT mix and match clutch discs with ACT pressure plates. The ACT flywheel is designed to work with ACT clutch discs. The XTD disc is not allowing the PP to fully disengage.

 

[this_tsi_8urV8]

Mike might be right, he's very knowledgeable. Been in the game for many years.
I've only used ACT once, and it was a 2100, it died quickly and never used them again.

 

[gusu]

I recently went through a act clutch failure with my 2100. It did the same thing, it ended up being the spring SLIGHTLY popped out and eventually broke the disc and the pressure plate as well as my streetlite flywheel.

The reason I could have my clutch grab after adjusting the clutch master rod the first few times is simple. The spring got depressed a bit but after about a mile it would begin to get worse until it wouldn't shift at all. Eventually the disc just broke from the drag. Every time I could have sworn I fixed it and it was just adjustment throwing it off.

I'd say check the springs.

Losing hydraulic pressure does not make sense. You don't have it and just lose it. If you had a leak or a air bubble you would NEVER achieve proper pedal pressure.

Again I do believe your problem lies in the clutch itself. This sounds almost exactly the same as my spring issue, and almost all act failures involve bad springs.

Id at least try out the other disc.

Good luck, bad clutches sucks to diagnose. Let's hope I'm wrong.

 

[GsxEcutioner]

Clutch Pedal Assembly, I have the same issue with disengagement, two masters and two slaves. All new OEM TOB, Clutch Fork, Pivot Ball and it was shimmed. Read and try everything on this list.
Clutch Pedeal Adjustment - Team Rip Engineering
-Shane

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

i only ended up tossing the xtd in because it was slightly thinner than the act street disk i had in prior. bot have been giving me the same result no disengagement. ill list my complete setup so people dont have to go through the post looking. TRE stage 3 tranny, act 2900 with xtd 6 puck "also used act street disk but had same results", act street lite fw, brand new oem 2g throwout fork, brand new oem throw out bearing, new fulcrum, shimmed fulcrum with one washer "fork faces drivers side", new slave, stainless line from slave to master no breaks, rebuilt factory mitsu master, shep built clutch pedal assembly. hopefully i can get this figured out soon :/ if the xtd is to thick that means the act one supplied in my kit was even more so too thick def at a loss, thank you all for your help thus far. ive actually gotten to finally drive the thing with the new setup thanx to some good input "though the clutch was only working half ass" so maybe soon enough ill have a clutch that dosent drag

 

[NOSLO2PT0]

When you tried the ACT disc, did you already have the shep clutch pedal installed, along with the new clutch master and slave cylinder?

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

yes, i tried both disks the act first, the xtd second, personally i like the feel of the xtd better too so to get that combo to work would be optimal. but after the trouble this damn clutch setup is causing me im veryyyy tempted to just get a twin disk and be done with it....

 

[doayamaha]

make shure you are able to push in the slave, to be shure you adjusted the master right.

 

[Tyeler18]

I read the first few posts and skipped/skimmed the rest, so this may have been answered before. Did you try it without the shim on the new pivot ball? We put two shims in my buddies tranny with his used pivot ball and like someone else said, it ended up "overshimming." We could take ONE shim out and it would shift great, or put the new pivot ball in (which we did) and it was still fine. One shim was enough to accomodate the used pivot ball, 2 shims was too much.

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

yeh the master isnt in lockout mode, as for the shimming ive tried no shim, 1 thin shim, and 1 thick shim "current" and none have had any positive effect :/

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

so, i grabbed an exedy twin disk, my hope is that because they require far less pressure and clearance between discs to disengage than the 2900 ill hopefully be rid of the annoying issue.

 

[joshcarp81]

I know youve been all over the place with your clutch issues and I hope the twin disk setup you mentioned works for you.
It just seems to me that too many people have issues with upgraded single disk setups that are designed to hold with more power made by the engine. I just almost want to think that our little cars sometimes just dont make enough pressure to work these "heavier" ctutches.
There are a few variables i guess that would lead to not enough throw too i guess. worn out clutch pedal assembly, master cylinder, slave cylinder, worn pivot ball/clutch fork. wrong step in flywheel.
but you covered all these from what i have read.
Its just extremely frustrating when you do your best at something and it turns out like this.........
Good Luck!!!!!!

 

[Bo0sTdTsI]

I have a 2900 set up to and think its the set up in my opinion. Mine is doing that also I think and stalls out. My friend another dsm'r drove it and got me mad that he could drive it and not me. He told me he thinks its not streetable but idk, his brother another dsm'r had a similar problem with the 2900 kit and just went with 2200 or something like that don't realy remember but its something that made me decide to just get a new set up.

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

yeah i think both you fellas are right. my issue with this has gone on tooooo long so i just finally decided to go with the twin disk, they require a ton less pressure than the 2900's and hold much more power. so we shall see, thanks for the input fellas

 

[kchaazz]

Funny thing here is that the 2900 supposedly takes less pressure than a 2600 to actuate because of the fulcrum points on the spring levers used on the 2900 pp, however I have never used the 2900, only the 2600, so I cannot say for sure...

 

[xtr3me]

Ive had this problem a few times, it sounds like a slave problem to me, I read your first post, But i would try another slave..

 

[TheRealMRDyno]

Sounds like the twin-disk replacements ends this thread, but here's some food for thought.

In one of the OP's comments, he says he got mad and jammed/pumped the clutch several times, and lo-and-behold, it worked for a short while, then back to not working well. This means a) no air in the lines, that does not vary, it is a constant problem, and b) very likely, a bad seal in the master or slave cylinder - the rubber seals in some master/slave cylinders are cup-shaped (don't know about these ones), and can get hard and not seal well - jamming the pedal fast can flare them dynamically, and make them seal, sometimes just once, sometimes for a little while. Since a bad slave cylinder seal would leak, I guess that means the master would be the problem.

Shims and longer rods only make sense if the pressure plate spring finger height from the flywheel is different from stock - are ACT clutch spring fingers at a different height from the flywheel when installed? The master/slave ratio only gives you so much throw on the slave, so either a) the slave is just a little more/less preloaded when the clutch is released and works just fine, or b) there is very little preload on the slave, and the piston hits its end of travel, either blowing the piston out or getting really, really hard to push the pedal, or c) you bend something assembling it, as the slave can not be preloaded that much.

And, there is exactly no reason that you can not mix-and-match pressure plates and friction plates, as long as the friction plate you actually use is the same thickness as, or within the wear range of, the matching friction plate.

I would appreciate any comments on these thoughts.

 

[JdawgDSM1G]

wish i could say the twin disk was the end all cure all butttt.... it is not :/ the guy i purchased the exedy off of gave me a clutch that was TOAST so i had to do the whole refund return shizz, anyway ive decided to just figure out what the heck is causing my current clutch situation. i have been able to get it to work but ony when the master is in pump mode "witch isnt good for the TB and PP" so i dont want to keep it that way, and the clutch tends to slip when i have it like that :/

 

[evo8sty]

The same thing happened in my 95 tsi. I put the ptt twin in my car, and i used an oem throw out. After bleeding the clutch over and over again we realized it was the throw out bearing. It could also be that you do need a clutch stop so you don't over throw it.

 

[kchaazz]

Hmmm.... So, you put the 2900 kit back in, correct? So, was the flywheel that youve got on the car now both resurfaced and stepped? If used, do you have any history on the flywheel regarding how much material was taken off? My reasoning behind this is that when a flywheel is machined this way, you effectively move the clutch assembly closer to the engine, further from the fork, if you follow me. Did I ever ask you what position the lever of the fork is in when the transmission is on the motor? Grab the fork, push it gently by hand away from the slave until the TOB is making contact with the PP fingers. Now, is the lever pointing toward the driver side, passenger side, or middle? Ideally, you want it to be slightly to the drivers side. Im reasonably sure I read you had a new fork and ball, but new fork and ball can still be out of spec if the flywheel has been machined too much. Now, you have a Shep clutch pedal assembly, so youre good there, but have you attempted to adjust the clutch safety switch (switch that kills the starter if the cp isnt pushed in) so that the pedal can come up higher when released? Doing this will theoretically allow the master cyl to draw in more fluid when the pedal is up, thereby letting you push more fluid when depressing the pedal. Last things I can think of at the moment is that perhaps your TOB is shit on the geometric level, your PP bolts are screwwing you, or you need to try the OE master and slave cylinders and if those things dont work, light that motherf*(ker on fire to ease your suffering- I know Ive wanted to do it more than once

Edit: Have you tried a different flywheel yet? One thats new but checked for proper step height?? For some reason, geometry of the clutch/flywheel assembly is just so overly critical in these friggin cars...