Can you shim the throwout bearing? - new clutch issues

[Joseph Dell]

Just replaced my clutch and had the flywheel resurfaced. After a good bleed of the entire system, the clutch partially engaged even when the pedal is ALL THE WAY TO THE FLOOR. Bummer, ey? Perhaps this is why they say you shouldn't resurface a flywheel. Anyway, I'm wondering if i'm screwed and need to replace the flywheel or if I can shim the throwout bearing.

Anyone have any ideas? I know the tranny has to come out again either way...

Thanks in advance!

JD

 

[Jack B]

JD:

On the oem setup you have .030 diff between full up and full down on the pedal.

 

[Joseph Dell]

i don't know what that means, but it sounds like not much... does this mean i'm in trouble?

 

[SNKEBIT]

30 thousandths????

Joe, I thought about doing that w/ mine cuz the pedal was low when I got done. Driving it since then the pedal has worked it's way back up a little and I've gotten used to it. Seems to work just fine now, no slippage at all.

 

[Joseph Dell]

so you think i should slip it down the track, hard, once or twice? that could loosen it up!

It is pretty bad now, though. can't engage reverse that often and the shifts are all 'notchy' .

 

[SNKEBIT]

so you think i should slip it down the track, hard, once or twice? that could loosen it up!

It is pretty bad now, though. can't engage reverse that often and the shifts are all 'notchy' .

I don't know if I'd do that. How much did they take off? I only took off what was needed to clean it up. Not much at all. Maybe that's the difference, they took off too much. Alltho, I can't see any reason why you couldn't shim the throwout brng the same amount that was taken off to compensate. Surely somebody has done this before??????

 

[newredrt10]

If the clutch will not disengaged completely its means you still have air in the system. If the resurfacing of the flywheel is going to cause you problems it will be in letting the clutch slip under power.

get a vacum systen to bleed the clutch line. It gives you better control in removing the air. You can buy a hand operated on with instructions, It is very simple to use

jackb's info is the travel of the throwout bearing.
On the oem setup you have .030 diff between full up and full down on the pedal. you can check this and veify throwout bearing is movinng correctly

 

[Viper Specialty]

NEWREDRT/10- When they resurface a flywheel, they also shave down the pressure plate mounting boss hieghts. This, in effect, moves the clutch assembly further away from the throwout bearing. While I do not know if it is possible to shim the slave cylinder or TO bearing off the top of my head, it makes perfect sense what it is doing, even if there is air in the system...assuming they really shaved that thing down enough to bring it out of the range of the slave cylinder.

Theother possibility is that they shaved the boss hieght more than the surface, by accident, making the clutch unable to fully disengauge.

 

[Viper Specialty]

NEWREDRT/10- When they resurface a flywheel, they also shave down the pressure plate mounting boss hieghts. This, in effect, moves the clutch assembly further away from the throwout bearing. While I do not know if it is possible to shim the slave cylinder or TO bearing off the top of my head, it makes perfect sense what it is doing, even if there is air in the system...assuming they really shaved that thing down enough to bring it out of the range of the slave cylinder.

Theother possibility is that they shaved the boss hieght more than the surface, by accident, making the clutch unable to fully disengauge.

 

[2002_Viper_GTS_ACR]

Hey Joseph,

I had mine cleaned up too, and they took off like 8 to 11 thousands, and I have had NO problem at all with it. So you can clean it up somewhat, do you know how much they took off? I'm thinking something was missed on the install. I would pull it back down and really take a good look at everything, like appropriate torque on all the clutch pressure plate bolts, make sure the slave cylinder is flush and not cocked on the transmission side. Make sure its bolted down and torqued correctly. Nice thing is, if you have a 4 post and a tranny jack, the job is a COMPLETE cake walk, I did mine in a couple of hours.

Jon

 

[SNKBYT]

Joe: I resurfaced mine. I removed .010 and the clutch is fine. The more you remove from the flywheel, the higher the clutch will grab. It sounds like the pressure plate might be warped. You are experiencing the same problem I had with a previous clutch. Tim

 

[Qualitywires.com]

Jdell,

It sounds like you need a new Viper.

 

[jp]

The TOB can be shim'd, you have to take it apart and fabricate Nylon inlays, or just put washers under the bolts.
But I would say you have air in the system.

 

[Joseph Dell]

I tried bleeding the system today with the car on jack stands... lots of ounces of fluid and the car was worse than when i started! perhaps if i do it on a flat surface there is hope... that is tomorrow's project... i'll keep y'all posted!

JD

 

[Bill B]

JD did they match the pressure plate to the resurfaced flywheel?. Dodge (and many other manufactures) advise against resurfacing a flywheel. Your tolerances between the pressure plate and the flywheel may have been exceeded.

Edit: just re-read final gts's post. what he said.

 

[Joseph Dell]

I'm going to get a new flywheel. I hate RPS and this is dragging on far too much.

Joseph

 

[RobHook]

Actually, the clutch system on the Viper is very hard to bleed. I used a pressure system on mine and it STILL wouldn't bleed completely. I let it sit for a few days without touching the clutch and it eventually bled itself.

What you really need is a pressure-bleed system. I have one but didn't have the adapter to fit the Viper master cylinder. A pressure system is often the only way to get all of the air out of the system.

--Rob

 

[v10sloboy]

Its not air in the line. I have personally bleed the sytem on the rack at my shop and there is no air in the line. I think the flywheel was cut too thin.

 

[Joseph Dell]

i re-bled it too... just to see. It is getting worse. I'm pulling the flywheel and i'll take a look. probably going to replace it. Did I mention that I hate RPS? $125 spent on that poor re-surface job...

JD

 

[RedGTS]

$125 for resurfacing a flywheel? Is it aluminum? I had a local machine shop resurface my stocker when I put my new clutch in and they charged me $20. Works fine so far.

 

[Joseph Dell]

update on clutch issue

Just to close out the thread in case anyone uses the SEARCH button on this:

John Lomant helped (ok, he did all the work) pulling the tranny and and taking a look. amazingly, he had the tranny out in about 14 minutes while i watched in amazement. Guess what we found?

- Bolts on the pressure plate were LOOSE!

Pulled the POS RPS flywheel out and replaced it with a stocker... put it back together and all is well. So far.

Thanks John! And for the rest of y'all, 2 lessons learned: 1 - stay away from the RPS flywheel (i learned this a while ago). 2- make sure the bolts are tightened down. they were torqued to spec, but most still backed out!

JD