T56 Clutch Fork Worn Out??

ninety5fiveoh

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Long story short, after a few passes at the track about a month ago, I welded the clutch disc from my Spec 3+ right to the flywheel. Over the last few weeks, I replaced the following:

McLeod RXT clutch
McLeod steel flywheel
QuickTime bellhousing
FRPP throwout bearing
FRPP pilot bearing
Lakewood Pivot Ball

I very meticulously installed everything, adjusted the pivot ball properly, and put about 100 miles on it. After the first 50 miles or so, I noticed a faint rattling noise, but thought "Hey it's a mustang, it's probably an exhaust rattle." I put another 80 miles on it on Wednesday night, and when I got home I noticed the noise was drastically louder.

Today I got under the car and noticed that the clutch fork can easily be shaken up and down. I'm posting this thread simply for verification of the fact that the clutch fork is probably work out where the springs hold onto the pivot ball.


Can someone please verify yay or nay that should NOT be like this? I would like to get this buttoned up asap before the American Muscle Show in 2 weeks, so I need to get parts ordered. Thanks!
 

MG0h3

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Damn, I was gonna say maybe you have too much freeplay with the cable but that seems like the retainer clips are broken. Possibly on both the TOB and the pivot ball. I had to use a screw driver to open the clip a little because the head of the lakewood pivot ball was bigger. Pretty snug on the TOB as well.

Was it hard to slip onto the pivot ball or can you look in there and see if it's on there correctly? Same with the TOB.
 

ninety5fiveoh

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Damn, I was gonna say maybe you have too much freeplay with the cable but that seems like the retainer clips are broken. Possibly on both the TOB and the pivot ball. I had to use a screw driver to open the clip a little because the head of the lakewood pivot ball was bigger. Pretty snug on the TOB as well.

Was it hard to slip onto the pivot ball or can you look in there and see if it's on there correctly? Same with the TOB.

There seems to be slightly too much freeplay in the cable, which I can adjust at the pivot ball, and will do so when I put it back together. This however does not seem to be causing the issue. I took it apart this afternoon and it takes very little effort to slide the entire clutch fork right off the pivot ball. Looks like I will be replacing that, as well as a new TOB just to be safe.
 

MG0h3

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Do you have a firewall adjuster? Only way to take slack out of the cable is by tightening/shortening it. I adjusted mine with the car running so that it has just enough pressure to be spinning the TOB at all times.
 

ninety5fiveoh

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Do you have a firewall adjuster? Only way to take slack out of the cable is by tightening/shortening it. I adjusted mine with the car running so that it has just enough pressure to be spinning the TOB at all times.
Yes, I have one. I had to thread it out about 10 more turns than the last clutch, which worked perfectly fine. This leads me to believe however that I can pull the pivot ball out slightly from where I initially set it at in order to take up a slight bit of slack in the cable and allow me to put the firewall adjuster closer to where it used to be.

Either way, the clutch fork was clearly loose, and I am ordering one now.
 

MG0h3

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We’ll keep in mind moving the pivot ball changes the engagement point. And don’t worry about having the cable at any certain point. Just make sure it’s adjusted correctly.


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ninety5fiveoh

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We’ll keep in mind moving the pivot ball changes the engagement point. And don’t worry about having the cable at any certain point. Just make sure it’s adjusted correctly.


Sent from my iPhone using svtperformance.com

This makes sense. I've been reading a lot of threads today with many people discussing similar issues, and it seems like you've commented in many of them. Right now my engagement point is pretty spot on, so I may not even mess with it. I took some advice from Jason (TRBO VNM) and set the pivot ball 1/4" shorter (6.3mm) than the stock one as starting point. The fork sits roughly halfway within the window of the bellhousing, which seems to be about where it was with the Spec 3+, as well as the rough position I had with the stock clutch an the 3650.
 

MG0h3

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Yep good call on the amount to shorten it.

I did a lot of research as well. Just installed the RXT 1200.
 

1wild-horse

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Pulled the stock clutch on mine at 12k, only the tob sleeve was cracked, the clutch was fine. Noticed mine was the same. Think it was actually rattling on the tin cover.
 

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