Had clutch replaced, aluminum flywheel, braided clutch line, slave cylinder, bearing, and also did MGW shifter and Mobil1 ATF. When I picked up the car, I noticed that it was harder to get into first gear, but just assumed that it was just the new shifter or something. I did the 500 mile clutch break in (no high revs, easy on throttle). It was still hard to shift into first gear, but all the other gears felt ok. Then I drove more aggressively, and noticed a burn smell when I revved the engine (if stopped and in first gear with clutch pedal fully depressed). I knew that was a problem, but I stupidly assumed that the factory belt was just getting old and slipping when I revved. So I only revved the engine once or twice, then had the same shop do install a new belt, new blower, cold air intake, headers, spark plugs, injectors, and tune (dyno’ed at 700 RWHP). I told the shop owner that it is uncomfortably difficult to shift into first gear (and also reverse), and asked him to look into it while that had the car for all the performance mods. He said yeah it is hard to shift, so he looked at the shifter and it looks ok… Then I drove it another several hundred miles, never raced or tracked the car, and then it became nearly impossible to shift into first or reverse, and any shifting at all while driving got more difficult for all gears (I started having to rev match). Also, the car would start to drive when stopped and in gear with the clutch pedal fully depressed. At this point I wasn’t driving the car except a few miles a month because it was clear that the clutch was dragging and I didn’t want to ruin the transmission. The same shop just pulled the clutch this week and this is the message from the owner:
Clutch install looks good, pilot looks good, main shaft looks fine. The clutch is discolored blue due to allot of heat built up which likely warped the floater shield which made the disk start rubbing the floater shield. The disks have wear on the edge of them due to shield being warped. With it being warped the clearance is not correct. At this point the clutch kit must be sent in to McLeod. This is a first for me to see one actually change color…
So after all that, I was pretty dumb not to realize the clutch was dragging until it got so badly damaged. Now I’m just puzzled as to what could have caused this in the first place, and if it was dragging from the time it was installed (I suspect it was, and just got worse and worse as heat build up caused warping). Should a new RST be more difficult to shift with than the factory clutch? If it wasn’t installed properly, what step could have been done wrong? Not bleeding the system? Anyone else have a similar issue with an RST?
