Clutch.....

[stephendell]

Does the new comp. sec fancy a few laps with Rene & Jean now that his car's back in action...

[Alpineandy]

Pictures?

May yet rethink the Donnington thing for a few laps on the Saturday......exactly where is Donnington???? As for the photos, there wont be any...according to my girlfriend I came home looking like a chimney sweep and the car wasnt much better!!!!!!

EBC have to be the worst company I've ever dealt with, I used to sell loads of the stuff a few years back and they constantly sent out the wrong parts or things wore out quickly and had to be replaced - I stopped dealing with them because of there sheer incompetence in the end. I bet you have a much lighter pedal than before when you get it back together Peter, the pressure plates don't seem to be as heavy duty as the Valeo ones. I had an EBC clutch in my car a few years back, when the engine came out for the 3 litre conversion it had only done 2000 miles but wasn't salvageable - looked terrible.

The cover plates and clutch plates in the EBC clutches are Valeo items, Ive checked this and it has Valeo stamped on it, Simon Taylors kit has Valeo stamped on it. EBC upgrade the friction material.

Peter has put in a Valeo one from Renault, so the pedal pressure will be the same.

Ive only seen clutches wear out that quick when theyve been misaligned, or the flywheel wasnt inspected before fitting..

Maybe you were unlucky with your particular distributor of EBC, EBC have a chain of distributors around the country which handle national distribution depending on area, so they can't all make cockerel ups!

Anyhow...there are no more EBC GTA/25T clutches available so need not worry anymore...

[Alpineandy]

The cover plates and clutch plates in the EBC clutches are Valeo items, Ive checked this and it has Valeo stamped on it, Simon Taylors kit has Valeo stamped on it. EBC upgrade the friction material.

A Caterfield 7 owning friend says both the EBC clutches he tried to fit looked like recon units with new material. The first wore in 3k and the 2nd didn't fit. He sent it back and looked elsewhere...

He's very pro their pads though.

The clutch EBC sent was a remanufactured Valeo item, it just wasnt the right friction plate. Still think their brake pads are good.....certainly for the money. The only job I have left to do now is refill the gearbox with oil.
One strange thing I found was a small pipe in with the section of the wiring loom leading to the left hand cylinder bank of the engine (as you look from the rear of the car).....it had been coiled up and tucked in with the injector leads so has never been plugged in while Ive had the car. Anyone know what it is??? I'd say a vacuum pipe of some sort but cant see where it would go.

It has wires further down, its a pre made loom for the models that had lambda control. All of the looms have it.

D'oh! and double D'oh!!!!!! I was reliably informed that the Renault clutch came set in the friction plate ready to fit (you can see where I'm going here!!!!) and so I fitted it without looking......and the clutch is in the wrong way round No clutch, no car and 4 weeks to the next event.....and I'm working or going away for my next 2 sets of rest days. The good news is I reckon I can now do the job in a day and a half.....thank god the local garage isnt charging me for the ramp!!!!!! I may yet do the cams over the winter....by then I'll be the quickest clutch changer in the country

I dont think I fancy the cams David has anymore......at least not until I can afford to pay someone to fit them, or the memory of this has faded enough to make me think it was easy and I did it all in 2 days!!!!

How quickly they forget .Must be love

[stephendell]

Make sure you take the camera this time!!

Yes I will.......last time was a nightmare because I didnt know what I was doing, next time should be ok because it wasnt particularly hard apart from the odd bit, most of which was down to rusty old bolts....which I replaced!

So far so good, speant an hour taking things off and the drivetrain is virtually ready to come out. Should easily hit Davids target of 1 1/2 hours to get it out of the car!

[Alpineandy]

So far so good,

The benefits of copper grease..

[stephendell]

Apparently it's hard to bolt up the cover without causing damage if the friction plate was reversed. Hopefully the fork arm will have just slipped out of position and dislodged the release bearing.

Did you change the fork arm/pin for the later stronger type while it was all out (assuming it wasn't already fitted)