Clutch issues- Totally STUMPED

Originally Posted by ForcedFirebird

Not sure. I was skeptical bout having a dual mass shaved, usually replace them with a single mass. Jay brought it to a local clutch shop to have surfaced.

Yes.

No.

the issue with resurfacing a dual mass is that unless you have a way to lock the flywheel you can end up with an improper, non parallel surface.

this sounds logical. however, i have had many stepped flywheels resurfaced.

never did a dual mass flywheel though...so i can't say for ceertain.

i'd go with this scenario over the clutch master myself. do you have a single mass flywheel available?? might be worth a shot at this point. i'm all out of any other possibilities at this venture, and i highly doubt there is any installer error. (not that *that* ever happens... )


df

Originally Posted by drivinfaster

this sounds logical. however, i have had many stepped flywheels resurfaced.

never did a dual mass flywheel though...so i can't say for ceertain.

i'd go with this scenario over the clutch master myself. do you have a single mass flywheel available?? might be worth a shot at this point. i'm all out of any other possibilities at this venture, and i highly doubt there is any installer error. (not that *that* ever happens... )


df

if the step is machined you would be SOL

The company I work for is not currently in the European market so unfortunately, I have nothing to offer you.

'stepped' as i understand is a dual plane flywheel (not to be confused with dual mass). i've done dozens of clutches, most of which were simple, single plane flywheels. a few were goofy looking, and were double the fee from the machine shop. none of the shops i worked in had any equipment to resurface flywheels, it was all farmed out.

i may have some terminology mixed up (it happens from time to time...), but there is a machinist in my area that was *the* man when it came to this sort of thing. one of the stories i heard from one of the other old timers was a guy had his flywheel machined for some ancient sports car. he didn't like the look of the finish (ra), as he had never seen anything like it before. the delivery driver stated that 'jack had done it himself', which put an end to the questions right then and there. apparently this man was awesome.

his employer went out of business (small mom-n-pop parts store) years ago, but his apprentice opened up a machine shop and has been doing the same quality work.

that's why i never questioned the finishes on anything we sent to him. never had any issues, either.

so as to whether or not these flywheels were 'supposed' to be refinished or not, i cannot say. they were, and worked fine.

never did a dual mass flywheel clutch, though, so i cannot say for certain.

i can say, however, that when it comes time to do a clutch in cadence, she will be getting a single plane flywheel if she doesn't already have one.


df

Originally Posted by drivinfaster

this sounds logical. however, i have had many stepped flywheels resurfaced.

never did a dual mass flywheel though...so i can't say for ceertain.

i'd go with this scenario over the clutch master myself. do you have a single mass flywheel available?? might be worth a shot at this point. i'm all out of any other possibilities at this venture, and i highly doubt there is any installer error. (not that *that* ever happens... )


df

If it weren't standard procedure to install a clutch, agreement perhaps would be a factor. This isn't a "change your clutch in a sandy ditch" scenario. You guys are too much

BUMP for any updates to this thread? I'm running into the exact same issue with my e30 S52 swap. S52+E36 Sachs clutch+ZF320+ZF slave = not able to get the car into gear!!

The crazy thing is that when the old getrag slave is put in, the car shifts fine with the exception that there is a rattling sort of noise when the car is in neutral and the clutch is engaged.

Driving me nuts!

We made an adjustable pivot for the release fork. Tried multiple slaves, flywheels and a couple of clutch disks and nothing worked. Threaded the hole where the plastic pivot pin goes and used a long set screw and locking nut.

Originally Posted by ForcedFirebird

We made an adjustable pivot for the release fork. Tried multiple slaves, flywheels and a couple of clutch disks and nothing worked. Threaded the hole where the plastic pivot pin goes and used a long set screw and locking nut.

Holy shinto. That sounds like some pretty involved custom work. Are you able to explain (in laymen's terms if possible) why all this was necessary? I'm just trying to understand the whole situation and figure out if I might have the same problem. It sounds like the release fork is likely the issue? Apologies for my lack of experience here, but what does threading the pivot pin hole and putting in a set screw accomplish?

Is anyone familiar with a clutch/flywheel combo that will for sure work in ZF swapped e30?

Thanks for your reply....I'm hoping I can sort out the problem in my car without going to quite so much trouble

I have installed hundreds of clutches through the years and once I had a bad pressure plate that caused the problem. I replaced the master and slave because it just couldn't be that brand new pressure plate. I bled the system and fought it for days. I tried everything that I could think of, twice, the parts looked fine but that was the last thing that I did. After I replaced it with another that looked the same it worked. I still dont no why but nothing else changed. I wish you the best of luck.

Originally Posted by johnjohnsons54

Holy shinto. That sounds like some pretty involved custom work. Are you able to explain (in laymen's terms if possible) why all this was necessary? I'm just trying to understand the whole situation and figure out if I might have the same problem. It sounds like the release fork is likely the issue? Apologies for my lack of experience here, but what does threading the pivot pin hole and putting in a set screw accomplish?

Is anyone familiar with a clutch/flywheel combo that will for sure work in ZF swapped e30?

Thanks for your reply....I'm hoping I can sort out the problem in my car without going to quite so much trouble

It's simple, actually, and should have never been done, but we had no idea what the issue was exactly. Everything came as a package out of the e36, tried 2 clutch disks, 2 FW's and 2 PP's.

Take the plastic pivot pin out of the trans case. Drill it for a 10mm thread, tap it, then put in a 10mm set screw (has allen key hole on end) and thread it in place of the plastic pin.

Originally Posted by john@eac

I have installed hundreds of clutches through the years and once I had a bad pressure plate that caused the problem. I replaced the master and slave because it just couldn't be that brand new pressure plate. I bled the system and fought it for days. I tried everything that I could think of, twice, the parts looked fine but that was the last thing that I did. After I replaced it with another that looked the same it worked. I still dont no why but nothing else changed. I wish you the best of luck.

Yeah this is the first time I was stumped. We have a small shop that specializes in BMW's, primarily e30's and have done plenty of swaps with ZF and Getrag, m20 clutches, 24v clutches etc etc. Still to this day don't know what the issue was. the only thing that changed from the e36 was the clutch master, but not convinced that was it either.

Anyways the car this thread is about worked flawlessly after the pin was made adjustable, went the Sebring Raceway for a long weekend of thrashing and has since changed ownership and is driving around fine today.

you would think, "Hey I'm taking this engine/trans and putting in this car as is, all should be well.", but that wasn't this case

As it stands, I have the ZF slave in my car and my car mostly refuses to go into gear. The guys at my shop are adamant that the e30 master cylinder will not push enough fluid to get the zf slave to do it's job and allow the car to shift. They're thinking a braided steel line *might* work for me. Sounds logical but from what I've read the e30 and e36 master cylinders are internally almost identical internally? Regardless I'm going to try the braided line but I'm concerned that this isn't the real issue. It's strange because the car does shift with the getrag slave, although the catch point is millimetres away from the floor.

I just stumbled across an old thread where a guy was having the same problem as myself. He claims that using an e36 325 slave instead of the e36 m3 slave solved his problem completely because it's slightly smaller and moves more fluid. Sounds promising to me.......curious what you guys think?

The guys working on my car are capable techs but have very limited experience with these swaps.

Bump for revised post. Very much appreciating the input fellas