I finally got around to installing the triple-carbon clutch that I discussed in a previous post. The first step was to install the pilot bearing in the crankshaft. I applied a little anti-seize on the sides and used a 32 mm socket, a short socket extension and a hammer to tap it into the crankshaft. Easy peasy.
To remove any burrs or imperfections from both the clutch hub and the input spline I applied the provided lapping compound to the input spline and I individually slid each of the three disks back and forth on the spline. This was easy to do, but it was a pain in the ass to remove all of the lapping compound from the spline’s valleys. With that done, it was straight forward to align the clutch and mount it to the flywheel.
Clutch is installed
Stock bearing (left) and new bearing with custom spacer (right)
Agile Automotive and RPS collaborated to create a complete solution. They provided a larger throwout bearing and a custom spacer to set the correct distance between the throwout bearing and the pressure plate fingers. I used a bearing separator to remove the stock bearing and a hydraulic press to mount the spacer to the new bearing. While using a hydraulic press to push the bearing/spacer assembly onto the slave cylinder I damaged the slave cylinder’s piston. DO’H!
Fortunately Weddle stocks just the piston so I had them FedEx me one. When it arrived I noticed that it was longer than the one that I had, so they FedEx’d a second one and it had the same problem. After some measuring and a lot of discussion, we determined that Albins had installed the wrong piston at the factory! The total height of the piston should be 49.5 mm rather than 58 mm.
The extra length results in a longer shoulder which was a contributing factor to the damage inflicted on the original piston. Had I not damaged it the extra length would have gone unnoticed because there are no part numbers on the pistons and no measurements are provided in the manual. The longer piston would have likely destroyed the $5,000 clutch, requiring me to pull the whole tail of the car apart to replace it!
Slave cylinder removed
Once that cluster was sorted out it was an easy matter to reinstall the slave cylinder. I had used a long hex bit socket to remove it, but the wider throwout bearing necessitates a ball end version. The clutch inlet and bleed fittings have tapered threads. The manual didn’t specify a compound so I used Gasolia liquid thread sealant.
Slave cylinder with upgraded throwout bearing and spacer installed. The top left yellow-zinc-plated fitting is the clutch bleed and the one below it is the clutch pressure inlet.
The spline isn’t tapered at the tip which makes it more challenging to align it with the clutch hub and you need to be careful to not crack the carbon disks. As can be seen below, the engine was bolted to a hydraulic lift table and a motorcycle scissor jack was placed under the billet oil pan. The transaxle was suspended from an engine hoist via an engine load leveler. This allowed me to get everything lined up without any help and without needing to shake the hell out of the transaxle.
While I was waiting for the parts to arrive, I noticed that one of the socket head cap screws had developed some surface rust — gasp. The studs and 12-point nuts have a nice coating, but all of the socket head cap screws are black oxide. Albins, you couldn’t spring for a extra couple of dollars? So I replaced all 62 socket head cap screws with zinc-plated screws which was irritating because I needed to buy six different types of screws each with a 50 or 100-count box.