Adjusting the clutch: Throwout Bearing and Clutch Fingers!

Time to adjust the pedal to where it will actually disengage the clutch. As of right now, with the clutch pedal fully pressed in, it only begings to disengage the clutch about 2 inches off of the floor. Upon this, it will return the clutch pedal back to that 2" off of the floor. Now the question is, is it okay if the pilot bearing is pressed against the clutch fingers? The clutch is a Dual friction Centerforce, and the throw out bearing that Center Force recommends with their clutch. My dad feels that we read somewhere with this clutch that the throw out bearing should NOT be on the clutch fingers. However, he always thought that the throw out bearing was always spinning. Help Please!

Thank you!
Jeff Given
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Unless the throwout bearing is designed to ride against the clutch fingers, it should NEVER touch the clutch fingers. Most throwout bearings are not sealed bearings and if it turns continueously, it will melt the drease and sling all of the grease out and eventual freeze up.

You should have from 1/2" to even as much as 1 1/2" inch of pedal movement prior to the throwout touching the fingers. You should actually check the "free play" of the clutch fork/throwout bearing and not go by pedal movement. The clutch fork free play should be between 1/4 and 1/2 inch.

What kind of clutch mechanism, cable or mechanical? For cable it is common to have the t.o. bearing just touching the diphragm springs, but not tension on the cable. With a mechanical clutch linkagage you should have about .030" air gap between the TO bearing and clutch fingers...this amounts to 1/4"-1/2" of pedal travel before you are moving the clutch.

This is all on a 73 mach 1....so it is all mechanisms.

Jeff Given
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Do you have a pedal stop installed? This is a stop that prevents the pedal from coming back too far. Without this its tough to ever get the pedal set properly. When you have one, what you do is pull the pedal back until it hits the stop, then you adjust the lower pushrod at the clutch fork until there is say 1/8th of a gap between the rod and the fork, when the fork is pulled back so the TO bearing is contacting the fingers. Once you get that set, you attach the lower fork to Zbar spring. This ensures the only "slack" in the system is the 1/8" air-gap you set in.
The pedal will now "snap" back against the stop as you let off the clutch.

okay...I think I may be able to figure it out from there...if not I will be back [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] I will not get aroud to doing it until the later part of the day though..playing football with a bunch of old high school buddies that I used to play on the team with. What an old fart I am [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

Thanks a lot!
Jeff Given
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