Stock Rx7 question

[James Guenther]

I have an '89 Rx7, and I think the fingers on my pressure plate are bad. I have another pressure plate, but it does not have the holes for the guide pins, and the depth of this plate,(where it makes contact w/the flywheel, and where it touches the clutch), is slightly shorter. Is this okay to use if I were to drill the necessary holes? Or should I just get a new pressure plate, and where could I find just the plate? Thank you for the info.

[Streetwise guy]

Used and mismatched clutch parts are usually a bad idea. As far as drilling the holes for the dowels, you would need to be dead accurate, or vibration and poor actuation may result. Height of the fingers changes based on the amount of wear on the disc. To properly check, both pressure plates need to be set down on a table, not one on the table and one still in the car. Any more than about 1/4 inch difference raises questions of actuation. Unless you are absolutly broke, and doing the job in your driveway, pony up the dough for a matched set (disc, pressure plate and release bearing) and have the flywheel machined flat. Long run, you will be a much happier guy.

You say the fingers are bad- why? if the tips are worn off, the release bearing is probably shot. If they sit at different heights, the diaphragm spring is broken.

[it7rx739]

Save your self a lot of trouble just get a new clutch set,every parts house sale it about $200 or less.Save a few $ idea is wrong and not going to work.

[lateapex911]

Stop. Have you ever seen what an exploding pressure plate can do? It's ugly. And the resulting damage can cost ten times what the clutch/pp cambo costs. The car's apart, just get the parts, do it right, and sleep at night.

[VinnyV81]

I will have to agree with everyone else about this. I purchased all of my stuff at one time because my car needed it. Plus, when you go to take everything apart, you'll release that it's a pain in the ass to do and you'll also realize that you don't want to have to do it again. Save your pennies, get yourself a new clutch disc, pressure plate, throw out bearing, and pilot bearing.

Also, just as a heads up, replacing the pilot bearing is going to be a SOB. It is going to be hard to find a pilot bearing removale tool that can get in their and pull the bearing on the first try. If you wind up pulling the guts of the bearing and still leaving the sleeve, then you will have to dremel the sleeve out in order to remove it completely. This is what we had to do to my car....<argh>

But now my clutch works perfectly-and I can sleep easy at night knowing that it does. Only bad thing is that now that I'm making all of this extra power, I don't know how long it's going to hold up at the track. We'll find out on the 25th at TGPR though...lol.

Good luck,
Vincent.

[Mike Guenther]

The pressure plate fingers were pushed in and didn't spring back until it was unbolted from the engine.

I would have bet that it was just air in the clutch hydraulics. James said that he bled it thoroughly when he installed a new master and slave clutch cylinder, but I had him unbolt the slave and held it up while bleeding it some more and we got a lot of air out of it. So I was certain that it would work, but there was still no pedal after James bolted the slave back on.

He went ahead and dropped the tranny and the pressure plate fingers were pushed in. I've never seen that before. I told him to write in on IT.com and see what you guys suggest. The clutch was a used one I had left over from my RX7 days. But the pressure plate was different as he described so he put the old pressure plate back on. Maybe the plate was from a 1st gen? The worn out clutch might have been the original with 115K miles on it. Anyway, the used clutch I had worked for a couple of months, then caput.

So on all of your advise, he ordered a new clutch set that will arrive tomorrow. And he has a new master and slave installed that are thoroughly bled. That should do the trick.