Troubleshooting

In the interests of avoiding problems we thought we would share some trade secrets with the world...

Our clutch product is covered by full manufacturer’s warranty, 24 months or 24,000miles.....fact of life though general manufacturing issues tend manifest themselves within the first couple of days.

Things to aid the easy fitment of your new clutch are

1. Clean the bell housing of any clutch residue....you don’t want old shredded friction adhering itself to the new parts.
2. Check the state of the flywheel face, your pressure plate and flywheel should mirror each other, they form two halves of a sandwich, so ensure its flat, and where possible free from cracks. If you had a ceramic kit fitted it might need redressing (see flywheels), inserting or simply replacing.
3. Check the fork arm, the tips should be correctly formed, where the fork is into its second or third clutch the arms might require redressing or it might need replacing. Where the fork arm has roller bushes fitted these should have little or no free play on the fork. In the case of ‘P’ shaped fork arms the error is usually in the bush that is farthest away from the back of the arm, because it pulls on an angle the top arm swings more and tends to wear faster. The result of this wear is that the next clutch ‘pulls on an angle’ and the release bearing is quite literally pulled off the clutch, and the clutch prematurely fails. These bushes and pins are usually available to ‘service’ the fork arm.
4. Check the back of the fork arm back; does it have an acrylic bush fitted? Is this heavily worn from the fork arm ball? This wear can cause the clutch to ‘Over stroke’ giving serious clutch failure. Cure...replace the bush...they are generally only a few pounds and it will save hours of ‘playing about'.
5. Silly to say where instructions are put in the box.....have a quick read, Concentric Slave Cylinders need to be fitted in almost sterile conditions, clean all the mating pipes before fitting, drain the oil, fit the bearing in accordance with the vehicle manual and add the correct ‘DOT’ oil. Dirt ingress is the most common cause of failure on these units, simply showing itself in bits of grit that come out of the old unit. This grit causes the lip seals inside the bearing to rot, tear, and fail prematurely. They are like a ‘piece of air braking’ and need to be treated accordingly.
6. Check the servo where the clutch is servo assisted, the common error is the ‘unseen wear’ in the cylinder. This manifests itself in a ‘sticking peddle’, simulates driver error where the clutch appears not to be correctly disengaging....or on the opposite can make the clutch appear not to clear because there is insufficient travel in the servo.
7. Check the linkage on older vehicles, is this worn? This causes the bearing to be too far forwards. If you have a rod set up check the nuts and wear on the ball joint. Wear to these has the same effect as wear on the servo barrel.
8. Always check the drive plate is loaded to the flywheel the correct way around. (It should be marked up.) Simple error this one but with amazing results, you can spend hours trying to sort this one because it all looks right!
9. Check that the input shaft is burr free, that it is the same size as the drive plate. (These are always measured ‘gum to gum’). Use a dummy shaft or alignment shaft to ensure the clutch is bolted to the flywheel at the right point, applied and is ready to accept the gearbox being reloaded. All Truckfix discs are supplied with high melting point grease already in the spline shaft. ....but if you are reloading a drive plate put a little suitable grease in the shaft.
10. Load the gearbox at 90 degrees to the flywheel, this will ensure you avoid ‘hanging the clutch on the gearbox shaft’ which invariably causes the drive plate to ‘dish’, and in the case of pull style units breaks or inverts the release bearing fixing kit which in turn causes the clutch to fail to move off the pit.
11. Older style units such as Bedford, Leyland and Seddon are fitted with Borg and Beck spring and lever style units, these must always be loaded to the flywheel and bolts but by hand using the clock face, 12 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock. This ensures the cover does not become over stressed.

We do add all the relevant fitting instructions to your specific clutch......but if you need a copy to check before hand......please just give us a call or email and we will happily send it on.