Throw out bearing adjustment advice?
 

I installed an American Powertrain billet flywheel and Lakewood bell housing in my 77 Trans Am with an ST10 with a dual friction ram clutch. I measured the pivot ball too the face of the bell housing and it measured the same as the OEM bell housing. I figured it would be ok. But once I installed it and adjusted up the clutch the pedal does not depress at all. Apparently the flywheel must be a little thinner and messed up the geometry. It didn’t work great before with the stock flywheel and bell housing with this clutch, the geometry must have been not ideal. Now it doesn’t work at all.

My question is what is the best way to change the geometry of the throw out arm? I see the are 3 way adjustable throw out bearings. It looked like the pivot ball had some adjustment also. Before I tear back into this. Do I need go buy the adjustable throw out bearing? Or is there enough adjustment in the pivot ball? I appreciate the help!

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/McLeo...j-,427259.html

I should have mentioned I am running a diaphragm style pressure plate, not a B&B. I assume one of the positions of the 3 way adjustable throw out bearing is for the B&B pressure plate, and a second is for diaphragm pressure plate, maybe the 3rd position is for what I have now?

Will a "longer" pivot ball help??? or shorter? or is there room for either of these???

Thanks Jeff, I haven’t done a search for a longer pivot ball, does that exists?? That is why I was looking at the adjustable throw out bearing to do something similar, I have not found a longer pivot ball yet. I don’t think what I have now will thread out far enough. When I install the new clutch a couple years ago I had to lengthen the clutch linage quite a bit, and the last couple inches of pedal pushed really hard. It needed something different even then, but it worked so I put up with it. This last change is making me fix it right. Just not sure what that is yet.

I had to use an adjustable pivot ball once with an aftermarket fly wheel. I don't remember what brand, but it was something like this.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Adjus...hoCrxsQAvD_BwE

Thanks! I measure what I have and see if that will do it.

I am confused with this,

"But once I installed it and adjusted up the clutch the pedal does not depress at all"


what do you mean the pedal does not depress ?......... is it too stiff? or does the pedal go down to the floor with no resistance?


There are several different lengths (height) of throwout bearings, did you use the same size one you replaced?


Is it possible that the throwout bearing came off the shift fork, or the pin, during installation?

The clutch is all the way up. Everything is hook up correct as far as I know. I will find out when I look at it again. Not easy to see into the Lakewood bell housing.

The out bearing it has came with the clutch kit, and was ran with the OEM flywheel and stock bell housing before. I compared the stock and Lakewood bell housings for the pivot pin depth, but didn’t compare the OEM flywheel to the Billet flywheel thickness when I put it in. LOL..I am not sure where I even put the OEM flywheel, been working on this in between projects. The Billet flywheel is thinner, and apparently moved the flywheel too far forward and needs a longer adjustable pivot ball, or possibly the adjustable position throw out bearing. Hoping the adjustable pivot ball does the trick. Thanks Guys!

Cant you take the trans out, look through the input bearing retainer hole in the bell housing and see what's going on? Should almost be able to have someone slowly depress the clutch while you're under there.

Kinda sounds like the Clutch arm is adjusted too far back and when you try and push on pedal the arm hits the scattershield?
If the flywheel is thinner, you should have used a longer release bearing to take up slack rather than adjust the linkage, putting the
arm in wrong position. Pivot will not change that very much, change to longer release bearing would be better in my opinion.

I think that is likely correct, the throw out arm is bottomed out and hitting on the scatter shield to be as solid as the pedal feels. When I checked the throw out arm travel with everything sitting on the work bench before I installed it, the throw out arm using the scatter shield had less range of motion than the stock bell housing, even though the pivot ball was positioned the same. That isn’t helping things.

To get everything positioned correctly it might need both a slightly longer pivot ball and a longer throw out bearing. I have a B&B style throw out bearing (longer style) on the shelf that I can try. It isn’t that difficult to pull the transmission in and out and hook the clutch up to try getting everything set correctly. It must be pretty far out of adjustment if the throw out arm is bottoming out before it even moves the clutch. LOL

There is different length release bearing that can be 3/8- 1/2 inch different in length so ya if could be out a lot. Also one can buy a adjustable
pivot ball to move it forward some.

I bought a McLeod 16908 adjustable pivot ball to use in my car with a Lakewood housing. It provides for plenty of adjustment especially if you are using the block plate.

Thanks. Yep, running the block plate too. I ordered the 16908.