Ever see a Throw Out bearing do this?

wrd1972
01-25-2009, 05:21 PM
Driving down the road and the clutch pedal goes to the floor in a hurry. Car still drove so I knew it was either the clutch fork or the thow out bearing. Got the transmission out and saw the carnage.

This is NOT a OE TOB. It came off of a rather new Autozone Corvette PP many years ago. Not surprised.

Question. What do you guys reccomend for a good throw out bearing? Are they all the same now days?

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r6/wrd1972/IMG_1491.jpg

PoorMan
01-30-2009, 01:57 PM
Never seen that before. I think they are all generic.

wrd1972
02-07-2009, 08:40 PM
Update to anyone intersted.
I have welded the top of the square flange to the roll over. This will relieve the stress that caused the old TOB to fail. No doubt this will incresase the strength. The welds will NOT interfere with the fork.
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r6/wrd1972/tobw.jpg

Green96Z
02-07-2009, 09:38 PM
I've never seen that before. Why did you go with a Vette TOB? I just looked at an old Valeo PP, and the TOB lip that broke on yours appears to be cast as part of the whole TOB (lip, fork groove, and body), making that sort of carnage far less likely.

How did it break? Powershifting or normal driving?

wrd1972
02-08-2009, 09:38 AM
I've never seen that before. Why did you go with a Vette TOB? I just looked at an old Valeo PP, and the TOB lip that broke on yours appears to be cast as part of the whole TOB (lip, fork groove, and body), making that sort of carnage far less likely.

How did it break? Powershifting or normal driving?

It broke from normal driving. The Vette bearing has a thicker flange to resist bending like some Camaro bearings have shown plus Specs uses the Vette TOB in all of their clutches. It is supposed to be more resistant to hard use.

The pull flange regardless of Vette or Camaro, is NOT cast into any part of the assembly, at first I thought it was too. I dissected an old bearing to verify this very thing. The pull flange, the spacer under the flange and the big ass washer above the bearing are all seperate pieces that slip over the cylinder fit during assembly then the top of the cylinder is rolled over to crimp the entire thing together. The cylinder essentially holds everything together.

My failure was a result of fatigue where the roll over occurred, it just started cutting away the upper part of the cylinder. By welding the pull flange, this should reduce the fatigue factor a great deal and let the roll over crimp do its job.

In ther photo, the ring at the top is actually the roll over of the cylinder that has sheared off. It was only attached by a fragment on the one end. Again that is sheared metal.