Finished installing my new clutch on saturday... long story short, pedal goes to floor with little effort, clutch not disengaging. After some searching, I'm fairly sure I've destoyed my slave cylinder. This was a 2 weekend project, and my slave was disconnected for a whole week. When i went to put it back in, the piston was all the way out- just dangling- only the rubber boot was holding it on. I just pushed it back in and never thought anything of it. Tried bleeding it a couple times and it's still useless. Can any of you LT1 experts confirm that this is my problem? Also, I'd like to know if my clutch fork is OK. It 'snaps' into place as it should- the face of the arm (with the dimple) protrudes about 1/2 fom the face of the housing. I can push it forward (towards the engine) with my hand- the fulcrum rests on the 'T' when the arm is about flush with the face of the housing. When I let go, it springs back out to where it started. This seems right to me, but my 'buddies' think that there shouldn't be so much travel. Hope some of you can point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

sounds like the fork isnt going on right. there is no way you should be able to push the fork by hand if it is on the T/O bearing correctly. my slave hung under the car for a month and it was fine. maybe you didnt get the piston into the slave right.

 

You definately shouldnt be able to depress the clutch fork with your hand (unless its a ricer clutch :P )...

I would start with that first. Once that is tight and in place... then IF there is a problem, start troubleshooting the slave/master.

My bet is that you didnt get the fork fully engaged. Sometimes you need to wiggle it and really push it in.

I would pull the slave and the spacer off to see in there. Then I would look to see that the bolt that holds it down is fully in place and you should be able to see if the fork is resting where it should be. There should be a little T shaped fulcrum that the fork snaps into.

This is all fresh because I had to tighten that screw. Ask me how I know

 

Just checked again... the fork is absolutely on right... Clipped onto the T, the end is on the TO bearing.... When I push the arm... it 'slides' on the pivot about 1/2"... but it's not loose at all, feels spring loaded the whole time... I hooked up the slave w/o the housing (so I could see) and pushed the pedal with my hand. The piston pushes the the arm about another 1/2 or 3/4 farther than I can push it with my hand (but not enough to disengage the clutch) Simply by being bolted up the slave piston keeps the arm pinned back, removing all the tavel I mentioned earlier. I wish I had paid more attention to how the fork clips on while I had the tranny off, but as it is there is NO other way it can go on... It worked fine before, and I seriously doubt the pivot bolt backed itself out 1/2 inch during the two weeks the tranny was sitting on a motorcycle jack under my car. I really don't wanna pull that bastard back off just to see that everthing is hooked up just fine. Besides, wouldn't the lack of pedal resistance indicate a hydraulic issue?

 

I doubt you have the clutch fork on incorrectly. I've seen it go on two different ways, one right, and one wrong. The wrong way will be impossible to depress. This is how many people destroy their slave cylinders. If the slave is pushing the clutch fork in, then it's on correctly. I let me slave hang like that, too, and nothing is wrong with it. As long as none of the hoses popped off, it shouldn't need bled either. Also, there is no way in hell that you should be able to push the clutch fork in by hand. I tried it once using a long rod, and I still couldn't get it to budge. What kind of clutch assembly is this? Still, check everything over again and try avoid pulling the tranny back out (even though that may be the only way to figure out what's wrong). Let us know if you find anything.

 

Well, I was fiddling around with the pivot boilt with a flat, short wrench through the hole in the side, and just like a dummass I dropped the wrench into the bellhousing. So, looks like I have to pull the tranny anyway. At least I'll be able to get in there and see what's going on.

 

I had the exact same problem and I can assure you I have the probable answer.
I installed a brand new LT4 pressure plate and had my old LT1 disk relined with kevlar. The clutch would not 100% disengage with the pedal fully pressed making it almost impossible to put it in gear, especially reverse. It felt like you were going to break the tranny. I had my transmission out 5 times looking for the answer, so here it comes.
Your clutch disk is slightly to thick which makes it impossible for the pressure plate to fully disengage, its barely rubbing still trying to turn the tranny..
After I compared my rebuilt disk to a brand new organic disk it was .020" too thick.
I installed that organic disk and it worked perfectly.
Put the calipers on your clutch disk (dont compress or squeeze it)and I will bet its too thick. Stock I think is .218" +/- .003

Also there is no need to shim the flywheel, it will net you nothing and the hydraulics are self bleeding, just pump the crap out of it. I am going to go with a kevlar disk again but I will purchase a Spec disk instead of rebuilding.

Also there is no magic to installing the fork, its on or it aint.

My guess its the disk.

 

That sucks. Hopefully you find the problem while it's out.

 

I doubt it... It's a stock replacement disc and pressure plate... There's no resistence in the pedal- if it was just a thick disc it should still feel like I'm pushing on something when I step on the pedal. I've tried to bleed it 5 times or so... unless you're supposed to pump on it for a half hour or something... I'm going back in saturday to check/tighten the pivot bolt... then I'm gonna check out the entire hydraulics system... if still nothing I might try a new slave... If all that fails I pushing it over to the shop and letting a 'pro' worry about it (I live right down the street from a garage). Anyway, I'll have more info on saturday.

 

The pedal will feel no different even with the wrong spec disk installed. There is no magic to bledding the hydraulics, just pump it several times and it will bleed. Again I replaced the slave and master, the flywheel, the pressure plate twice, bled the crap out of it, TOB, pilot bearing and had the tranny out five times. The disk was .020" too thick. I put a new stock disk in to rule that out and no more disengagement issues. I now have another custom Kevlar installed which falls into the correct thickness spec.

I even took it to a shop and they could not fix it either, nobody for a second thought the disk thickness could be an issue. The caliper said otherwise.

 

The pivot bolt should have loctite on its threads to keep it from vibrating out over time. I learned the hard way

 

Well woo-hoo. Turns out the ends of the two prongs on the clip were broken off. This was preventing me from clipping onto the T- instead it was kinda lodging itself behind it. The end was just wedged into the TO bearing and that's what was holding it in. I re-bent what was left of the clip and it snapped right on in the right place. Put everthing back together and she run's just fine. Man it's nice to be back on the road again after three weeks! Thanks to all who replied.