wildwestsydney

I am at the step of inserting bent wire shims before I unbolt the clutch pack but I am not realy sure of the purpose of doing this step. I have read several write ups but they have stated to do it but not realy explained why. What will happen if no shims are put in?

Thanks

Sam

LT Texan

my clutch pressure plate is centered via a lip running around the outside of the flywheel.

The assemble does not rest within the lip unless preloaded with the shims. Makes assemble much easier.

mark kibort

I've never done it, (but once), and all that happens is that you now loosen those 8 or 9 bolts to remove the clutch from the flywheel and they relieve the pressure. problem is, when you install,its hard to get the bolts started in the flywheel threads, SO, the purpose of the wire "C"s you use, is that it stops the pressure plate from retracting all the way when you loosen the bolts, to give more threads to use when installing the clutch pack. they fall out when you tighten the bolts up on installation.

Rob Edwards

After you've taken off the slave cylinder and the bellhousing cover, the pressure plate is still bolted to the flywheel. It's still squeezing the friction disc against the flywheel. At this point you wouldn't be able to maneuver the release arm off of its ball mount, it's held tight by the squeezing pressure of the pressure plate.

So the shims go in to release the pressure that the pressure plate is exerting on the friction disk. Once in, the release arm is free to move so that you can unhook it.

Without shimming anything, you could (I think) rotate the engine and 1 by 1 remove the pressure plate bolts, which would slowly release the PP from the flywheel. But there'd be a lot of pressure on the bolts as you undo them, might be harder to turn them out.

The other potential issue is that space is really tight in the bellhousing of single disc clutches, and I'd worry that once you got down to he last three bolts (there are 9 radially, 3 sets of 3) if you didn't undo them evenly, the PP might get cocked funny in the housing and not allow you to turn the engine. That's a theoretical worry, not sure if it's actually a 'real' issue

EDIT: (See you have an '84 Euro- scratch this last thought...)

Someone please correct me if I'm inventing new physics here.

As Dan mentioned, the dual disc clutch has only 6 bolts and the PP fits into a recessed area on the intermediate plate. Gotta shim it to get it to lay in there.

Go all OCD and make some out of 90o aluminum channel so they match the pic in the WSM:

hacker-pschorr

I've done it both ways, it's just a lot easier with the shims installed.

having them in also help put the clutch fork back on the ball in the upper bell-housing.

tveltman

You can just use washers. I made a set of angle iron shims, but I lost them. Rather than making new, I just jammed a washer in there, worked perfectly. Place and remove with needle nose pliers. $0.10 fix.

karl ruiter

I don't normally use the shims. Once I needed to change the throw out bearing, and I think I needed them then.

mark kibort

any kind of bent wire that is thicker than a wire hanger, will work.

just bend it in a C and install in the 3 locations.

dprantl

I could not remove the single-disc clutch without shims, there was not enough space. I have taken out a DD clutch without them and it worked ok, it was just tighter.

Dan
'91 928GT S/C 475hp/460lb.ft