Clutch Failure From $2.00 Hoseclamp.

[MX Dave]

Hello all.

Ive had a serious run of bad luck of late. Just wanted to share what has happened so hopefully all you fella's can hopefully avoid the same mishabs.

Keep in mind this is all on apprentice wages so it may help you understand how frustrating and upsetting this is for me haha.

So about..

4 Months ago my stock clutch started to let go (4th gear free rev), I managed to find a t56 Gearbox to put in so I could actually put in a decent clutch without worrying about gearbox failure. spent a whole pile of money there

3 Months ago I installed the t56 and saw the damage the stock clutch had endured. It needed a new one SOON. so another non existant pile of money later. A sexy new ACE Option 3 plus clutch arrived at work.

2 Months ago I installed this lovely piece of gear as per instructions and as I normally do with every other clutch throughout my apprenticeship and started to run it in. It was Brilliant!!

Ill emphasize the word; was. As it progressively got worse. Thinking this was simply because of the run in period and the clutch not fully bedded in I clinched my teeth and continued to run in it. 1100kms later it was apperant something was wrong.

no improvement, occassional burning smell. take off wasnt 'bite like' anymore. I gave Mal Wood a quick call and he suggested I defianately remove the box to have a look as something was defianately wrong!

So the next day I removed the box (again again again) and discovered my worst fear;

After unbolting the gearbox from the bellhousing I could see it had been slipping badly. Clutch fibres sprayed out around the bellhousing and the obvious smell that accomponies it.

I removed the Pressure Plate and everything wasnt that exciting to look at, Burn marks all the way through the pressure plate, Concaved and Convexed pockets burn marks all the way through the flywheel and again Concaved and vexed sections of material. Furry Clutch plate etc.. All the bad sh*t!

After a few casual swearwords and a beer I started to look for the cuplrit. 5 seconds later the cause was obvious to me; Coolent in the bellhousing. How on earth did this get here!?!

A quick pressure test and I found a rather steady drip coming from the heater hose above the gearbox.The 2 second concurrent drip worked its way through the breather in the top of the box and decided to apply itself all over my previously sexy clutch.

I removed the hose and the clamp wasnt in its peak physical form and simply wasnt holding pressure as good as it used to. Two new hose clamps and a pressure test later the leak was fixed!

I advise EVERYONE to double check this fitting as you dont want a simple $2 hose clamp to ruin your clutch as it did mine. I know some people are using more expensive clutch versions than mine and it would be sad to see them fail for the same reason!

The best fix for me was:

1. Remove the heater hose and clean up any and all corrosion on the male pipework

2. Retain the factory clamp on the firewall side if still usable!

3. Slide over 2 new hose clamps on the other and proceed to push it over the pipe on the rear of the engine.

4. If you look closely at that pipe you will see it has two ridges. Push it further up and over the second ridge aswell for added safety.

5. Tighten each hose clamp to correspond with each ridge first with a screwdriver then with a suitable socket and ratchet!!!

Keep in mind the right hose clamp should really be further accross to correspond with the second ridge ( I was very tired and very angry at the time)

I can not stress the second part of number 5 enough!, even using both the ridges and two clamps. tightening with a screwdriver alone simply wasnt enough. The pressure test still showed a slight leak! You MUST use a socket to tighten them for complete piece of mind.

I really do hope this will help some people as I dont want to see anyone suffer as much as I have from a simple poxy hoseclamp.

To top it off I must of been having a incredibly BAD day. After I cleaned up the former prom queen of a clutch to the best of my abilities and reassembled everything. On my way home I somehow manadged to snap a inner rear right CV joint.

3 hours of attempting to fit it on my rather small car trailer at close to midnight I also managed to drop my Iphone and crack the screen.. WHAT THE HELL!!

[Paulie2256]

No good mate. Hope it's all up hill from here.

[MX Dave]

Thanks Paulie, Thought I really should post this up to save it from happening to anybody else.

The worst thing of all another apprentice mechanic was with me at the time who works at holden..

God the sh*t he was giving me was unbelievable! haha I will get him back!.. somehow

[JVK]

That is a run of bad luck,Sorry to hear it. Dont worry about the GM apprentice just tell him GM wont have this problem as their cars dont make the power to break them lol

[MX Dave]

That is a run of bad luck,Sorry to hear it. Dont worry about the GM apprentice just tell him GM wont have this problem as their cars dont make the power to break them lol

Lol yeah I mentioned that. Kept asking him if his VS ecotec had enough balls to break CVs

[JVK]

Lol yeah I mentioned that. Kept asking him if his VS ecotec had enough balls to break CVs

They were pretty good at using and leaking oil when I worked with a GM dealer many moons ago, and they were new!

[mic]

sucks that coolant can get down there. should be a rubber seal or somethin to stop it. hope it stays fixed champ

[cobramad]

You poor bastidge, guess its best to chalk it up to experience and move forward. Lesson learned and hopefully, thanks to this post, we can all make sure this isnt likely to happen to us.

[MX Dave]

Yep totally agree^

Mods can you please pin this if you feel necasarry. Id hate it to go unnoticed and for it to happen to someone else, Thanks!