Clutch adjustment

[2keaton11]

I'm running a LS3 with a 6 speed, quick time bell housing, ram clutch, stage 5 t-56 from an 02 trans am with an American Powertrain hydramax kit. I just got the car tuned last week and got it home and bled the clutch. We finished the bleeding then started the car to see if it would shift into gear but it feels like the clutch isn't fully engaging. I can kill it and it will slide into a couple of gears but not all of them. I'm sure someone else on here has ran into this.... Help please! :confused59:

[canrc]

I had virtually the same issue -- what RAM clutch are you running?

The thing that fixed it for me was going to a Wilwood clutch master which was a direct fit over my tilton master which I got with my kit from Hurst Drivelines with one difference, the Wilwood has a 1.4" stroke vs the 1.1" that the tilton has.

I bled the clutch, added a shim that I got from RAM but the only thing that fixed it was changing the master.

[2keaton11]

I'm not exactly sure which ram clutch I was sent, It came from frank a PC and was just happy to finally receive one after an 8k dollar order and 7 months later. I believe it was around 700$, possibly a iron/organic or organic/metallic, I know not dual disk.

[canrc]

I'm not exactly sure which ram clutch I was sent, It came from frank a PC and was just happy to finally receive one after an 8k dollar order and 7 months later. I believe it was around 700$, possibly a iron/organic or organic/metallic, I know not dual disk.

There is another forum member (Rybar) that has a similar car and benefited from installing a Ticks adjustable Master Cylinder -- you may want to give Ticks a call, I had spoken to them about my problem and they mentioned that they have seen this issue with the RAM clutch and their master cylinder should and has fix the problem. Sorry couldn't be more help but give Ticks a call.

http://www.tickperformance.com/

[2keaton11]

Thanks for the help, ill call them Monday!

[71RS/SS396]

Before you go spending any money, do you have the gap between the release bearing and the clutch set properly? It should be between .150"-200."

[2keaton11]

Yes we checked and re checked the gap a couple of times. The hydramax kit came with 4-5 shims I believe and we used them all when installing. I think my guy might have had the tolerances even closer than .150. When we first installed my stay rod for the throw out bearing it was touching my clutch fingers as well, don't know if that red flags anything, we just trimmed it a little and seemed to be fine.

[transam]

I just put a hydraulic clutch into my mustang over the weekend and it took a lot of bleeding to get it to properly release the clutch. About 30 times cracking the bleeder.

[DaleTx]

I had a similar experience..... I installed a hydraulic clutch kit that came with a 3/4" bore Tilton master cylinder. The clutch would disengage but just barely. I swapped out the 3/4" bore master cylinder to a 7/8" bore and that solved the problem. Now the clutch disengages completely and I have some adjustment left.

I bought the 7/8" bore Tilton master cylinder from Summit.

[IMPALA MAN]

The same thing happened in the thread listed below. This seems to be a common issue. Simply put, if the master cylinder does not have enough volume, it will not fully release the throw out bearing.
http://www.lateral-g.net/forums/showthread.php4?t=40386

I run into the same thing with people putting over sized calipers on and then having very little braking. Hope this helps and I know chasing it is frustrating.

[2keaton11]

Thanks for the input everyone, if I can ever get some time off and a buddy to come over I'm going to try and bleed 1 more time and if it doesn't work ill be moving on to a different master cylinder. For my first build its been so frustrating! :beathorse

[hotrod69camaro]

Im my experience with my hydraulic clutch its been the bleed that's the problem. The bleeder must be held above the throwout bearing for a good bleed. This last time I bought a Mightyvac bleeder. I bled the clutch in about 10 minutes. Worked on my completely new brakes system too