New Clutch

[LHOswald]

okay here's the dilemma. i just got a new clutch installed on my b-series and its a little spongy. my father said he talked to a guy he knows who used to work for mazda (back when they were mazda mazdas, not ford mazdas or the like) and he said that the symptoms of my clutch are actually quite common. the best thing to do is to put the front bumper against a tree, engage the clutch a little past its friction point and rev it to 3k for a little to get any crap off the front of the disc that may be causing the spongeyness.

now to me this just sounds stupid. ill just drive it around and deal with the spongyness for a little until my regular clutch-slippage wears away whatevers on the disc. but i want your guys opinion.

thanks

[94Corolla5Speed]

Drive normally. Please, please don't put your car against a tree and slip the clutch to 3k

[AHTOXA]

Sounds like a horrible advice.

Sponginess usually don't have anything to do with clutch disk glazing or whatever. Try bleeding the clutch to remove possible air in the system.

[Rope-Pusher]

Yeah. What he said. Bleed the clutch release hydraulic line....unless it's a cable-actuated release system! I dunno what they were using back then, but it's almost impossible to bleed all the air out of a pull-pull cable.

[theholycow]

it's almost impossible to bleed all the air out of a pull-pull cable.

The trick is that you can't just push the air out, you have to replace it with something.

[Tinton]

okay here's the dilemma. i just got a new clutch installed on my b-series and its a little spongy. my father said he talked to a guy he knows who used to work for mazda (back when they were mazda mazdas, not ford mazdas or the like) and he said that the symptoms of my clutch are actually quite common. the best thing to do is to put the front bumper against a tree, engage the clutch a little past its friction point and rev it to 3k for a little to get any crap off the front of the disc that may be causing the spongeyness.

now to me this just sounds stupid. ill just drive it around and deal with the spongyness for a little until my regular clutch-slippage wears away whatevers on the disc. but i want your guys opinion.

thanks

Hmmm, the advice your father's friend gave would work better to un-glaze a clutch. If the pedal is spongy, and the clutch grabs hard and the friction point is consistent, its not a glazed clutch though, its more likely to be a hydraulic problem. In any case putting your bumper against a tree would be pretty stupid, it'd probably work a little better to sit in an empty parking lot, yank the e-brake, and burn the clutch that way.

When the seals inside the slave cylinder on my 88 Fiero went bad, the clutch wouldn't disengage at all. I drove it back to my Dad's place to work on it since I didn't want to pay for a tow. Doing that glazed the clutch like f**k, its been months and just now the clutch is feeling completely normal again. I ended up having to slip it longer and with more torque on each launch to keep it from bogging, and to burn off the glazed surface of the clutch, to get down to newer friction material. With a new clutch it might feel like a glazed clutch because it'll grab hard and the friction point will sometimes change, but its nothing to worry about. Driving normally should break it in.

[potownrob]

okay here's the dilemma. i just got a new clutch installed on my b-series and its a little spongy. my father said he talked to a guy he knows who used to work for mazda (back when they were mazda mazdas, not ford mazdas or the like) and he said that the symptoms of my clutch are actually quite common. the best thing to do is to put the front bumper against a tree, engage the clutch a little past its friction point and rev it to 3k for a little to get any crap off the front of the disc that may be causing the spongeyness.

now to me this just sounds stupid. ill just drive it around and deal with the spongyness for a little until my regular clutch-slippage wears away whatevers on the disc. but i want your guys opinion.

thanks

you are exactly right. you don't want to break these in like brake pads, even though they are made of similar material. wear it in gently and it will eventually be broken in. with both my civic and maxima it took a few months to break in the new clutches so they weren't grabbing hard and so you didn't feel the springs so much. on both, you could also hear the springs a little before they got broken in.

[LHOswald]

you are exactly right. you don't want to break these in like brake pads, even though they are made of similar material. wear it in gently and it will eventually be broken in. with both my civic and maxima it took a few months to break in the new clutches so they weren't grabbing hard and so you didn't feel the springs so much. on both, you could also hear the springs a little before they got broken in.

yeah thats what i figured. thanks for all the advice. i once again get to trump my dads logic with information i found on the internet from people who do know what they're talking about haha.

you don't want to break these in like brake pads, even though they are made of similar material.

what are brake pads and clutch disks made of?

[Rope-Pusher]

^Friction Material.

[LHOswald]

^Friction Material.

thanks for so clearly answering that question

[AHTOXA]

Well, depending on application material can vary. Organic pads are made of asbestos and carbon, held together by a strong resin. On other applications ceramics are used or even kevlar on more exotic cases. Semi-metallic brake pads on regular cars are simply organic pads that are made from the mentioned asbestos and carbon but have some metal particles added for more abrasion thus more stopping power.

[Rope-Pusher]

^I think that all the old guys still using asbestos in their recipes for clutch or brake friction materials have died out from some unknown disease. Nobody left making the stuff willp tell you exactly what's in their proprietary materials and the guys making cheap replacement stuff from China won't tell you that they use dog do & Brillo pads (it's all in what you feed the dogs, don'tcha know?).

[theholycow]

I took my cats to get their shots at a vaccination clinic today. In front of me was a dog that must have eaten Brillo pads, because he had at least 3 big turds hanging from his butt the whole time. I was deathly afraid he'd brush by and wipe them off on my jeans.

[Leedeth]

[Rope-Pusher]

My dog snatched a threaded sewing needle off a table and swallowed it. Vet said to feed her LOTS of bread. I was on poop-watch for a couple days until the needle passed. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack. Luckily, I spotted the thread and it was still attached to the needle!