I just got a new King Cobra Clutch put in and my throwout bearing squeeks. A new bearing was put in and everything. They said my retainer was in good shape. If I rest my foot on the clutch, the noise goes away. As soon as I take it off, it starts making noise. I'm thinking the clutch isn't adjusted right. But I'm not sure which way to adjust it.

I installed a new KC clutch in my '91 and the throwout bearing did the same squeeking you're talking about. After about 150 miles it went away. It's not a constant squeek, but a "squeek-squeek-squeek-squeek..." and I only noticed it at idle. It too would go away when I rested my foot on the clutch pedal.

 

any idea what the problem is? yours just went away?

 

If you dont have a slight preload on the cable, making that happen should take care of it. Cable clutches use a light preload to keep the TOB from slopping around on the retainer. You dont need much at all - just enough to snug the TOB face against the PP diaphram fingers.
This is what you are doing when you rest your foot against the clutch pedal.

Good luck.

 

any idea what the problem is? yours just went away?

Go ahead and invest another $35 and get a firewall adjuster for the clutch cable. It's very easy to install and allows you to adjust the "pre-load" the previous poster spoke about. Steeda makes a great one!

 

This precise thing happened to my 97 GT after installing a spec stage 1 clutch. Your clutch is too tight and needs to be loosened. Right now the TOB has preasure on it even when the clutch is engaged, causing it to heat up and force its lubricant out. If you don't correct it soon, you will burn out the TOB.

K

 

This precise thing happened to my 97 GT after installing a spec stage 1 clutch. Your clutch is too tight and needs to be loosened. Right now the TOB has preasure on it even when the clutch is engaged, causing it to heat up and force its lubricant out. If you don't correct it soon, you will burn out the TOB.

K

Explain why the noise subsides when he lightly presses the clutch pedal down.

Without him posting the point-of-engagement, I dont see how the above-postulation can be made.

 

Explain why the noise subsides when he lightly presses the clutch pedal down.

Without him posting the point-of-engagement, I dont see how the above-postulation can be made.

Because when the clutch is set too stiffly, the TOB is always engaged. Lightly pressing the clutch pedal pulls the clutch back to the range it should have been in the first place, thus cutting down the constant preasure to the TOB. I just had the exact same thing happen to my car. When I dialed back the pre-load on my clutch quadrent, the noise disappeared, never to haunt me again. Perhapse there is another possible cause, but my symptoms were identical to what he describes.

K

 

Because when the clutch is set too stiffly, the TOB is always engaged. Lightly pressing the clutch pedal pulls the clutch back to the range it should have been in the first place, thus cutting down the constant preasure to the TOB.

K

I dont follow the dynamic you describe. Lightly pressing the clutch pedal further pushes the TOB against the diaphram fingers. From the last line in your quote above, it seems like you are saying that lightly pressing the clutch pedal pulls the TOB away from the diaphram fingers. Not true. The only way to remove constant TOB to PP contact is to loosen the cable adjustment. And the interface is loosest when the pedal is at rest (it can never be looser by pressing on the pedal).

 

yep, do what hissin said and put a little preload on it. tighten the cable, and it should go away. hes 100% right on

 

No, he's not. If he were, loosening my clutch quadrent would have made the problem worse. The opposite was true. The whinning disappeared as soon as I backed of the preload. I'm not lying in hopes of burning out his TOB. It is possible my understanding or explination of the dynamics are inadequite, however I wouldn't even be posting about this problem if I hadn't just gone through it with my own car. Try them both and let us know what happens.

K

 

a new TOB will not squeek if installed correctly, there should be a slight amount of preload on the TOB to keep it from bouncing around on the bearing retainer on the tranny. you might have had too much preload and loosening it might have helped. but in his case, putting slight pressure on the pedal (i.e. him resting his foot on the pedal) causes the noise to stop. so therefore he needs to tighten the cable a little bit to get more preload.

 

You're not listening. I had a brand new TOB installed not long ago after burning up the one that came in the Spec kit. I had an adjustable clutch quadrent installed at the same time. The TOB squeeked when the car was in gear, just as he says his is currently doing. When I put light preassure on the clutch pedal the noise disappeared. I assumed as you and the other poster did that I didn't have enough preload on the clutch, so I tightened it, and tightened it, and tightened it. The noise never went away and actualy got more obvious. So I backed it off alot, and the noise disappeared entirely. I am not making this up as I go along, and I am not halucinating. If you were correct, my TOB would still be whinning. It isn't.

96gtbeast. When you push on your clutch pedal, does it begin to disengage the clutch right away, or do you need to push down an inch or so before you can feel the clutch disengage?
K

 

The TOB squeeked when the car was in gear, just as he says his is currently doing.


K

I dont think he said this (I did not interpret his comments as such, at least).

In your case K, when you had too much preload, if you rested your foot on the clutch pedal, the noise should have gotten worse (per what you described). His noise goes away, right?

Also, one should never have the pedal adjusted in such a way that one inch of pedal depression causes the clutch to disengage. A clutch in that situation would slip and burn up in short order.

I dont think there is a solid understanding of the dynamics at work here - your posts contradict eachother and I dont think it is much else than perhaps a lack of familiarity with terminology (I keep posting not to butt heads, but to see if we can reach the bottom of this). I like to think I have a decent handle on clutches.

In your case K, did you have a new stock quadrant and pawl installed? Or did you change hooks on the aftermarket quadrant? Those are the means to adjust the cable at the quadrant (as you referred to). Most folks should not have to ever adjust the clutch at the quadrant when using an aftermarket quadrant. This is why you have a FWA or adjustable cable.

What I am wondering is if you have a FWA. If you do, this might be where we are running into confusion. Turning the FWA in (tightening it), adds slack (lowers the point of engagement). I had a fleeting thought that this was where confusion was being introduced. THis is where 'tightening' actually 'reduces' preload.

If the TOB is firmly loaded against the PP, it will start squeaking after a little time (it is not unlike driving all the time with the pedal depressed a little ways on a car with a normal adjustment). That could have been what happened to you. As you loaded the TOB more and more, the noise got worse. That is not normal for a properly functioning TOB. And once you backed it off so the TOB was barely touching the PP, the noise subsided. Correlation is not causation (because it happened to someone once, does not mean it is the same for the next guy).

Very simply stated, when I do a clutch adjustment, I leave it loose and start it up. I can hear the TOB rattling around. I just tighten the FWA/adjustable cable till that noise subsides. Then I get in and feel where my point of engagement is. It is normally close to the floor as I have barely introduced any preload. I get the pedal where I want it (generally with a point of engagement closer to the floor) and lock it in. This method allows one to start from one end of the spectrum and adjust it properly (or to one's liking - the final adjustment is personal preference).

I still stand by my above-comments about 96Beast's adjustment probably being too loose (going off the limited info provided). Kempesh, we might have to agree to disagree on this one. :cheers:

 

I dont think he said this (I did not interpret his comments as such, at least).

In your case K, when you had too much preload, if you rested your foot on the clutch pedal, the noise should have gotten worse (per what you described). His noise goes away, right?

Also, one should never have the pedal adjusted in such a way that one inch of pedal depression causes the clutch to disengage. A clutch in that situation would slip and burn up in short order.

I dont think there is a solid understanding of the dynamics at work here - your posts contradict eachother and I dont think it is much else than perhaps a lack of familiarity with terminology (I keep posting not to butt heads, but to see if we can reach the bottom of this). I like to think I have a decent handle on clutches.

In your case K, did you have a new stock quadrant and pawl installed? Or did you change hooks on the aftermarket quadrant? Those are the means to adjust the cable at the quadrant (as you referred to). Most folks should not have to ever adjust the clutch at the quadrant when using an aftermarket quadrant. This is why you have a FWA or adjustable cable.

What I am wondering is if you have a FWA. If you do, this might be where we are running into confusion. Turning the FWA in (tightening it), adds slack (lowers the point of engagement). I had a fleeting thought that this was where confusion was being introduced. THis is where 'tightening' actually 'reduces' preload.

If the TOB is firmly loaded against the PP, it will start squeaking after a little time (it is not unlike driving all the time with the pedal depressed a little ways on a car with a normal adjustment). That could have been what happened to you. As you loaded the TOB more and more, the noise got worse. That is not normal for a properly functioning TOB. And once you backed it off so the TOB was barely touching the PP, the noise subsided. Correlation is not causation (because it happened to someone once, does not mean it is the same for the next guy).

Very simply stated, when I do a clutch adjustment, I leave it loose and start it up. I can hear the TOB rattling around. I just tighten the FWA/adjustable cable till that noise subsides. Then I get in and feel where my point of engagement is. It is normally close to the floor as I have barely introduced any preload. I get the pedal where I want it (generally with a point of engagement closer to the floor) and lock it in. This method allows one to start from one end of the spectrum and adjust it properly (or to one's liking - the final adjustment is personal preference).

I still stand by my above-comments about 96Beast's adjustment probably being too loose (going off the limited info provided). Kempesh, we might have to agree to disagree on this one. :cheers:

Okay, one more time. In my case, the noise happened when the car was in gear. When I put light preassure on the peddel, it did not get worse, it disappeared. This sounds exactly like what 96gtbeast described. I know I had too much preload beecause the point of engagement was not anywhere near the floor, it was at the very top. When I backed off (loosened) the adjuster and brought the point of engangement closer to the floor, the noise disappeared even when the car was in gear. It hasn't returned since

I can agree that being too loose may cause what he describes, and I already said that my explination of the dynamics involved maybe lacking. But, I know from personal experience that the clutch being too tight can cause the same symptoms and that loosening it can solve the problem.

K

 

Call D+D. They recommend somewhere around 8-15 pounds preload on the TOB.

 

How do you measure preload, is it simply a measurement of the pressure required to the point of engagement on the clutch peddal?

K

 

When I turn the firewall adjuster to the right, it effectively got rid of the TOB noise, but now my clutch pedal vibrates and my engagement is very low, close to the floor. Do I need to tighten up a bit?