[T3] Clutch fork!

[Soren Jacobsen]

On Nov 30, 2013, at 4:22 AM, Bobsnotch at aol.com wrote:

> This is probably a good thing to have done on a stock shaft, when the  
> engine is out too. I only say that, as I've run across a couple that had been  
> trying to move over the years (even with a stock clutch). After all, these  
> parts aren't getting any younger. ;-)  

Speaking of stock clutches and wear on related items, has anyone had good experiences recently with new pressure plates?  While driving my Variant around the country this spring/summer, I lost a clutch cable on the road.  The eyelet up front got worn down (yes, it was good and greasy) and eventually snapped.  Now, that's sort of to be expected at some level, but the timeline on this is disturbing.  When I put the car together in late 2012, there was a slight bit of wear evident on the clutch cable eyelet, but nothing too bad.  13,000 miles later (and very few clutch pedal engagements, really -- 12,000 of those miles were primarily 6+ hour steady highway cruising on a road trip) it gave up the ghost.  I my spare clutch cable on the side of the freeway and drove away.  4,300 miles later, I had the pedal cluster out and took a look at the cable, which was already showing a fair amount of wear.  I was never happy with how stiff the clutch was on that car, and I'm now suspecting that has something to do with all this wear.  On a whim, I pulled the engine and took out the old spring-style pressure plate (an Amortex of unknown history, but which, if nothing else, engages nice and smoothly), replacing it with a Brazilian Sachs diaphragm style pressure plate.  Same stiffness, worse clutch feel.  The clutch feel is a personal preference, though.  I understand that there actually exist people who prefer the diaphragm pressure plates for some reason.

Anyway.  Has anyone bought a nice, soft stock 200mm early style pressure plate lately?  My next move is probably to install a longer clutch arm on the transmission, but that seems like a hack that shouldn't be necessary to keep a stock clutch from breaking cables like this.

Soren