Wanderor Cross

Sadly SJ is not being all that helpful they just asked me to send the clutch back and that I could contact helix directly which I have and I am they have replied asking for the part number so I sent them the one from SJ and a link... here's to hoping they can help.

So I'm down to two things at this point, the Helix clutch comes with a copper ring/tube that goes around the point where the pressure plate mounts I left it as there weren't any instructions with the helix but the AP twin doesn't have it. (Screw driver tip is pointed at the spot where the copper ring that is not attached is on the Helix vs the factory one in the picture) Beyond that the only thing left I can think of is the machine shop did take to much off the flywheel but wouldn't that result in the clutch not being able to engage properly instead of not being able to disengage?

Since I'm now a passenger on a 2 hour road trip I've just been sitting here thinking and I know it worked, I felt it click on gear and watched the hubs speed up with throttle input. This means the grease made a difference but with weight and everything in the ground I'm left only with the slave cylinder has to be having issues so I'll see if JAE has one in stock so I can try replacing it but after that I'm really out of ideas everything relating to the clutch and hydraulics has been replaced and in most cases upgraded so this will have to be caused by something else if it's not the slave and at that point I'm seriously at a loss...

Those moments when you consider just letting it catch fire.... Pulled the trans, greased the shaft and housing around it. Put it back together and tested in the air and it worked, excited I put it all the way back together, washed it and pressure washed under it, got in and she started right up only to again not be able to shift into gear with it running.... Tried a few things in the car, nothing. Really getting frustrated with this

Well I talked to Joe at JAE and I think it does need to be greased so I'm going to pull it apart far enough to grease it and then put it back together and see what happens.

I don't have a camera but I can pull the slave housing off and see in rather well, but I don't see anything that makes me believe it's not working... But then I also don't know what exactly I should expect to see.

When the Clutch failed the pedal would move so far then stop and since it failed while I was driving I tried pretty hard to put it in gear not to mention rebuilding the stainless line rebleeding and trying again before tearing it down and doing all the work I had before this point. So I guess my feeling was it happened then, now it seems to move fine in terms of clutch pedal feel, travel and such I just can't disengaged the clutch all the way.

So today I tried taking a break to put in my new seats and that turned into more fun and I think I need to make an adjustment but while waiting I came back to the thought of trying to see how I could move the shift fork myself and confirm travel and that it's not hanging up. Beyond that I'm kinda at a loss for what's going on, I've rechecked everything quite a few times now and I just can't come up with the problem here but I feel like the new clutch is just not moving far enough to disengage. Especially since I can push the clutch in and disengage it enough to start the car but it's still moving. I feel like it's just not getting enough travel. Tomorrow I'm going to take to JAE and start there, see what they think and most likely redo my driver's seat with some of my new ideas while taking it back just a little further.

Hey @mike_sekingersince I can't send them in PM from my phone here's those pictures of the slave housing. At this point I'm just looking up failures from others who resurfaced the flywheel and what happened to confirm if it's the same.

So I decided to try another of my"ideas" for replacement parts. The E46 M3 slave is very similar to ours in terms of mounting and while smaller in size the diameter is bigger. Since I have no chance of getting a factory slave until next week I decided I had nothing to lose, everything else matched up so I had to open the mounting holes up a little and in it went. It bled well, you could hear it moving but no change when I started the car... Still can't shift at all, now I could bleed it further and while it's tight to the fork there's no guarantee this was enough force or there's enough fluid moving to properly use it this was more of a Hail Mary pass... At this point there seems to be a lot of signs pointing to something has to be wrong with the install even though I rechecked everything multiple times... I'm not sure what else to think now I know I got the discs right and I mirrored the Throwout bearing from the old clutch, everything is set up correctly I guess the only idea left is that the shop was wrong and the flywheel is out of spec. Idk I think it's time for a drink. Actually I did notice the shaft that bolts to the bell housing is right up against the Throwout bearing. Now this may be normal and the Throwout bearing moves around it but that's the only other thing I have noticed.

Well now the car is really messing with me so I made two new rods both don't change the issue so that leaves me thinking two things. Even though I swear I got everything right with the clutch install I screwed up Or The slave is indeed bad even though it appears to be working when tested just sitting hanging off the car. However now the car also sounds like it has a miss which is new and I just replaced the plugs, went with magnacore wires and put in new coil packs... I guess the car is determined to give me a bad result today.

The Wilwood is actually just slightly bigger I believe it was .62 and the factory was .60. The Landover slave did use the factory rod from when I removed the failed Lotus one. I bought a hardened push rod that's a little thicker and I'm going to cut it down and adjust the length I guess this will be a good time to test but it did work with the AP twin disk but it's possible enough has changed to require a length correction.

I just put a Wilwood master on a few months ago, pressure feels great. I replaced the slave the beginning of last year and would be surprised if it has 5000 miles on it. Last night I took the dust cover off to inspect it and it looks great, but as mentioned I think the rod may be bent. I also bled everything again the pedal feels great so I'm really hoping that rod is the issue.

When I had everything apart I cleaned and inspected it. I didn't see any issues with the fork but I guess it's possible but at this point I don't think it's damaged.

So I've had it apart looking and honestly I think the rod is slightly bent. I'm going to try and find or make a replacement tomorrow as the slave definitely looks good I even removed the boot it looks good and it's moving so either it's somehow damaged and not moving all the way out the rod bent some... Otherwise I'm still confused, which to be fair is probably true on a daily basis but for other reasons 😆