Concentric hydraulic throw-out-bearing conversion

[RETed]

Originally Posted by Pete_89T2

First, you would be moving the functionality of the clutch slave cylinder inside the bell housing, so when it fails, you'll have to pull the tranny to fix it. What about hydraulic bleeding - how would you get to the bleeder screw without pulling the tranny?

If your stock throw-out bearing fails, you'd still need to crack open the trans and engine anyways...

Most of these concentric hydraulic bearings come with two lines.
One goes to the clutch master cylinder.
The other is snaked upward and used as a bleeder.
Due to the position of the stock clutch slave cylinder (mating to the clutch fork), I'd probably snake it up that hole.

Second, if the failure of clutch fork and/or pivot ball on FCs really happens frequently enough, it would be a lot easier to just design beefier replacement parts to solve the issue.

It's enough with very heavy pressure plates - i.e. ACT Extreme PP.
I've seen enough failures of them to not recommend using those things.


-Ted

[Pete_89T2]

Originally Posted by RETed

If your stock throw-out bearing fails, you'd still need to crack open the trans and engine anyways...

True, but how often does a TO bearing fail when compared to slave cylinder failures? In the past 30 years, I've probably covered at least a half a million miles driving various manual transmission cars, and in all that time I never once had a TO bearing fail on me, but I did have 3 or 4 clutch slave cylinders crap out that I had to fix... Easy repair when the slave cylinder is outside the bell housing.

[RETed]

Originally Posted by Pete_89T2

True, but how often does a TO bearing fail when compared to slave cylinder failures? In the past 30 years, I've probably covered at least a half a million miles driving various manual transmission cars, and in all that time I never once had a TO bearing fail on me, but I did have 3 or 4 clutch slave cylinders crap out that I had to fix... Easy repair when the slave cylinder is outside the bell housing.

Yes, you are right: the clutch slave cylinder does fail more often than the throw-out bearing itself.
If you're doing religious maintenance, I doubt you'd run into a throw-out bearing failure, unless you tend to "ride" the clutch pedal all the time...
By nature, hydraulics and seals will almost always die first.
Usually, you change the throw-out bearing upon a clutch change, unless you're the type that can push a clutch to 100k miles???

Anyways, the stock clutch slave cylinder is replaced in this conversion...
You need to keep the stock clutch master cylinder.
(Well, you've got the option to change it if you want to...)
The stock clutch slave cylinder, stock clutch hydraulic flex hose (between the clutch master cylinder and the stock clutch slave cylinder), stock clutch fork, pivot ball (if you want to remove that), and the stock throw-out bearing all get removed.
All of that gets replaced by a special guide plate / collar (on the trans input shaft), concentric hydraulic throw-out bearing, and adapter hose that goes from the stock clutch master cylinder down to the new concentric hydraulic throw-out bearing.


-Ted