![](\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_CYrYDm4AI4w\/TOsgHxMVVcI\/AAAAAAAAAPQ\/hgZ9Z-kUvS4\/s1600\/2010-11-22+19.31.13.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nSome pieces of metal were recoverable, but mostly, there was a lot of shiny dust and a funky “burned barbecue” smell. The inside of the bell housing was coated with oil. My first thought was that the seal on either the engine or the transaxle was leaking.<\/p>\n
None of the oil looks fresh, however. I recall that when the oil cooler event<\/a> occurred, the top of the engine and transaxle were pretty much drenched in oil and I think that’s where it came from.<\/p>\n The throwout bearing itself had not jumped the rails, but you could tell that the surface didn’t look right.<\/p>\n Turns out that the bearing was not turning and the collar from the pressure plate had friction welded<\/a> to the bearing race!<\/p>\n You can see the bearing race is completely hidden. For the entertainment value, I will see what forensic data I can gather and report back.<\/p>\n It’s no wonder the bearing failed, what with the inner race being off center and the balls scrambled inside the bearing.<\/p>\n I found that AutoZone carries the throwout bearing, for $37. They are about $15-18 at most places. AutoZone isn’t usually that high on any given item.<\/p>\n More importantly, while I have a new pressure plate leftover from the other trike, it looked like replacing the disk would be a good idea, what with all that oil. The disk also had a slightly strange wear pattern on it, seeming to wear most in a circle that would describe the center of the friction material. The contact side of the otherwise ruined pressure plate looked fine, but obviously it had to go.<\/p>\n AutoZone has a clutch kit which contains the clutch disk, pressure plate, throwout bearing, pilot bearing and a (redundant) pilot alignment tool. This whole assembly is $102 *and* carries a lifetime warranty. So I got one.<\/p>\n Nothing very magical about the installation from this point forward. I scraped as much of the slightly sticky dust off the flywheel as I could and vacuumed it away. Then I used a bunch of brake cleaner to ensure that the flywheel was clean and oil-free. After the brake cleaner, the pilot bearing needed grease.<\/p>\n Then I put the disk and pressure plate on and snapped a picture of it:<\/p>\n Looks like pretty much every other clutch, huh? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n It took pretty much a whole can of brake cleaner to get the bell housing clean. I found a few recognizeable bits of metal from the old pressure plate in there. I installed the new throwout bearing. Now that I’ve done it a few dozen times, I can remove and install the spring clips with minimal bloodletting.<\/p>\n Bolted the engine and transaxle back together and before I continued, I verified that the clutch will disengage. That was a problem<\/a> with the Dragon trike’s clutch and I wanted to make sure the same thing didn’t happen here before I finished bolting up everything else and had to pull it out again!<\/p>\n I ran out of time and will need to finish the rest of it tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I used my fancy new tool and removed the remaining shock absorber. It worked perfectly. \ud83d\ude42 I pulled the engine and saw that the throwout bearing had not, as I had suspected, jumped off the fork. Instead, I saw that the collar on the pressure plate had been ground off. Some pieces of metal were … Continue reading Sponge Bob Clutch Problem Resolved<\/span> <\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n