<VV> clutch disk ware

judynrandy at comcast.net judynrandy at comcast.net
Fri Oct 9 23:12:22 EDT 2015


Question:  What does a worn out clutch disk look like?  I'm a PG man myself and never had a bad one in the standard corvairs I have driven previously. 
The reason i'm asking is a dude recruited me to get his '64 ragtop running right and to fix the oil leaks.  The car is a 95/3spd.  The kicker is that the car only has 21,000 miles on it!!!!  The car previously sat somewhere for a VERY long time.  (But no body rust to speak of)  Someone tried to resurrect it by slapping a cheesy paint job on it, put on a new top, and added a bunch of chrome under the hood.  They replaced one or two gaskets and "put a band-aid" on the rest of it.  Even powder coated all of the shrouds!!  It's been a comedy of errors.  They tried to install an "ignitor II" by drilling a hole in the side of the distributor cap and dust cover for the wires!!!!  It's a miracle it ran at all.  It had a small mouse nest and a ton of garbage in the heads.  The rear axles were even rusted to the backing plates!  I like to never got them apart!  I even had to chisel off two head nuts.  And a jug that should be in the hall of fame for casting flash/garbage. (If someone could school me on how to take a photo or two of it with my wifes' Ipad and put them on the 'net,  i'd be glad to share it.  You won't believe it.)  Anyway, on the brite side, the input shaft looks almost brand new!  It sure is purty.  ( :   
      Now for the part about the clutch disc.  The grooves are really shallow.  But the kicker-  a couple of the rivets are just starting to rub on the flywheel.  Without knowing how thick they are supposed to be, its'  the rivet part that concerns me.  I wouldn't think you could wear out a clutch disk in only 21,000 miles???  So, is it shot?  The throw-out bearing looks super, except for the fact that the grease seems more like play-doh than grease.  I'm going to replace it.  One last question.  Would you replace the pilot bushing?  I guess its' the "oilite" kind.  Would it still be usable after 51 years?  Thoughts and opinions, please.  
Oh yeah, one more last question:  the car also came with wire wheels!!!  They look like N.O.S. ones.  Absolutely gorgeous!!!  This is my first experience with wire wheels.  I finally figured out how to get them apart and off the car.  What I need to know now is how do you tell when you have them screwed on tight enough when re-installing them?  I glanced at the shop manuals but couldn't find any info.  Thanx 
  
Randy (Cap'n) Hook 
'60 700 4dr '64' 110/4spd 
'63 '500' ragtop 110/pg 
'65 Monza 84/pg  


More information about the VirtualVairs mailing list