twofotisx

Ok, here's one only for people that really know there stuff, I think we know what the problem is but it never hurts to get other peoples opinions.

Situation: My friend needed a new clutch and flywheel installed on his S13 240sx. So we order the parts and when they arrive we do a quick bolt pattern check to insure they are the right pieces. Everything matches up fine. So we drop the tranny, replace the throw-out bearing and install the flywheel, clutch plate, and pressure plate correctly using the allinement tool. We take a look to make sure everything looks how it should and then we throw the tranny back on. Then we install the shifter with no problems.

Problem: The car drove for about 20min. with absolutely no problem. Then my friend heard a noise (i wasn't with him at this point but have see the car since). It sounds like a rubbing noise, almost like the shifter is only half-way in. Then to make it go away he presses in the clutch pedal all the way and then releases it. Problem then goes away.

Notes: The shifter itself has been checked and is not the problem, the clutch pedal feels just like a new clutch should (a little tighter than normal but not much different), the shifter feels like it goes smoothly enough into gear and has a good soild feel to it, and the tranny fluid is fine.

Solution?? We know that we have to at least drop the tranny again to figure out for sure and fix the problem. What I think happened is that during the process of placing the trans back on the metal "gasket" that goes inbetween the bellhouseing is sitting a little low and consequentally is making a rubbing noise. However this would not explain why the grinding noise doesn't appear as soon as the car is started and goes away after a depression and release of the clutch pedal. We haven't gotten the tranny off yet but we plan to look for rub marks and see what's been causing this problem.

Any other suggestions??

twofotisx

Ok, I'm double posting here because it's the answer to the question.

There was nothing wrong with the car!! It was some kind of sound that was generated because of the interaction between the brand new clutch plate and flywheel. All it needed was to be driven around and broken in!! I'm very happy to say that out of all of my friends I discovered this solution. Basically when my friend stoped his car, he left it at the performance shop where we normally hang out at in the back. So yesterday I decided since I was there (I have a key), I would start it up and see if I could figure out anything else about the problem that could be of use before we dropped the tranny. So I started it up and moved it back and forth a little. Heard nothing. So I drove it over to the local shopping center close by. I heard nothing on the way over, coming back it made the noise a little bit starting up from the red light but was then fine.

So I proceded to call up my friend and tell him that his car was fine. We drove around easy on it in the area in case it became a problem. It didn't. So everything was actually fine but because we had never heard that noise before we all thought something was wrong. *Knocks on Wood* but it was actually just a normal break in sound for that clutch type. Cool, Peace.

l2aine

Ahaha... well at least it's fixed