Merlin's 4G Time Attack Lude

[Merlin]

That is the real issue, noise. I will speak to the exhaust builder and see what can be done to get the noise under 105db. I am sure a few silencers will be used.

[Merlin]

For those who missed my recent problems last week I began experiencing some clutch issues, squealing, extremely low biting point, would no go into gear apart from low revs:

[youtube]a9sw57r-IxE[/youtube]
http://www.ludegeneration.co.uk/honda-p ... 11275.html

I decided the best thing to do was take off the gearbox and have a look. So last Thursday Vanzep gave me a hand to get the box off. Draining the gearbox fluid showed no unexpected bits in the fluid, just an extremely fine grain material that I assume was from the clutch plates in the diff.

Once the box was off it revealed a few loose pressure plate bolts, the pressure plate bolts were the only bolts that I reused and even though they were thread locked, some still worked their way loose. The pressure plate itself and the drive plate both looked fine and with a wee clean up were fine to be used again.

No way was I going to re-use the pressure plate bolts again (I shouldn't have in the first place) so I got Honda to get me a new set of bolts and a new release bearing.



The Competition Clutch release bearing doesn't feel as nice as the brand new Nachi bearing so I swapped it over.

Along the way I we found a couple of other issues that would have otherwise gone un-noticed, the drivers CV joint was goosed and there was a missing bolt on the gearbox mount so these small issues were fixed. Thankfully Vanzep allowed me to raid his parts pile and I got a good condition drive shaft off him.

3rdGenSteve and Vanzep helped me get the box back in and the rest of the bits were put back on. The only issue I had was that I wasted an hour trying to get the intermediate shaft bolts in, there is one bolt that is different so I was trying to put the wrong bolt in the wrong hole Finally I/we bent the lower center beam (no idea how) so it would not go back on. We are going to fix that at the weekend.

I managed to drive the car 1 meter on my driveway this morning. Even from that short distance I can tell everything is cool. No squealing, and the biting point is back to normal. So long as nothign else breaks it is off to Aberdeen at the weekend to get its cage fitted

Phew!

[vanzep]

amen brother

[NafemanNathan]

Nice one! And good job you found those loose bolts when you did!

Looking forward to seeing the cage

[Merlin]

And good job you found those loose bolts when you did!

Yup, if they came out in the middle of a race weekend I would not have been best pleased. I did learn a lesson when doing my suspension to not reuse critical bolts but in the rush to get the engine built new pressure plate bolts were not bought

[NafemanNathan]

I did learn a lesson when doing my suspension to not reuse critical bolts

Which bolts are you specifically talking about?

[Merlin]

I did learn a lesson when doing my suspension to not reuse critical bolts

Which bolts are you specifically talking about?

In the suspension? Rear lower arm and camber bolts. I reused my old ones and they never gripped properly after that. On the instruction of the wheel alignment guy I replaced all the old rear suspension bolts I was using. Under full load they wouldn't have cut it. While they wouldn't have come out they would have spun the adjustment plates resulting in wheel misalignment.

[Drax]

Right so pressure plate bolts & release bearing were the items you didn't swap when changing to the CC - what were the bolts etc. you did swap when you did put it in in the first place? just so I know what you get when I buy & fit mine

[Merlin]

The release bearing was the one that come with the CC kit. The pressure plate bolts were the only things that I did not replace with new. I put new flywheel bolts (APR) in but not pressure plate bolts. New pressure plate bolts were £26 from Honda.

[Drax]

pressure plate bolts. £26 from Honda.

perfect thank you!