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I have a 00 c5 m6 car with 151k miles on it. 12k miles ago I put a clutch kit in it and a rear main seal. The reason for the work was a leakin seal. I have a vibration in the shifter. At 2 grand its slight at 4 grand its worst. I tore back down and replaced clutch again thinking I got one out of balance. Had new one balanced before install. Made no differance. Now rear main leaking again. Very aggrivating. I have noticed a bearing wine underneath that makes me think a torque tube problem but I can stop with trans in gear, clutch in which stops tube from spinning free rev and the vibration is still there. I have also switched the balancer with no results. I have lived with the vibration but the leaking rear seal really aggrivates me. Any ideas? I would appreciate any feed back, I love my car and am losing that due to the frustration with this problem.
We had a car come back to our shop this summer after a clutch/flywheel install. It had 1200 miles on the new setup. We had changed the pilot bearing and had the clutch/flywheel balanced prior to the first installation.
Pulled everything out, took the clutch and flywheel to be re-balanced (didn't end up needing it). The "new" pilot bearing was smashed all to hell. Not sure if we smashed it, or it was a bad bearing to start with. Either way, after a new bearing and newly re-balanced clutch assembly....no more rattle/chatter/shake.
Not sure what to make of it, but it the only thing we really changed the second time was the pilot bearing. Not sure about the leak, unless the vibration is tearing the seal or throwing it out of seat.
I was thinking the vibration is taking out the seal. I believe i need to change front and rear bearings in the tube anyway. I didn't even look at the pilot bearing the second time out.I also do have a clunk/knock when I shut of the car when in neutral.
I have a 2000, and went through a real nitemare when the car was new. It had a little vibration in the clutch pedal, which the dealer agreed to fix via a new clutch and flywheel.
After installation of a brand new clutch/flywheel combo, the engine vibrated very noticeably at 4000 rpm.
To make a long story short, the manual tranny models were often final balanced using lead weights in the flywheel!!!!!!!!
If a new, perfectly balanced flywheel/clutch was installed in one of these motors, without adding the additional weights, the engine would vibrate.
The dealer mechanics did not know this, and went through 3 flywheels trying to get it right. Finally, a factory rep had to travel down, with an electronic strobe machine, and he got the engine to balance out by putting weights in the flywheel in the locations indicated by the strobe machine.
This might be your problem. Do a search for threads posted by me (the wrench) on this subject. It's scary, it's real, it's hell to fix if your original flywheel is gone, or you don't know how it was "clocked" on the engine originally.
Qwatney Chevrolet here in town loaned me a strobe but I didn't use it because the service manager pulled up a bulliten from GM that said not to transfer the balance pins over. I looked into that because the paperwork with the clutch said to transfer them. It is very aggrivating for sure. The clutch I originally started with didn't have any to begin with anyway. Thanks for the info.
Partsman, the weights were in the flywheel, not the clutch pressure plate. If you did not change your flywheel, then there should not be an issue, assuming your new pressure plate was in neutral balance.
That's interesting about the bulletin. My 2000 shop manual has the entire weight-swapping procedure in gory detail; the mechanics just didn't read the manual before they removed and tossed my original flywheel. They may have stopped doing this external balance process in later years, due to the issues like my car had.
But there is no doubt that my car had this, and was only corrected by mis-balancing the 3rd new flywheel with lead weights.
There is no doubt in my mind that if I went in and installed a perfectly neutral-balanced flywheel in my car, that it would vibrate again.