Just picked up a high mileage 02 z06 recently,

Car drove great, had some clutch chatter, I assumed it was an aftermarket clutch as ive had chatter before in my supras with an upgraded clutch.

Anyways, clutch seemed to be grabbing hard I fid some spirited driving with no problems, on the way home at about 4500 rpms on the highway I went to put it in 4th and BOOM! Loud pop and metal noises, originally I thought It was the motor until I realized the clutch pedal was stuck to the floor, after turning the car off I pulled the pedal up and it still feels like I have clutch pressure, I cannot start the car up though without loud god awful metal noise coming from the torque tube..

Plan on ordering a new clutch kit, fly wheel and slave cyl as well..


Any chance something else could be damaged? I jacked the car up, no holes in my tq tube, but some little metal pieces came out of the little inspection opening on it..



Sucks, probably put less then 200 miles on it lol..

 

Well, that's not good.

 

You may want to open up the torque tube and inspect the couplers while you are at it. Especially with high miles. They are prone to failure and it is possible the front one letting go is what actually damaged the clutch. Look for damage on the input shaft and pilot bearing as well(wobble from bad coupler).

 

Thanks yeah that's the kind of stuff i'm wondering about, i'm very new to C5's (coming from Supra's)

I'd like to do the clutch in one day with some friends, just want to make sure i replace anything that may need replaced while i'm doing it..

 

Well,,,,,, your in for a WHOLE new experience in C5 Drivetrain fun!

You have to remove the rear K member, differential, transmission and torque tube. Depending on what clutch you use, maybe even the bell housing!

This is nothing like you have seen before. There are some THINGS that you need to know and do:

1. Clutch selection is important. What HP/TQ do you plan on building?

2. Flywheel balance! INDEX Mark the position of the flywheel to the crank as it is used to do the finial balance of the engine.
Your flywheel,,, MAY,, have some small external balance pins inserted in the holes on the outside diameter of the flywheel.

You either need to TRANSFER those pins to the new GM flywheel OR have the new aftermarket flywheel match balanced to the OLD flywheel.


3. You will need a pilot bearing puller to rip out the old pilot brg. Make SURE that you install a new pilot!!

4. Purchase and install a remote slave cylinder bleeder hose.

5. There are some critical throw out bearing shim measurements that should be taken. If you install an aftermarket clutch and flywheel, I strongly recommend that you take those measurements. It will determine what thickness shim that you will need OR tell you that you do not need to shim the slave cylinder.

6. If it were me, i would install a new slave. The old one will be full of CRUD (clutch dust) Trust me, i didn’t believe it till I disassembled my old one (65,000 miles)

DISASSEMBLE THE TORQUE TUBE!! Replace the two rubber prop shaft isolators with two new OEM isolators. Yours will most likely be cracked and ready to fall abart, (if they already didnt). This is how they should look!






While you have the rear end out,,,,,,,, REPLACE the output shaft seals at a minimum! Knowing what I know now, I would consider doing some differential up-grades. At a minimum I recommend adding C6 ZO6 hardened output shafts and replacing the clutch pack Belleview springs (commonly found broken)

Before you take the drive train out, jack up one side of the rear of the car ( one wheel off the ground) Put the trans in Neutral. Attempt to spin that wheel. You SHOULD have to overcome a significant force to rotate that wheel. Something like 65-70 foot/pounds measured from the center nut If its relatively easy to grab the tire and turn the wheel, either your clutch packs are bad OR more than likely, the two clutch pack spring washers are busted/cracked and or missing.

Good and BAD Belleview spring:





Here are a few posts that you should read:


- C5, ragtopws6 , Upgrading your C5 rear with C6 Z06 guts, : http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...-z06-guts.html
-

- C5, Its_Go_Time, Output Shaft Install - Left and Right: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...post1573407966

- C5 Differential Seal replacement: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...on-photos.html
-

It also a great time to replace ALL the fluids in the rear and trans. Trans takes ATF Fluid. AMSAOIL Torque Drive is one of the best for our T-56 MN-6 or MN12 transmissions.

Any 75-90 differential with the limited slip additive will do fine.

I find it a WHOLE LOT easier to remove the trans/ differential from the torque tube and then remove the TT from the bell housing. It’s a LOT easier and you have less chance damaging the clutch or pilot bearing upon reassembly if you do the same.

Well, there goes your ONE DAY clutch install!

Good luck my friend.

BC

 

One other note. DO NOT use an impact to remove the nuts on the rear cradle. You can break the rivet holding the top of the bolt and then the bolt turns.

 

Bill- you never cease to amaze me with the time, effort and sound advice you provide to our members. Great Job! (and Bravo Zulu but only you and a few others will understand that term)

 

Thank You! Someone has to help keep C5s going!

I learned a LOT doing my clutch. Figured I pass the knowledge along.

Thanks

Bill

 

that was a great post

only part i question is the flywheel. if you reuse your stock one that makes sense. but, a new flywheel such as an 18lb billet monster should be neutral balance. adding weight would be guessing. a good machine shop can balance the entire clutch assembly but that still is just perfecting what you ordered rather than using it for an external balance which also doesn't make sense since the ls engines are internal balance

as for clutch selection what he said about expected torque is VERY important.

monster for example accurately rates their clutches on rear wheel torque. a lot of guys buy more clutch than they need and it translates into more chatter and a harder clutch to drive in traffic

 

Installing a neutral balance flywheel on an LS MN6/MN12 engine that had (say for example 8 grams of weight pins added in the outer ring from the factory) will make your NEW ZERO BALANCED MONSTER Flywheel 8 grams of weight out of balance and now the engine will vibrate in the 1200 -3000 rpm range.

There’s is a post out there that fully reviews and discusses why GM adds the additional external balance weights to the fly wheel and harmonic balancer. The T-56 manual transmission drive train is over sensitive to any engine out of balance condition whereas the A4 drive train does NOT experience this issue and does not get any additional engine balancing..

GM dynamically balances each and every MN6/MN12 engine to a more strict tolerance. So, if you have ANY external balance weights in the Harmonic Dampener and or the flywheel, to maintain that critical engine balance, you have to have that new flywheel "OFF SET BALANCED" to match the factory balance of your OLD flywheel.

I had the machine shop off set balance my SPEC Flywheel to match the balance of my old OEM ZO6 LS6 fly wheel. Then I put the fly wheel off set in the same position that it was on the engine crank when I took it off.
I have zero issues with engine or drive train vibrations.

Bill

 

just read up on this. it appears that some manual engines do not have weight on the flywheel and some do.

what type of weights are they and what can a guy do? i don't want to get into my own car and be scratching my head in the shop on the weight transfer.

the only thing that seems to be conflicting is this thread

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...-balanced.html

and

http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums...-balanced.html

here it's stated the clutch and pressure plate are neutral balanced..which is the way i have always heard of it done too. the ls engine is internal balance and the clutch is also balanced out as a package

if someone swaps weights from the old flywheel to the new one, BUT changes the pressure plate the balance is thrown off

there is also this thread

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-z...o-balance.html

where the clutch is referred to as a package in post 3. meaning the whole clutch assembly is balanced. i know monster for example only sells their clutches as a matched package with the flywheel. it was my understanding that this is why

 

Wow Bill that's alot of info! lol




Thanks for taking the time to post all that up, sounds like fun


I plan on keeping it fairly stock for now, probably just long tubes, catback, xpipe..

Then eventually I would like to fabricate a single rear mounted turbo, or go the cheap route and put a 100 or 150 shot of nitrous on the car..



There's a guy locally selling a slightly used Spec3+ clutch & flywheel, says it has 3000 miles on it, but he's converting his car to auto (the more i think about it labor involved i will probably just buy NEW)

or i was considering a LS7 luk clutch kit..

any recommendations without breaking the bank?




Guess i will start putting a parts list together,

i'd definitely like to replace as much as i can (within reason)




Thanks for any input guys

 

If your OEM flywheel does not have any weights, you are GOLDEN and the new flywheel SHOULD be zero balanced from the manufacture. YES, all GM flywheels and clutch disk packages are shipped as an assy and zero balanced together.

If you want absolute positive insurance that you are 100% factory balanced, have the new flywheel / clutch assy balance checked for zero and either transfer the weights to that OR once the flywheel/clutch assy is zero balanced, have the offset put into the flywheel. That way any zero balanced pressure plate will always work.

 

i just talked to chris at SNL aka monster clucth

here's what i got

GM clutch / plate / flywheel tolerance is 12 grams in the balance. theirs is 4 grams

also mentioned not having any vibration issues with their matched packages

one thought i had was with all the damper replacements people do. if the damper had that large of an impact on engine balance wouldn't you notice it when you strap on a new balancer as so many people have?



here we have one poor fellow who did have an issue

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...ibrations.html

so, would that mean we could eyeball the balancer to get an idea of what to expect with the flywheel?

i just looked at my damper and there are 1/4" holes on one side about 1/2" deep which would be about 3 grams, maybe 4 of weight removed

now in the thread above a guy mentions to check the 12 holes on the balancer for weights installed? would that mean no weights = golden?

also the overwhelming number of vibration threads all have the word "spec clutch or flywheel" in them somewhere

trying to post as much info as i can to get a concrete answer in the thread for the op {and myself} to have a solid grasp

 

My understanding was that GM added weights to the MN6 cars if the drivetrain showed a vibration when it was fired. Doesn't really matter though. You most likely would get away with a neutral balance clutch and flywheel but the best way to know you will not experience issues is to simply mark the flywheel and then get the new flywheel balanced to match the old flywheel. After all, it's too big pain to pull the car apart again if it does vibrate when it could have been avoided.

 

that's what it sounds like

gm spec is within half an ounce or 12-14 grams.

if you install a neutral clutch you may actually improve things or you may not

if you copy the weight offset of the OEM clutch at least you have a factory balance even if it does have a half ounce window


whole thing makes sense now that i talked to a few folks and can visualize it

the other thing we don't know is since each car is different you don't really have an idea, unless you look, if GM added any weight to the balancer or if the balancing was just done on the flywheel/clutch side of things

this thread here http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...h-install.html

is the best resource i could find. apparently GM clutches are zero balance just like other good ones, BUT, weight is added to some cars that have over .5 oz of imbalance at the factory. this means if the engine is off a little which would not be a problem in an auto then it's corrected externally in a manual.

now the WTF part if i wasn't already confused. if you go from a 28lb to a 18lb flywheel the amount of balance weight one would think would also change since there is less inertia

i really hope my car doesn't have balance weights on the flywheel. this doesn't sound fun as a person would literally have to go to a high end machine shop and have the old clutch assembly spun, measured for out of balance then have the new one matched to the same degree. fingers crossed they did better on the ls6 as it seems to be that an off internal balance is the whole reason for this correction

there's also this tech bulletin that specifically says not to transfer balance weight

 

couple venders here on the forum offer clutch packages. LS7 clutch is a good upgrade that will give you some head room for upgrades and agressive driving in the future and won't break the bank. Monster also makes a great clutch from what i have read here. my friend had a Single turbo setup we built with the LS7 clutch and a mild boost/tune ~530whp and it held great and was a great clutch for street driving. had some complications with a Spec stg 5 clutch/lightweight flywheel (cluch kept warping/chewing up the flywheel) and had bad vibrations even after ballance it was a biatch to clutch.. local performance vette shop talked him into that setup.. it was a bad combo for a street car.

 

rear end with torque Tube.. BIG piece or hardware to remove... 2 guy job.


Bad Coupler:

 

Clutch install instructions:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...all-guide.html

 

Hey guys, tons of info here, thanks!




are the couplers and the isolators the same part?

and there are two of them right?







stock LS7 clutch sounds like a good bet for me, I've had Supra's with clutch chatter, and although it's liveable i definitely prefer NOT to have it lol..