Is there a way to tell remaining clutch life like you can with brakes such as fluid level in resevoir??

 

There is an inspection opening w/cover plate on your bell housing on the bottom of the flywheel cover plate where it connects to the engine. You will need to remove the cover plate and visually check the clutch disk for wear.

Looking at brake and clutch cylinder reservoir fluid levels does not tell you how much brake or clutch pad material is remaining. You have to visually inspect both to determine how much material is remaining.

Typically, your clutch will start to grab hard as you let out on the pedal when it is late in life (assuming the auto-adjust has worked properly) and that will tell you it is getting to be time for a new clutch disk.

Your brakes have "squeelers" - little tabs on the pad - that are sized so that they rub against the rotor when pad thickness is at minimum making an awful sound so you know to inspect and maintain.

Lastly, when you do change your clutch disk, NEVER change just the disk. At a minimum, change the pressure plate, clutch disk and throwout bearing. I would also change out the flywheel. You want to zero-balance the flywheel, pressure plate and clutch assembly to minimize axial vibrations when the engine is running. This is similar to why you balance a tire. Most machine shops charge $30-$50 for this.

Hope this helps.

SAVE THE WAVE :seeya :cheers: :cool:

 

Thanks...I know about the inspection plate but was wondering i there was an easier way :lol: I know...I know..lazy....as far as brakes go the fluid level is at least helpful to a degree I just swapped out pads and the back was still pretty good but the fronts were getting down there after 40k I know the front brakes provide 90% of stopping power so I wasn't surprised at the wear differences......I was just wondering if there was an easy way for the clutch

 

It's not exact but you can get a feel for the amount of ware by how far up the pedal has to travel before it starts to grab.

Before replacing mine ~85K miles, I assume it was the orginal since I purchased the car used w/ ~ 64K miles, it felt a rough. You could feel the clutch pedal pulsate and, it didn't start to grab until it was almost all the way out. When I finally replaced it, I found both the flywheel and pressure plate burned blue all the way across the contact area for about 8" ~1/4 of the way around the contact patch. I assume this was the roughness I felt.

I got 20K miles out of it including trips down the strip. I finally decided it had to be replace while dragging when it started slipping in 2nd, 3rd and, 4th during speed shifts. I stopped abusing it at the track and got another 2 - 3K miles of easy street driving before replacing. I think I could have streatched another 2 - 3K out of it if I had to. A clutch is really quite duarble if it isn't abused.

I've done that 2nd to 5th shift myself before replacing and it would slip. I solved that little missed shift problem with a B&M ripper. If you use it right you'll never hit 5th again by accident.

:cheers: