on going Crown clutch problem

[Roger Boisjolie]

No, I doesn't work. I've givin up on it and pushed it to the back burner again. I put it all together with an external slave and it looks like I have the travel (about an inch) on the clutch fork while pressing the pedal down. The darn clutch won't release. I cranked my push rod all the way out just seeing if the clutch would release. Not working. About ready to push it to the street for heavy trash day!

[Richard Miller]

I had problem with my first C8 slave cylinder getting hot and seizing ,, my current car has a heat shield between it and the headers . the HTOB wouldn't haven't seen that heat but seems heat related ,, affected both setups ,, could your hydraulic line running to the clutch be close enough to the header heat that it is boiling the fluid after a while ? this would make vapor in the line which is compressible and would steal travel

[Roger Boisjolie]

It dosen't work on initail start up. I thinking I might have the wrong clutch fork pivot stud? It's all 74 corvette stuff. Arm pivot, and throw out b.

[Richard Miller]

okay , I got the impression that it took 10 or 20 minutes of driving before problem arose ,, if at initial startup then you are probably dealing with a mechanical issue like you suspect

[Roger Boisjolie]

Yes, it used to work initialy and then go bad. Now I've managed to make it even worse and it doesn't release at al

[Richard Miller]

okay I know how that goes ...I looked thru my stuff to find a couple of old reference pieces on clutch etc, first was an old popular hot rodding article ,, November of 1978 article by tom Senter called clutch linkage basics ,, I read thru it and you seem like you should be in the ball park on pedal ratio ,,, he says "it takes between .035 and .090 TOTAL clearance between disc and flywheel and pressure plate to disengage the clutch" he says there is about a 5 to 1 ratio in the pressure plate and if you take worst case about .100 to release then the TOB needs to move about .5 inch ... skipping ahead a little he suggests end of clutch fork where pushrod hits it needs to move about 1.125 inch (about 2.25 ratio in the fork ) anyway I don't know if you can find this old article online anywhere ,, I also have an HP BOOKS CLUTCH & FLYWHEEL HANDBOOK from 1991 I bought when doing my car don't know if that is still available ,,, sounds like the quarter inch might not be enough travel at TOB.might be area to focus on as you thought , pivot ball and throw out arm ,, I am using a corvette clutch and it is the high cone diaphragm type ,,