Something broke inside the trans bellhousing

[USAF EP3]

So earlier this week I noticed I had noises coming from the car. It was very similar to the noise of rocks hitting the inside of your fender especially if you don't have fender liners. Anyways I disregarded it. Tonight though was different, it happened again and I felt it in the clutch pedal. So as I am always investigating, I jack the car up, pull the flywheel cover off and I'm kinda in shock.

I'm already ordering a new clutch/flywheel combo kit, but I'd love to know why it failed. It looks like one of the springs bursted out because you can see it at the bottom behind the flywheel in one of the pictures.

It's a ClutchMasters stage 4 ceramic 6 puck and an ACT streetlite flywheel combo.

The car is still driveable, just who knows how long it'll last this way until I get the new parts installed.

Here are the damage pics:

[mitchlikesbikes]

aren't you in japan..?

[Ba82Ep3]

No hes home.

Annnd... holy fuckballs! How many miles on the clutch???

[USAF EP3]

No hes home.

Annnd... holy fuckballs! How many miles on the clutch???

Yea my orders to Japan got cancelled.

Tell me about it X_X. Only 11,000 miles on the clutch. Pretty disappointed, especially since that clutch was supposed to be the better designed type with 6 springs in the disc instead of 4 like some of the other brands. Well I guess that may be why its still grabbing pretty good, lol.

Dave I called you a few hours ago and you didn't pick up. It was to tell you about this lol.

[USAF EP3]

clutch IPB.jpgFound out my problem. When I did my clutch and flywheel install and tranny swap back in May '11 I never installed what's called the "BUSH" in the Honda IPB. Apprently it's the pilot bushing which is synonomous with all other cars' pilot bearings.

I've attached a picture of what I'm talking about.

Also, did some gogle searching and found this tidbit of info:

"It has nothing to do for clutch install. You don't need the pilot bushing for clutch install.

It is needed to center the mainshaft and to keep harmonic vibration in check. Without the pilot bushing it is possible for the end of the main shaft to move in all direction and possibly causing damage to the clutch."

[tinman5]

Dammit. That does seem the way for these clutches to go though. My swap came with an ACT stage 2 on a Pro Lite flywheel with plenty of meat on the disc. That lasted about a year or so longer and maybe 20k miles before munching a spring. In my case though the spring bits wedged onto the pressure plate side. I was stuck in gear with no clutch engagement. Hopefully the CC kit I replaced it with lasts longer.

[superchargedk20]

Do u have a direct link to that pic? I only have my phone and when I zoom in the pic is just to blurry for me to make anything out

[playap07]

Damn dude that fu*kin wild! So not installing a Bush caused all that damage? it looks like something was in there shredding shit up... like a gremlin! I hope it lasts thuogh untill you can swap the new clutch combo into it! Good luck brah!

[usedep3]

Jesus... wow. I'm surprised you forgot to replace the pilot bushing. Did you take the old one out and just forget to put a new one in? I figure even if you forgot to replace it, the old one should've still been on the block side

[USAF EP3]

Do u have a direct link to that pic? I only have my phone and when I zoom in the pic is just to blurry for me to make anything out

Sorry about that, I don't know why it showed up so small:

Jesus... wow. I'm surprised you forgot to replace the pilot bushing. Did you take the old one out and just forget to put a new one in? I figure even if you forgot to replace it, the old one should've still been on the block side

What happened was that I didn't install one when I swapped the engines. I did my tranny swap when I still had the A3, so the old one was still inside the crank. When I built the new engine I forgot to install a new one. Dumbass me, but yea.

[usedep3]

ahhh, ic. I figured even if you forgot to replace it, the old one would've still been on the block. When I saw your pics, it reminded me of my throwout bearing issue I had 2 years ago. One of the arms that connects the bearing to the pivot fork broke off and the bearing/arm we just spinning/mucking up stuff.

I'm glad you got it figured out though.