ok, i'm relatively new to standard transmissions and i'm helping a buddy (s/n Hudjoes on tgo) build his 86 IROC. he's doing a t5 swap and a pretty stout little streeter 350. he purchased a Zoom clutch (stage 2?) and we're having a problem with it. it won't disengage. we fired the car up (with it in nuetral obviously) and when we tried to put it in gear, you could hear it grinding.

we jacked the car up in the air this afternoon and i pushed the clutch in. with it in gear, car off, i had my buddy try to turn the rear wheels. while in nuetral, the wheels turn freely. when in gear, regardless of clutch pedal position, the wheels do not turn over at all.

i measured the travel of the slave cylinder pushrod and it was ~.75", well within the specs called for by our Haynes Manual. any ideas guys? is there adjustment on the shift fork mounting ball? any adjustability in this system at all? or did we put something together wrong (ie, thrust bearing or something like that)

 

Have you bled the clutch slave cylinder? The process is the same as doing brakes.

 

hey thanks for the information. me and matt finally got the clutch to kick in for us. took the car around the block for the first time. it was not very smooth due to 4 of the 5 lug nuts striping out on the rear wheel(cheap lug nuts), but it was every mans dream to take his first project around the block. just want to say thanks to mw66nova and the members of TGO for the helpful information that i have used in this build. LOOK OUT there's another bad *** third gen camaro on the road.

 

yup, we got it all squared around and i was able to ride shotgun in yet another hotrod i helped build. very rewarding feeling. terry, we'll get that exhaust all squared around this weekend i think. i'll call you for sure.

for everyone else, i'm still not sure what the problem was, but after reading some more helpful threads here on tgo, i decided to start the car while it was in gear, but i had placed the rear of the car on jackstands. so as i started the car, the rear wheels turned, ran it through the 5 gears slowly and it freed it up. strangest thing...i'm wondering if the pilot bushing had grabbed onto that input shaft or something weird like that...