i completed a t56 swap in my 91 firebird and it was great for a lil more than a month and then all of a sudden the brand new ram clutch was slipping very badly. after we took it apart we saw that all that was left of that new clutch was a bunch of dust but their was no evidence of something being wrong such as oil getting on it or something not put in right. we had a theory that the hydralics were bad and not completely engageing/disengageing so we got a new clutch and installed new master and slave cylinders but after only about 40 miles of testing the clutch is already bad. my dad seems to think that the pedal doesnt have enough travel and that is causing the problem. i have the fourth gen pedal assembly in the car. i really dont know whats wrong though. i would really apreciate anything to shed some light on the situation. i realy need the help badly

 

You're using 4th gen hydraulics or 3rd gen?
You have a pilot bushing or bearing installed?

Should be pretty easy to test if you're getting full disengagement. Id put the car in the air andput it in gear and hold the clutch in and do some experiments to find out how much torque is making it to the rear wheels. Or rev it in reverse on the ground with the clutch in and see if it goes anywhere.

Other problem is that maybe you're not getting complete engagement. Not sure how that would happen, but if the clutch isnt grabbing all the way it could slip constantly.

 

to be more clear, when you push the clutch pedal its not completely disengaging. so some of my main questions are
1: is there a problem with the fourth gen pedals? would third gen pedals work better?
2: does the spacer for the slave cylinder comein different sizes? if so could i have the wrong size?
3:is it possible that i didnt quite position the slave cylinder correctly when i mounted it to the firewall? ( i just followed the imprint that was already on the rug n firewall)

 

im using 4th gen hydralics. just before i parked it again it was bad and the car would move with the clutch all the way down and if it was in nuetral i couldnt put it in gear

 

it wasnt like that when i was first testing it just rite at the end

 

Sounds like you have some serious hydraulics issues somewhere.

Did you buy the master and slave cylinders separately? GM sells the T56 hydraulic assembly as a pre-bled, bolt-in package and it's pretty fool proof.

Even if your hydraulics arent mounted properly the geometry shouldnt be off that bad.

3rd gen pedals will over-extend the slave cylinder due to different pedal geometry, so in taht sense they may "help", but I dont think that's the proper solution here.

 

well the original ones i had were off the car in one piece. the new ones i got seperately and used the same line because it was still god. made sure to fill and bleed it all good though

 

Well, if you're not getting full disengagement, then I would assume air is leeching in somehow.

 

ok, i'll look into that, see if their is any air gettin in. but is their anything else that might be causing this problem

 

I ran into this issue when i was doing my swap...i man handled that transmission in and out bout 4 to 5 times dealing with a bad clutch...its best u get a brand new one already assembled and bled...the smallest leak can lead to the biggest problem

 

ya i ended up just getting new master n slave cylenders n it fixed the problem

 

To make sure the problem is fixed put jack stands under the rear axle, put the transmission in 1st gear, push the clutch in and rev the motor. The rear wheels should not move at all, not even the tiniest bit.