Bent clutch fork?

Went for a drive and suddenly couldn't get into any gears.
The clutch pedal travels the same but feels a bit lighter than normal.

Checked the master and slave, no leaks.

Checked that the fork travels with the pedal and it seems to be normal. It's not loose at all.

I was able to drive home using 1 2 & 3 without disengaging the clutch.
There are no new noises.

Any last words, thoughts or suggestions before I pull the trans off?

If it travels as normal and isn't loose, I doubt it's the clutch fork. However, if there's no leaks and the pedal assembly is fine, I think you'll need to drop the trans to fix her.

I thought there should be noises if the PP fingers broke or something else in the clutch.

I still need to go over the pedal assembly.

I would expect some sort of noise as well, but I'm not certain on that. The clutch fork, being cast, is more prone to break than bend. But if it was bent, it would be sitting further to the passenger side than usual.

Given the lack of noise, you may find your culprit in the pedal assembly. From what I've heard, I'm not sure if that's better or worse than having to drop the trans

Haha OK thanks, I'll sort of cross my fingers and take a look

My friend broke his clutch fork in half and (obviously) couldn't shift it. It's easy to check if it's broken, grab the clutch fork with one hand and wiggle it around. If it moves freely and you can pull the broken half out like his, it's a good indication it's snapped clean in half

But as Jeremy mentioned, if all else looks fine you'll have to remove the transmission to see what exactly it is.

Yes upon further consideration, even a bent one I should feel the play right at the fork.

Just checked the pedal and there is absolutely no play.
Getting a healthy travel at the fork.

It's birthing time!!

As Jeremy mentioned the forks don't bend, they are cast and just snap. I'd go over the master, slave and pedal assembly again before dropping the trans. If a bleed job makes it better, could be a bad master that is not leaking yet, especially if your clutch engagement was not 100%, i.e. engaging close to the floor to begin with.

Thanks guys. Reza, I took your advice and just bled it and there is no difference. Clutch engagement was fine 'til the end and didn't feel like the other times I lost a master.

I did see this shakey shake of the fork with the car running...
https://vimeo.com/130888706
Don't think I've seen that before but can't remember ever watching that with the car running.
With the clutch pedal down, it's the same shake but the fork is well to the passenger side.

There is an exhaust leak and I think maybe a new scratchy hissing sort of sound.
I can't pinpoint it to the bell housing.

TOB?

Quite possible a separated or broken TOB. It has happened to me at least twice. If its an ACT pp, could be a broken finger or cracked diaphragm.

Alright, thanks again. Onward with the pull!
It's a CFDF with 70K or so. TOB is OEM with about 50. Fork and ball are quite old and did see a 2600 before.

My TOB sh!t the bed and clutch pedal became very stiff. As if I could not fully depress it. Maybe 56.79% travel.

For me it's as if something has discintegrated. We will know what very soon!

Can you pull off the little inspection cover and shine a light in to see if you notice any pieces or stuff hanging/broken? Probably the easiest thing to do out of everything mentioned here...although it sounds like the tranny is coming off regardless.

I think I might have found these little friction surfaces behind the little inspection cover. But I did pull off the large inspection cover

The disk is chewed!

Maybe the PP & flywheel are still OK.

https://vimeo.com/131134492

Well that doesn't look right!

I'm wondering though.. because you said you were having trouble getting into gear, ie. the clutch was not disengaging. I'm wondering if your PP was in fact the culprit, and the missing material is part of the result.

Either way, a new clutch should solve your issue, and after 70k is certainly not an early failure

When it was still assembled, a few of the fingers at one side were notably depressed, obviously why the pedal was lighter and the fork was shaking.
Maybe some of the material had rubbed off into a sort of wedge?

If you really want to reuse that pp, send it off to a machine shop for resurfacing. I'd just get a new pp and disk. Try a Southbend setup.

I'm definitely in for a new one, just trying to understand the failure
How is the pedal feel on the Southbend?

If you get the 2200 PP it feels almost 100% stock, the 2700 is slightly stiffer but not like an ACT 2600.

I think its a 2300 lb pp. Same one I am using, stage 3 drag from Ziggy. It has held everything I have thrown at it so far and a 138 MPH pass last year.

I'll second that, it feels like a stock clutch to me.

Says 2200 on TMZ's site. Either way, it works and feels nice.

But the price! Maybe I'm out of touch or maybe the clutch is overkill for my power level and being FWD... ~300 WHP and not expecting much more anytime soon.

Rob I think you would be fine with the stg2 daily or stg2 endurance if you want some headroom.

US exchange is hurting us right now unfortunately.

You could go with a Stage 2 Endurance which will easily handle your power needs and only be $50ish over an comparable ACT setup that could have fingers fly out.

It must of been close to $500 when I purchased one like 2 years ago. I just looked at the price, over $800 after taxes, wow!

I'd probably just take the chance and toss in an new ACT2100 and street disk for half the price if that was me, or maybe a resurfaced pressure plate with a random disk to get you going again, if $$$ is an issue that is.

I have a street disk available. ....and a fidenza flywheel for a 6boly I'll let go for cheap if you are interested.

I'll third the soft pedal with the Southbend. I thought something was wrong at first

Sorry to get a bit off topic, but I thought that machine shops couldn't resurface pressure plates. Am I wrong?

I'm a bit late to the party, but I loved my Southbend as well. Probably the only clutch I will ever buy from now on. I had a stage 2 drag and it was beautiful. Pedal pressure felt stock and it held everything I threw at it.

Thanks! Looks like I'm gonna try the old CFDF with Terry's ACT street disk though. Don't mind squeezing out some KMs on the cheap this year

I'm not sure about the flywheel step height. CF says .603 to .608 while ACT is typically .610?

Long overdue update

I got the pressure plate and flywheel machined by Gord Bush back then, but life stuff happened and I didn't get her back together until this year.

I did a .610 step and installed a new ACT organic street disc.

Just finished breaking it in and the CFDF-ACT combo is holding up nicely for highway pulls. Pedal feel and engagement is similar to before. If anything it's just a little rough/clunky engaging at low RPM compared to the CFDF disc, but that's fine.

Now I've had some fun memory trips getting the car dialed in.
Found that my piggyback (S-AFR) was faulty, so I bypassed it and put idle, fuel pressure and ign. timing back to stock, with a chip for my injectors and 2G MAF. Thanks, V-FAQ! (everything is ECMLink these days).

With all the leaks fixed, new O2 sensor and everything dialed in like stock, the driveability is great!

People seem shocked to see a 1G on the road

Thanks for update and congrats getting your DSM running smooth again. Now we'd like to see a pic of you and DSM or at least just DSM