Clutch arm differences by year.

[Ondonti]

Can anyone explain this? Sorry its hard to read.

[MiniMopar]

Yes, I ran into this when I put a 91 A568 into an 87 CSX. They reclocked the arm in '90 or '91 I think. The arm sits lower on the new trannies requiring a slightly longer cable. I simply ground off one of the splines on the arm so that I could clock it either way. I assume they did this to give the arm more throw over the clutch's lifetime, but it's hard to say. The 88 and earlier arms were missing the counter weight as well.

[BadAssPerformance]

Good tech

[Ondonti]

Here is how to reclock if you want to. My issue with this is that one tooth is going to move the arm a LONG distance.

I am very very glad I just needed to swap arms instead of reclocking.

And I just noticed that I didnt mark the key correctly on the arm in this picture :P
And it should probably say "cut a valley to create two splines"

[MiniMopar]

I took a dremel and removed a spline from the arm. That way the shaft could be left unmodified and the arm would be universal. Either way works.

[rbryant]

As a slightly related note the throw out bearing fork changed somewhere in there too. So if you try to use an older style clutch kit on an 89 tranny the throw out bearing is different. They can be swapped out with only some minor grinding though.

-Rich

[MiniMopar]

Right, the fork and the TOB changed to clear the larger main shaft bearing cup on the A523/543/568. The old TOB has a big square base with big spring clips which will hit the casting. The new TOB has no extra base and wire clips to grab the fork. The fork finger near the cup is also narrower. The new TOB/fork works on the old trannies just fine and the newer TOB has a longer plastic sleeve that is supposed to help keep the TOB from binding up as much on the yolk.

[iTurbo]

Is it possible to separate the shaft and arm while the trans is installed? I tried but they seemed stuck together pretty good even though I removed the e-clip. I need to do this respline mod because I accidently installed the wrong arm/shaft in my Spirit R/T and the stock clutch cable turned out to be too long so I have been using a clutch cable from a '90 Daytona (?) but the clutch pedal feel still isn't quite right. Hopefully I can get away without pulling the engine/trans again.

[Ondonti]

I pulled apart 3 arms. One came apart by hand, the one on my duster needed to be hit with a hammer lightly, and one needed to be torched, then dipped in water, then beaten VERY hard with a hammer.

When your clutch cable is too long, you can cheat using spacers/washers at the transmission which will pull the arm up more.

All you need to do is get the cable into the tolerances that the pedal adjuster can do its job with (i think).

My problem was not enough slack so I couldn't "cheat fix" anything.

Here is an exploded view of the arm etc just for reference.

[MiniMopar]

Yeah, it's hit or miss. The one on the CSX fell apart easily, but it was a Cali car. The rest are varying degrees of difficulty. Soak it good in penetrating oil a few times over a few days to see if it will free up. Driving it while soaked is a plus.

[Ondonti]

I never thought about that, the one that wouldnt come apart was one I had shipped to me from the NE in 2002 and I think that car had rusted out (why it got parted out).

You can tell in my picture up there which one is from the east coast.