Clutch questions?

[mikelaser85]

Ok so this is me friends car but I'm helping him rebuild this so i will tell you what I know and if you have any extra questions ill ask him next time I see him. So we are working on a 89 Shelby Daytona freshly rebuild motor with new 6 puck ceramic clutch from TU. Unfortunately that bad news almost a week after we had the motor back in and running great we got some bad rain and his garage flooded water was up to right below the cylinder head. So then we had to get the motor cleaned and running (since there was water everywhere) well in that time the clutch decided to rust to something because we couldn't get it to go into gear after we got everything running great again. My question is we pulled the transmissions last night there is barely any surface rust on everything the clutch was stuck to the pressure plate but took no effort to take it off. Would he be ok cleaning off the rust with like a sotch brite pad and putting it all back together or is it once its rusted the clutch is shot and everything needs to be replace? Thanks

[cordes]

I've got to believe that it couldn't rust enough that quickly to cause a real problem. Clean it up and run it.

[Vigo]

I would just go over it and put it back in. There are lots of stories about clutches sticking to one or the other surface, and usually you can break them loose without taking anything apart just by abusing it. And i havent heard of any of those people having dramatic failures afterwards.

I just put this in my 3.0 dynasty without even cleaning it (makes me friends laugh AND proves them wrong) and it works fine. The clutch disc looked about the same. I was thinking that the rust might lead to the PP fingers breaking, or the hub springs breaking, but ive been abusing it and it's been fine.

[mikelaser85]

His isn't even that bad, I'm just confused why it wouldn't break loose when we tried to jump start it in gear