Clutch plate diaphragm finger wear

[iTurbo]

I recently pulled the Luk clutch out of the old engine/trans setup that used to be in my Omni GLH. It was an '89 2.5L TI with an A525. The clutch was the Luk Turbo II clutch and I wasn't having any problems with it before it spun a rod bearing.

I took the clutch out today and the disc looks great. The plate looks good too, other than the fact that the tips of the diaphragm fingers are worn badly. Some of the tips had already broken off and others were paper thin. It appeared that if I had run this clutch much longer, the throw out bearing would have gone right through the diaphragm!

What would cause this kind of wear? I didn't have THAT many miles on this setup, maybe 20-30k miles tops. The only thing I can think of is perhaps the clutch cable was too short and causing the TOB to constantly be in contact with the diaphragm. Basically I'm trying to think of what I can do to prevent this from happening again.

[boboli]

Poor metal quality?
Many cars have tb's that constantly ride the fingers of the pp.
I would think wear would only occur when you push the pedal in. Once the pedal is all the way in, the tb face should be held pretty firm to the pp fingers, as long as the clutch worked as intended and didn't slip.
How's the tb face look? Is it chewed up or still like new?

[iTurbo]

The TOB looks just fine actually. I can't remember having any issues installing the clutch cable.....just stock L-body stuff so I don't think it was riding against the fingers excessively.

I looked through my stash of used clutches tonight. I have a few Luk and Sachs pressure plates. It sure looks like the Luk plates have the diaphragm fingers stick out more. The Sachs plates on the other hand appear 'flatter' and don't have the wear that the Luk plates do. I'm starting to rethink Luk clutches although they've done fine by me in the past.

I have witnessed a turbo Mopar have the TOB go right through the diaphragm before. It was on an '89 Lebaron GTS that my brother bought a long time ago. Right after buying it, he was driving it home and the clutch failed. TOB went through the diaphragm....although I can't remember what brand of clutch that was.

[turismolover22]

Either the tob was being pushed into it, due to a cable, or the diaphragm fingers were "taller" than a stock pressure plate. There could of been something that broke off, like a finger end, that happened to bounce its way around behind the tob fork. Unlikely, but possible in our small transmissions.Have you measured whats left of the clutch against a different pressure plate. Say a stock or modified one?

[iTurbo]

No, haven't measured anything yet. I have not thrown away the faulty Luk plate yet. Although I did find another used Luk plate in my stash that has some wear, but seems like it would be fine to reuse.

Yeah....trying to save some money here. I figure if I inspect the parts really good and and clean the ---- out of them, I can save myself some money. This is for a relatively stock TI build so I'm not expecting to make more than about 180 WHP on this setup.

[turismolover22]

Well i may have a stock t1 pressure plate lying around. You can have it, and i have the t2 stocker you can have too lol. When i get the rest of the crap out.

[boboli]

Heck, if new got you 20-30k, then a used pp should get you 10k. My transmission seems to spend more time out than in.