I am having a problem wrapping my head around my clutch installation. I am using a 347 crate with a 351 bellhousing (1971) with an 11 inch clutch/pressure plate, T5 tranny. The car had an automatic so I have no reference for a manual tranny. Anyway, I want to use a hydraulic clutch. The slave cylinders available all seem to be “push” types mounted behind the clutch fork, but from what I see the clutch fork needs to be pulled back to release the clutch. Does anyone have some pictures or advice on how this set-up should look?
The other thing that doesn’t seem right is the throw-out bearing mounting to the fork. I am using a Hayes fork for a 1971 - 351 motor. The spring clips on the t/o bearing just barely connect to the end of the fork (other pictures showing about where the t/o sits on the fork out of the bellhousing and on the output shaft). Is this the way it should be? Seems like the t/o bearing would break away from the fork even if it turned the slightest bit. Maybe the t/o that came with the clutch kit isn’t quite right…I dunno.
You are correct, the fork should be pushed or pulled toward the rear of the car to dis-engage the clutch. You can use a push type slave cylinder attached to the rear of the motor/ front of bell-housing ( like I did on mine) or a pull type slave cylinder attached on trans behind fork.
Either will work. The other option, and one I do not recommend, is to use a hydraulic throw out bearing that does not use the fork. I threw mine across the garage after the ninth time of yanking the trans to figure out why it would leak like a sieve and not seal.
I am not sure from your pictures, but do you have the fork clipped in correctly? Shouldn’t the clips go on top of the fork arm? I might be wrong though on that.
Make sure you have measured your clearances for the throw out bearing to the clutch release fingers prior to installing so you don’t have the clutch partially disengaged when you tighten down the bell-housing to the motor.
Oh, and another issue you might have is bleeding that slave cylinder. Only way I could get all the air bubbles out of mine was to reverse bleed it using a phoenix systems reverse bleeder tool.
I’m not sure you’ve assembled the clutch fork and TOB correctly. Please see if you can verify that before going to far down the assembly. I’m using a hydraulic slave cylinder type clutch release for my TKO but I’m using the Fox body aluminum bell housing which requires the clutc( fork to move towards the front of the car to depresss the diaphragm spring fingers on the pressure plate. Check with Modern Drive line for what they offer for your early OEM bellhousing.
Modern Driveline offers a Wilwood pull type slave cylinder by the way.
Thinking back on my trans swap (3 speed manual to TKO-600 5 speed), I originally intended to retain the stock Ford Z bar mechanical linkage for clutch release with the same bellhousing you have now. After struggling with header clearance and steering shaft clearance (rack and pinion swap) and discussing these with MDL, I changed course and went with a T5 aluminum bellhousing and 157 tooth flywheel with 10.5” clutch as the only hydraulic kit for use with the early bellhousing was a hydraulic TOB not the slave cylinder. This was an additional cost over what I already had but I wasn’t sold on the hydraulic TOB and I cut quite a bit of weight out of the system with the aluminum bell, aluminum flywheel, and aluminum driveshaft.
Are you sure that clutch fork is correct for this application? The foxbody-era T5 stuff I used there’s a pivot stud for the clutch fork to ride on like this:
I combined that with the Modern Driveline external (push style) slave cylinder:
That’s completely different than the setup I have as well. Mine pushes the fork forward and the fork pivots on a stud on the opposite side of the bell housing.
I have a hydraulic set up on my 69, and I still haven’t been able to get the air out of it. I did find an OEM tool that should be the hot ticket to get mine to bleed, but honestly, I almost would rather have gone with a cable set up. I have the cable in my 68 with T-5, and thanks to people I thought I could trust, I am now on my 3rd cable.
The phoenix systems reverse bleeder was the only thing that got all the air bubbles out of my slave cylinder. I bled it till I was blue in the face before getting ahold of one of those and using it.
If you get one, do not leave any trace of brake fluid in it when you are done, or the o-ring in it will stick and when you try to use it again, you will break the plastic shaft that pumps fluid through it.
If you happen to break it, putting another slightly smaller diameter plastic or metal tube inside it centered on the break and epoxied together works nicely to repair it……but I wouldn’t have first hand knowledge of that…
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