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Hi Guys-
I've never replaced a clutch before but I'm in the thick of it. Not entirely sure what exactly caused mine to go sideways but the flex-plate is pretty scored up and the release fork had a crack so no doubt that's a likely answer. I have another fork on the way. In the meantime i'm wondering if the flywheel Plate (is that what i'm looking at?) is bad. I've seen videos on how to check for cracking and mine doesn't have anything super obvious, to me anyways, but I do wonder about the light crackle look in places. Is this what's meant by cracking and should it be replaced or resurfaced?
For a 2004 Base Mini (pre-July)
Take the flywheel down to a machine shop and ask them to check to see it can resurfaced.
I was a machinist and I wouldn't attempt to resurface that flywheel. Almost certainly it would take too much metal to get down to good base iron below the heat damage layer.
Even if it would clean up I'd not want to risk a comeback for any reason.
I got a luk dmf I'm selling for cheap if your looking for a good replacement flywheel..my buddy used it barely 2months , it's literally dang near new. No need for resurfacing or anything..
lmk if your interested , id let it go fir 50$ only. Then you can get a luk clutch and have a good clutch setup on the low.
@RockC - came back with a clean bill of health. there's still A LOT of meat on it; they didn't have to go far to remove the heat spots they said. I think once my release fork broke the clutch was just being pushed crooked on the fly wheel and caused the uneven heating. I don't think it got a lot of time in this condition. shifting went from fine to almost impossible over night and that's when i stopped driving it. @MiniManAdam - that's not the right flywheel. mine has a raised clutch surface. that's prob july 2004 and after. my car is pre july '04, really hard to find cheap flywheels for my model. the cheapest i found was around 5 bills.
@RockC - came back with a clean bill of health. there's still A LOT of meat on it; they didn't have to go far to remove the heat spots they said. I think once my release fork broke the clutch was just being pushed crooked on the fly wheel and caused the uneven heating. I don't think it got a lot of time in this condition. shifting went from fine to almost impossible over night and that's when i stopped driving it. @MiniManAdam - that's not the right flywheel. mine has a raised clutch surface. that's prob july 2004 and after. my car is pre july '04, really hard to find cheap flywheels for my model. the cheapest i found was around 5 bills.
The cracks more than the heat spots bothered me.
Sure looked toast to me. But glad I was proved wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by uneze @RockC - came back with a clean bill of health. there's still A LOT of meat on it; they didn't have to go far to remove the heat spots they said. I think once my release fork broke the clutch was just being pushed crooked on the fly wheel and caused the uneven heating. I don't think it got a lot of time in this condition. shifting went from fine to almost impossible over night and that's when i stopped driving it. @MiniManAdam - that's not the right flywheel. mine has a raised clutch surface. that's prob july 2004 and after. my car is pre july '04, really hard to find cheap flywheels for my model. the cheapest i found was around 5 bills.
I'm almost positive 02-08 all used the same flywheel..some are just different in design. Yours might be a 1x piece, this one I showed is a luk dmf that's an oem replacement. My 1x piece lightweight aluminum flywheel looks completely different..
we'll see who was right once I get it moving again!
you'll be the second person to know if it blows up. haha
Had you brought the flywheel to me I would have looked up the specs to see what the minimum thickness was and made an estimate of how much material might need to be removed. If the amount of material estimated to be removed was too close to bringing the flywheel under size (too thin) I would have declined the job. But I have to again mention the cracks really worry me. I would have declined the job just on the presence of the cracking.
