I was wondering what the required amout of travel was required to disengage the clutch. I'm making my own hydraulic clutch and don't want to overextend the springs when i'm setting it up. Looking at the Howe website it states that their TO bearings have .789 to travel, is this what i should shoot for? Jeramie
I'm looking at the same issue. As you said the Howe bearing has .789 inches of travel. A Southwest Spped clone of that bearing has .760 of travel, while the QuarterMaster version has .625 travel. I believe any will work, you just have to shim them as necessary. I was going to use a hyd. TO brg. as a last resort since I don't have room near the exhaust manifold to mount a push-type slave cylinder. I was leery of the internal hyd brg since I'd heard they are prone to leaking and then contaminating your clutch disc. Rebuilding also required trans removal. But, it seems the leakage problems are due to overextending the bearing because of not have a clutch pedal stop. So, I thought I could overcome that problem with proper setup. Then, I read in the QuarterMaster instruction sheet that shims have to routinely be removed for clutch adjustment to compensate for clutch disc wear. Again, you have to drop the trans to remove shims. BS! So, I'll probably now use a Howe pull-type slave cylinder (Summit #HRE-829 $47.69), mounted off a stud that'll replace one of the trans side cover bolts, to actuate a standard clutch fork. Cheaper than the internally mounted bearing and alot easier to service.
I forgot to mention another brand internal hydraulic TO bearing, if you choose that route. It is the RAM brand, part number 78125, .700" travel, $135. I cannot recall if you can buy direct or have to go through third-party supplier. With the four choices of Howe, Southwest Speed, QuarterMaster and RAM all $150 or less, it makes me wonder why the McLeod brand unit is $375+?
Spoke to the folks at Southwest Speed and they tell me that no, you shouldn't ever have to the adjust bearing for clutch wear by removing shims. Bearings have approximately 3/4" of travel. Disengagement of clutch only requires about 5/16" of travel, so there's more than enough available movement to compensate for clutch wear.
I did a whole thread on this a while back. the key is to get the proper sized master cylinder that won't blow the TO up. I've done this whole swap already and detailed it pretty well for a while with the correct PNs and stuff. Its pretty straight forward. I only needed one shim if i remember right.
