My clutchingless engagement

You had the engine out? 'CAuse it sounds like the throwout bearing is either broken, or not correctly mounted on ther ZF nose. The anti-rattle spring should hold it in position during assembly. Its possible the shift linkage is not aligned correctly- the procedure is in your REd Owners Manual and works if you follow it exactly. Other possibilities are lots of air in the hydraulics, a blown-0out clutch master or slave... quite a few possibilities. I'd first check shifter alignment.

I did have to put the linkage back together and adjusted it according to the technical information book(which doesn't say much). Mine is an early 71. Does the red owners manual tell anything different that would make it worth buying? Thanks!

I had a similar experience after having the tranny rebuilt. I spoke with a guy that Marino from Pantera East hooked me up with. Even though he hadn't done the rebuild on it he walked me through a couple things. One thing he had me do was use a vice grip on the input shaft where the linkage hooks up and manually see if I could get it in gear. (It takes a fair amount of effort). Have a helper sit in the car and move the gear selector around the various gears while you watch the linkage. I noticed that where the linkage slips over the input shaft and the bolt goes through it to hold it in place was slipping about 5 degrees before the input shaft started to turn. The hole where the bolt goes through had become oversized so I drilled up to the next larger bolt size and put a larger bolt in it. Cured the slop, cured the shifting problem. The unnamed vendors only solution was to crate it back up and ship it back to California but I would have to eat the shipping about $500 if it turned out to be something besides the transmission. This after a full rebuild, 2nd gear synchro and polish job and round trip truck freight from Florida to the tune of about $2600. Didn't even want to discuss what I might check or where else to look. Next time I go to RBT

Sounds to me like your throw is not yet into the pressure plate (you're moving t/o bearing only). If it looks like you're getting sufficient throw at the slave (bled well), you may need to experiment with the position of where your lever goes onto the splines of the transaxle to get the best angle (that is, if you removed it when you pulled the drivetrain). The geometry there can be critical. I had similar problems recently when putting a NOS t-axle in and after MUCH tweaking finally got barely enough disengagement. I put the old t-axle back in (for other reasons) and no problems. So changing components can have an effect on what can be a very narrow margin area on many cars to begin with.

The linkage arm for the clutch fork has not been removed. With the trans in gear and the clutch arm all the way out(even with help with pliers), the clutch still is not disengaged. I took the transaxle out today, and the throw out bearing is fine & still attached with the clip to the clutch arm. Does the car being a pushbutton, aluminum flywheel, dash 1 have anything to do with it?Thanks!!

Yikes--that's even worse than the problem I was having, also on a pushbutton /-1. That eliminates the issue of the hydraulics as the immediate problem. The only other info I know next is what I learned from PPC Colorado. You can SHIM the t/o bearing for more throw. I'd suggest you contact them as to suggestions there. Assuming you're comfortable you have /-1 compatible pressure plate & clutch, it would seem to me that's where you have to go next. Keep us posted.

This might be a dumb question... Did you put the clutch disk in correctly ? This would cause your problem.

One other thought I had. I recall NOT being able to move the throwout lever with pliers into pressure plate range. We had to use a crowbar on the lever arm to even begin to budge the p.p. My p.p. is a pretty standard 3-finger type from Pantera Performance Center but may be somewhat stiffer than stock. I came to have a new respect for the power of a hydraulic system during my ordeal! Are you sure you were getting full operation of the throwout rod? Of course, my concern is, even if you get to where you get enough mechanical release with shim, crowbar, etc., you've then got to be able to get the slave to give that much throw. A long-throw slave upgrade will help some, but may still not be enough. I had a local hydraulic guy say he could somehow source or make me a slave with more throw if needed.

The clutch disc is in right.It will only go one way if you want to put the pressure plate on . I am getting a good bit of throw. I could see things move through the inspection holes, but not enough to release it. The clutch fork arm moves far enough that the retaining bolt hits the bell housing! I called several vendors, but they must be in Vegas this week, as both PPC & PI Motorsports had recordings. This might be the problem though, the new pressure plate is 1/8 of inch shorter(further from the throw out bearing) than my original. That distance could easily be what I am looking for, so here is my next question - is a dash 2 pressure plate different than a dash 1?I know that -1 & -2 clutches are different, but how? Thanks!!

snip.... I took the transaxle out today, and the throw out bearing is fine & still attached with the clip to the clutch arm. Does the car being a pushbutton, aluminum flywheel, dash 1 have anything to do with it?Thanks!!

Yes- definately. On aluminum flywheels, the flange that attaches to the crank is thgicker to gain some strength back. On a few alum flywheels I've seen, the extra thickness pushes the clutch surface closer to the tranny. To fix, remove the hydraulic bellcrank and move it a few splines, then reattach.