Definitely interested. It will be a good place to use and refer to in the future.

 

Go for it. Great to see how its done

 

yes please

 

Okay guys, I will go over a few details about getting to remove the clutch. I'm assuming most of this is stuff people will know how to get to already so I will just throw in tid bits to removing the gear box and torque tube.


Here are a few photos...

This is a photo of one of the half shafts that you push forward, the service manual suggests taking it completely out with the tie rods. It's unnecessary.....I took this photo when I separately removed the actuator....

This is the gear box already removed.....I relocated the F1 Res. to the trunk which is why you don't see it on the box. It added another dimension for me but this won't be a problem for normal folks........

Use a 15mm "S" wrench for the top torque tube bolts on the gear box side. All of the torque tube bolts on both sides take a 15mm wrench/socket.....8 on each side...16 total on both sides. If you don't want to just drop the gear box, and you are replacing the clutch.....Do yourself a favor drop your exhaust out first. Then you can lower the gear box a bit so you have more room to work on top of the torque tube. The half shafts use a 13mm 12 point wrench or socket. The transmission/gear box cross-member bolts are 13 mm as well.

​

Photo for reference of the torque tube bolts on the bell housing side; also the hydraulic line is attached on top of the torque tube all the bolts are 10mm for the clips:

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All of the nuts on the bell housing are 15mm as well EXCEPT the bolts going into the starter.....they are 13mm...(shown below)

You can use a deep well 15mm socket with extensions to access all of the rest of the Bell housing bolts. If you have an impact it will be really easy, if not you'll need a breaker bar for some of them....

The Red wire is the F1 sensor wire....you will need to push it off it's plastic mounting so you can access the harness to disconnect it:

Before I forget there is a cross member that you'll need to take off to drop the secondary cats and down pipes down and needs to be out of the way to drop the bell housing. It's 2 bolts each side 13mm, the sway bar doesn't need to be taken off the car just disconnect it, 13mm two nuts each side and swing it down out of your way.

Here's the thrust bearing and bell housing:

​

 

Thrust bearing removal

Okay so I know I skipped through the gear box removal and torque tube removal pretty quickly. Lets slow it down now to the parts people are going to need to know.
I think it could especially help some of the guys who don't have the star bracket in the back of the bell housing. Let me lead with that so that you guys know what I am talking about. So the star bracket is behind the throw out bearing in the newer GS cars..... here is a photo from the service manual showing it:

The arrows are pointing at the star bracket. Now if you have a newer Mas. that's great because it will be easier for you to remove the thrust bearing, all you need to do is loosen those bolts on the star bracket and your thrust bearing will come out after you take care of the hydraulic lines and sensor wiring, if not and yours is like mine here are some pointers:

Here's a pic of what mine looks like:

Your going to start by loosing the unions up, the service manual doesn't have the greatest photos for this so I thought I would add them here:

That's a 13mm wrench, you can push them out of the way or do what I did and just take them out of the way altogether so as not to deform the hydraulic lines by bending them out of the holes:

Next you'll need to take off the F1 Sensor wire tie downs/clips.....it's 10mm, socket or stubby wrench:

You have two hex head bolts behind the thrust bearing that need to come out and you need to also remove the retaining thrust bearing pin bolts as well. The hex bolt and retaining pin bolt I am speaking about are marked with yellow paint in the photo, don't pay attention to the allen bolt yet. There are two more on the other side of the thrust bearing as well. Both are 13mm.

Now you might be wondering "why don't you just use an allen wrench or hex head and remove the base and it will all come out together?" Good question, the reason I believe they went with the star bracket design was so that you can do this and after it's out remove the thrust bearing pins. As it stands with this design you cannot do that. Look at the last photo above and you will notice the base is slightly clocked on the top of the allen bolt on the right side of the photo preventing you from taking it out or even loosening it up until you take it all apart and clock it back away from the hole. It's not just that one there's another allen bolt on the opposing side identical to it with the base clocked over it as well. So after you loosen the pin bolts, and the hex bolts, clock the base back away from the allen bolt holes, use a 5mm allen wrench and loosen all of them up. If your wondering what's holding it in before you loosen those allen bolts it's the F1 sensor magnet and pin shown here in a side view:

The photo above shows the pin/magnet coming down from the thrust bearing into the base of the F1 sensor. Additionally you can see the springs still in place because of it. You need to take out the 5mm allen bolts that hold it onto the thrust bearing base LEAVING the sensor attached like so:

The pin/magnet slides into the base plate only one way and you cannot get it disoriented:

Notice the flat head screw adjustment pointed towards the front of the thrust bearing on the magnet.....you want to make sure when you remove the dowel pin and take it off it's pointed in the same direction on the new thrust bearing......this is very important if you get it wrong it will throw the sensor off......

Here is where the metal dowel pin is at. You will need to press this out, you can also file it flat if need be and use a hammer and metal dowel, or small drill bit to knock it out (put the side that goes in the chuck towards the metal dowel pin, don't put the sharp side you drill with into the pin or you will flare the pin out making it bite into the metal. No you won't use that bit again to drill with but it will work fine if you don't have a press, or a metal dowel the same size to hammer it out with.) Be careful not to hammer so as to bend the F1 pin and magnet.

After you remove the dowel pin, use a cresent wrench or an appropriate sized wrench, and twist the magnet 180 degrees and it will come right out.

You will need to use a new dowel pin when you install it on the new thrust bearing........The service manual had bad diagrams of how to remove the magnet and pin so this should help some guys here......Remember that the flat head screw faces forward! That's it for now I don't have my F1 sensor it's in route so I won't put it together yet. I also would recommend you guys use the thrust bearing from Hill Engineering and not the OEM one they have a tendency at times to fail.

 

clutch pack removal

Let's go onto the clutch pack removal as I just finished it today......Dave I have something you are going to want to see. Anyone chime in when you see both the Pressure Plate and the Flywheel. The gear heads will notice it immediately.........

Here is the clutch pack below:

There are three sets of three Allen head bolts attaching the PP/Clutch pack to the flywheel. Number them mentally, then you are going to put "2", "5", and "8" by the corresponding allen bolts like I do in the photo below. These numbers are all in the center of the clusters of three. The photo above shows all the allen bolts in the PP, the one below also shows that you are going to remove all the other allen bolts but the ones you marked in the centers. There's a very specific reason for this which we are going to discuss in a minute but first let me cover something very specific about the marks:

You will see one straight line Yellow/Red mark in the photo above right beside the number "2". That is a factory Yellow mark I remarked with a red marker. It's there to show the Installer, though the clutch was factory balanced [notice the 7 shinny drill out marks to the left of number "5" in the photo above used to balance the clutch pack], the part of the clutch that's furthest Out of balance.
The mark on the PP is a 180 degrees off from a counter mark on the flywheel teeth shown below. I remarked the marks in Red paint marker.

Now I only remarked them to make sure I knew where they were at should I find I needed or could reuse something......that's not going to be possible for me. But you will also have marks identical to this on your new flywheel and clutch pack. They always will line up 180 degrees from each other. The science is that you are putting these the closest in balance for the car by putting them across from each other. Don't worry I know someone is going to bring up balancing the clutch and we will discuss that and the reasons why I don't believe it's necessary. Don't worry Mas. Enthusiast this discussion has to take place to do your own work. I will add it in a separate posting below. For now we are going back to numbers 2-5-8...

So you only have the three bolts left correct? Please note the clutch alignment tool already set for removal above.

There is a reason why you saved these three for last.. it's because when they balance the clutch on the car (if they do so.....you can look it up in the service manual).......these are the allen bolts the counter weights will go on.

Here's an interesting point. This is a factory clutch on an 02' Maserati Spyder, it originally had the single disc clutch pack, it was recalled and a double disc clutch pack was put in by the Dealership. When I removed the bolts that were supposed to have counter weights on them it didn't have any. Again we will talk below about this in a separate posting let me get back to the clutch pack.........

Now be careful if you actually do have counterweights on the clutch-pack on these bolts to MARK them to the corresponding hole/position on the clutch pack. This way if you find you want to reuse something or you don't need to replace the clutch you can put them back where they go. I use zip lock baggys when I take things apart and mark on the baggy with a permanent marker.

Here is your clutch pack......

​

Now if you want to take your clutch pack apart and remove the discs from the PP there are 3 8mm bolts to do so on the clutch pack. It's the only ones left, you will be able to spot them easily. ....Here's one below in the photo, they go all the way through the clutch pack ....

After taking the clutch discs out I wanted to take measurements on the disc sizes checking how far gone they are......Larry you asked about this as well....The disc that had 5.37 mm seemed extremely close to the rivet.....Larry I think the 4.5mm might be closer to 5mm for completely gone friction discs.

​

So I have saved the best for last.......... Dave here you go see if you can spot it.....Here is what the flywheel and the inside of the pressure plate looked like (you have to remove the clutch discs to check the inside part of the PP)......


Flywheel:

Inside PP:

​

 

Theres hot spots all thruout that pressure plate. I wouldn't even consider resurfacing that. Id trash it

 

Hey folks Larry is the winner!! Ha! Well I wasn't going to use the old PP Larry.......did you notice the flywheel? The funny thing is I think I know how I did it, and I honestly didn't even catch the connection to it......my wife did. But this makes sense to me now that I know the Pressure plate and the fly wheel are burnt up.....I think this is the reason there weren't any "CC" lights on the dash and the car couldn't figure why it wasn't going into gear. It kept making this funny sound when I attempted to put it into gear before...it's hard to describe it. But the only sensor in the bell housing in this year was the F1 sensor. So unless that goes there's no way for the car to pick this up.

 

Wasnt that reported on the UK site by 2b
I'd check the response lodgement time as you may have a protest lodged

 

Lol Adam your right I didn't even think of that! I guess Larry worded it differently, but your correct the answer is essentially the same.

 

I just now got to see the pics on something besides my phone :lightout:

What did you do to those poor surfaces?

 

Dave you know I didn't make the connection.......but you'd think I was doing burn-outs, hot starts off the line, dropping the clutch, down shifting like it's a 454 hot rod. Do you remember when I lost my F1 pump about a year and half ago? My wife brought this up, and I totally forgot about it. We lost it on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire line. I live just North of Boston. When I lost the pump it stayed in whatever gear it was in.......umm well I was in 6th gear. I wanted to get home and instead of turning the car off, pulling over and towing it. I did something extra special that I thought would never catch up to me.............I drove it home. Well, see if it was all high way that wouldn't be particularly bad. But did you know our cars have enough power and torque to actually get down to 15 miles an hour in 6th
! No really it can! Isn't that a nice fact! :autofahrer::thumbsdown:
I was driving on the side skirts of the highway to get around traffic, and I made it within a mile of the house before I decided to shut it down. Yea,.......... all the fun facts aren't so fun anymore, and I do believe my wisdom for the car was in the trunk that day. I am pretty certain that would do it........what do you think? I would kick myself in the backside but it wouldn't help right now when I have the car doing it for me. All those nice hot spots in the pressure plate, and fly wheel. So, I bought a new fly wheel already, I know I could probably get it resurfaced but I don't know how bad it is. Is it warped, I don't know? But best to start new so I know what's there. The sensor is in route already, and now I'm looking for a clutch. If you want the story to get better, here you go, I have AAA Plus. I just had to wait, and they would have sent me the type of tow truck I needed. I always get on to my mechanic friend about cutting corners, to do it right regardless of what it is.....always......I also always tell him when I do it wrong or cut corners I pay for it.............. Chalk it up, I cut a corner and it's costing me. It just took the car this long to catch up to what I did to it that long ago. Looks good on a car carrier all summer, would have looked better driving it around. I can't wait to see what Steve says at Aston Martin of New England when he sees the pics I emailed him to show Dave the Ferrari tech. I'm going to act like I don't even know what happened.....lol...hopefully he doesn't read the forum that much!! I'm going to be like, "man that must of been the other owner", "who would do such a thing?! How dumb can a person be!!!" ROFL!!
So Dave I would rather of been doing burn-outs and hot starts off the line. At least I would have made the connection sooner. But be that as it may add this to Pressure Plate failure, clutch spring retainer failure, and whatever else our systems cannot pick up.

 

Craig
I am back from Hershey.It is a different world than ours . 18 miles of car part flee market and thousands of show cars from first ever made cars to muscle .
I read and saw the pictures I am impressed by your courage to go it alone . What a great service you are doing all of us !
I live about 50 miles from you.I would like to see it before you put it together . Can we do it?

 

That would do it. I suppose with the pot(and perhaps actuator) failure adding to the mix, the clutch just couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't tell from the pics, but are the friction discs glazed? The last time I saw surfaces like that was when a guy brought me his LandCruiser and asked for a new clutch and some serious gearing changes for rock crawling.

 

@Nishon I wouldn't mind having you over. Send me a PM, lets talk off line.

@Dave yes it had a bit of glaze to it.....it's hard to see with the angle I took of the friction discs and flash. Why I ever thought it was smart is beyond me. I was heading to my Grandmother's birthday party when it happened. There was a bit of traffic going through the Hamptons when it kept blowing the fuse. People were honking when I was stopped on the side of the road when it did blow. My friend brought me a fuse or two which got me turned around. I knew better and did it anyway. The real funny thing is I thought I got away with it.

Well, I am pretty sure that's what that funny sound was. I'm not totally sure why it would click Reverse and nothing else but when PPs, clutches and fly wheels get like this there's no telling for our cars what they will do.

 

After reading many accounts of the symptoms of a malfunctioning clutch on this forum and others, the only trend seems to be that they almost never act like a malfunctioning clutch. Then when they do, it probably isn't the clutch. just the other day, my car started acting like a normal manual with a worn clutch. Heavy slipping and jerky engagement. I knew it wasn't worn out, so I pull into a lot, shut down, reset the ECU while I'm siting there, start up and everything is fine. No idea why, and it hasn't misbehaved since. Because it acted like a clutch, I have to assume that there's something wrong with the radio...

 

Lol Dave that's so funny.......I'm sure it's the radio!!

 

Craig, kinda funny that ur measurement and mine were very close. I had very little to go as far as the depth of that rivet was, as u saw in the pic

 

I agree Larry, I had to revise the post because I got words mixed around. The 5.34mm side was right on top of the rivet. When I showed Steve the photos of Aston Martin of New England he was shocked as well because of what the Leo system stated was left. I actually think 5mm is the size of a wasted friction disk.....4.5mm I believe the rivet would have already been digging into the fly wheel or PP.

 

Brilliant, Dave

C

 

I only had 35% clutch wear, or 65% clutch left.

 

So based on your measurements am i right in saying the analyser readings are way out - more like the opposite with excess of 65% wear ?

 

Yes this what Steve stated at the Aston Martin dealer he thought someone must of messed with the clutch parameters before I received it. I received an email from him this morning. But even if you flipped the numbers and said It had only 35% left if still wouldn't add up because one side was almost flush with the rivets. Either case I guess we know what it will look like when it's done.

 

Well,,i think we just proved the sd3 readout is NO way to give any idea how much clutch life is left....Craig, did u get ur new clutch yet. When you do can you take a same pic showing the measurement thickness

 

No I haven't received it yet Larry. Actually I haven't ordered it yet. I still need to, but what I can tell so far Eurospares.com is cheaper than anyone over here in the U.S. even with shipping. I have ordered the F1 sensor from them, and I plan to order the clutch pack if I can find no one else to lower the price or at least match them.

 

So for whatever reason when I use my credit card over there for EuroSpares everyone thinks my credit card was stolen. They did it with the F1 sensor and they did it again with the flywheel. It's a bit frustrating but I'm kind of glad they did because I decided to take my fly wheel off and take a closer look. I'm pretty certain that with the material they have on this fly wheel and it's thickness I didn't burn it up or put stress cracks in it. I decided to take it to a local machine shop to second what I was thinking.......so I just dropped it off. They stated it was good to go. They are going to machine it and hot tank it.....It only cost me $50 which of course I was happy about....Here's a side photo of the FlyWheel...

 

Craig, make sure they machine the outer area where the PP bolts up the same amount as the surface or you`ll have problems...I pray every time I take something to a machine shop...If you haven`t done time in jail, I`m not sure they`ll hire you. Jason

 

ohhh Jason, I didn't even think of that.........The guy I use over here where I'm at is an old time machine shop guy. Older gentleman a bit abrasive at times but trophies line his wall from racing. That being stated, I did not tell him that, I dropped it off without a second thought. Thank you I hope I can catch him tomorrow and ask him to do it before he finishes. I won't even call I think I will just drop in.......

Hey Jason hopefully while your still on the forum, I'm going to get the clutch pack/fly wheel balanced together off the car. I was actually going to write about this below but I was thinking about lightening the fly wheel on the girl when I do it. What do you think? I realize the pros and cons of it. I'm not talking about a ton of weight but man when I took that thing off the car I was surprised at how heavy it was. I really think it would help it's doggy acceleration a bit......I know it will also drop quicker but..............thoughts?

Actually Dave, I should ask you as well. Sorry about that I know what you do for a living. Well, I shouldn't aim the question at any particular person I guess. If anyone has a background and understands what I'm talking about please feel free to chime in. I'm not an Exclusionist, I don't want to change the thread either but it might me an option. I hear of a lot of different things on the forum about making mods to make better performance. Haven't heard of anyone lightening the 50 lb flywheel yet. It's like a 55 gallon drum taking that thing out of there!

 

If you don`t take it off both parts you reduce the clamping force on the clutch. They are gonna take at least .010-.015 off the surface...a mm is .039..see what I`m saying. The old crabby guy probably already knows this actually...J

 

Lighted flywheel...That is a no...That works on a race car because the revs are up and you don`t need the mass...On a street car it works against you coming off a stop light...That mass is what gets the car going...I imagine it would get the F1 box all messed up as far how quickly it releases...J