metaruss

A nasty skin infection has kept me out of the garage for a couple of weeks, but I did manage to paint all of the welded areas on the core support and the new intercooler-related bracketry.  I also welded lips onto the intercooler pipes by carefully tacking 1/16″ stainless steel rings make from rod stock onto the edges.  My initial plan was to roll beads into them with a Harbor Freight bead roller that I got on sale.  Well the rollers were too large to fit into the tubes, so that didn’t work.  I was going to try to have different rollers made, but it wasn’t worth the effort.

The issue I was having at the track with the clutch in the CSX was a good reality check that this LUK T3 clutch isn’t going to hold.  I had purchased a TU “Dual Performance” ceramic/organic clutch for this powertrain, however I found that I accidentally ordered the early small spline version (the small shaft has 18 splines, while the large shaft has 17 splines).  I had a new T3 disc kicking around, so I just tossed that in instead.  I’ve ordered a TU Kevlar clutch (appears to be a Clutchnet clutch disc) that should hold well.  It has a little less holding power than the ceramic puck discs, but I should get much better mileage out of it.  The 6-puck that I had in the CSX before was shot after about 30k.  It sucks to have to drop the trans again, but it’s a lot easier now than it will be when it is all buttoned-up and covered in the inevitable grease.