throwout bearing

[etandrews]

I bought a 1973 series 3 petrol a couple of months ago and when I depressed the clutch a terrible ticking sound came from the bellhousing. I thought it needed a new clutch but when I removed the transmission the clutch disc, pressure plate and throwout bearing looked to be in fairly new condition. The throwout bearing nearly fell off the shaft. While I was cleaning it up I found the staple clip in the bellhousing. My question is. Is that clip supposed to hold the throwout bearing to the release lever and should there be 2 of them? If I put the staple clip on and pull the shaft that goes into the slave cylinder in and out the clip will come off. I don't want to his back together unless I know it's correct. Thank You ! Ed

[lumpydog]

Picture of the staple will help others diagnose. Really, any pictures at all.

Nice work getting all the way to the bearing. That's a journey. Agreed - close it up only if you know you got it all back right.

[etandrews]

I bought 2 of the clips from here, they are in the clutch section under the slave cylinder and throwout assembly, there is a picture of them. It was a journey, getting over the learning curve was the hard part. I intended to change the clutch and the service manual said you just have to move the transmission back 5 inches, I thought I could do it without removing the seat box, no such luck. It has a rocky mountain overdrive so I had to remove that housing. Since I had the seat box out I pulled the transmission and put it on a bench to clean it up, that's when I found the clip. There is also a bolt missing from the pinion cover, I took one out of another hole and when I tried to screw it in it wouldn't tighten up, someone stripped the hole threads so I'm going to use a helicoil and get another bolt. While I have it out I'm going to check the emergency brake parts.

[Les Parker]

Hi,
Any further info? Let me know if there's something that I can assist with.

[etandrews]

Thank You Les! I think the problem might be the clip shaped like a staple, I received the new clips and the old one was noticeably bent beyond 90 degrees. Hopefully that was the problem and the throwout bearing wasn't seated properly to the release lever(fork) and the whole bearing assembly was turning.