I bought a Clutchmaster lightened flywheel for my 91 Teg. I bought an OEM clutch replacement kit. I took to mechanic. They installed. Clutch wouldn't work. They took it apart and determined that the clutch kit was wrong. Since I had supplied the clutch kit, I had to pay them twice, to put my original parts back in with the lightened flywheel (but I had them put a new throwout bearing in, another $35). This all took days.

Finally I get the car back. I take the clutch kit back to Gripforce, a local seller of clutches and flywheels and tell them it didn't work. Technically speaking, the clutch disc was a little too tall, which didn't allow the pressure plate to expand. In addition, the throwout bearing would not slide on the shaft. They said "we move 10 of these a day". I said "bottom line, the parts didn't work in my car". They said "maybe it was mechanic error." I said three mechanics looked at it and it was tested independently at a machine shop and they also verified that the parts would not work. They said "we will investigate and get back to you in one week." Blah, blah, blah.

The story is not over my friends. My car has been making funny noises, occasionally it feels like the engine "shifts" on takeoff or when coming to a stop. Today I lifted the car up and put it in gear and low and behold, the front left wheel is spinning much faster than the front right which also makes a low grinding noise. Great. After all that the mechanic didn't put it back together correctly and who knows what the teeth on my right axle look like. I called the shop, the mechanic was fired last week, I take it in tomorrow morning to get the axle fixed. Hopefully then my nightmare will be over. Of course, I may end up stuck with a greasy but "unused" clutch kit that "may or may not fit 91 Integra's". Curses, foiled again.

On a positive note, I sucessfully installed my fuel pressure gauge and fuel pressure regulator today, a small victory. In addition, I was able to watch prodigious amounts of football this week, amen.

 

By the sounds of it, I would almost agree with the people who supplied you with the clutch kit... if they said "It's fucked up, won't work." and then managed to screw your stock one they put back in up... AND just fired the mechanic that was working on yur shit... I would call them out on it, and make them fix it free of charge..

usually, around here at least... if you're paying out the fucking ass for a mechanic's work, (which I guarentee you were, because a clutch isn't exactly a 20minute job.) and they fuck it up, then it's on their hands to make it work correctly.

i'd look into the machine shop side of the problem a lot more, good luck man.

 

That sucks dude. How much was the labor(that you had to pay twice)? I'm about to have a new clutch and lightened fly installed so I'm definantly going to have to triple check now.

 

Since it sounds like the mechanic may have indeed fuxored the install, I'd start talking with the management of the shop where this install from hell took place.

If they're decent people, they'll do the right thing and repair any potential damage to your transmission.

My condolences.

 

Parts like this you gotta check, double check andf check again to make sure it is the right one for your car. The problem you ran into is supplying your own parts. A shop won't warrant the install. Putting it back together though should have had your car the way you brought it in, but that got fucked up too. Good luck man...

 

Update: Turns out the mechanic didn't tighten down the strut rod bushing on the front right wheel. It squeeked for awhile, then fell off, they fixed it today for free. I was charged 4 hours labor total (for the clutch) at $65/hour. Since the stock clutch parts worked with the aftermarket flywheel, and I visually compared the new OEM clutch kit with the stock clutch kit and found them different, and had 3 mech's and a machine shop check it, I'm 99% positive the parts were the wrong size and it was not bad work. The work was slow, the guy missed some stuff putting things back together, but his ineptness didn't cause the clutch to not work. So, since I supplied the incorrect clutch kit I paid them extra, 3/hrs originally and they tacked one extra hour on after the reinstall. Today they fixed the strut rod bushing free, and they've given me deals/free labor in the past, I buy them Carl's Jr. and donuts occasionally

 

Was the OEM replacement clutch actually OEM, or some cheap brand that claims to be OEM quality?