I was out driving my Duster today, the car seemed to be working great, no problems at all.

I got on the gas pretty hard in 1st and went to stab the clutch to shift to second and the clutch hit the floor and stayed there. The car stayed in 1st and no over-rev (car has EFI with fuel cut).

I drove the car home in 1st gear (about 2 miles) and jacked it up. At first, it looked like the fork had somehow come off the throw out bearing. Once I pulled the fork out, I found that the input shaft bearing retainer broke basically at the base of the machined section.

The car has a Centerforce dual friction clutch, 23 spline A-833, quicktime bellhousing, stock fork, and a pivot I had to modify when I put the bellhousing in. I've been driving the car for about 3 years (maybe 3000 miles or so) with this setup.

Any ideas on why this would break? I'd like to fix it for good. Never had any shifting problems and I did dial in the bellhousing when I installed it.

Thanks for any help!

Hopefully your aware that the throwfork must match the bellhousing, throwout bearing and front retainer That being said there is only one way, maybe a few more, I can think of for your front bearing retainer to break like it did, one is the fork press up against it hard enough to break it when the motor was torque over a little, another is that the input shaft is not aligned within tolerances on the pilot bearing putting the front retainer in cockeyed(sideways)to the bell housing hole that it slides into I had a freind who raced and drove his 1970 Duster with a 340 and 4 speed in it for quite awhile before the pilot bearing wore out and fell out on the track after doing a burn out, that caused the clutch to go off center making it vibrate the entire car when he revved the motor up beyond a idle. He shut it off before staging and probally prevented further damages
You know the results, now comes the hard part, finding out what caused the damge and repairing it If the fork was pressing the throwout bearing hard enough sideways to brake the front retainer under WOT it should have left witness marks on the shaft the throwout bearing rides on
Let us know what you find, that will help others on here later with similar problems

Honestly, it's crazy hard to tell on these things if there's a geometry issue because none of it's ever all that tight fitting, the tab for the pivot being spring steel and all. I'll have to look closely at the fork.

The car has a roller pilot bearing in it, everything runs really smooth (it has a poly trans mount and a shumacher torque strap). It was smooth even with the clutch being broken. Also, the trans basically fell in when I was installing it to the engine so I'm thinking the alignment isn't really an issue. I will surely re-check it before reinstalling after the fix.

I can even easily slide the broken piece of the bearing retainer in and out of the pilot bearing itself with a screwdriver without prying. I'm really not expecting it to be too dinged up. We'll see I guess.

Was it a stock bearing retainer , if so buy a billet retainer to replace it .

But as said you need to check a few things with the trans and the bellhousing on a stand , put on a new retaainer , the throw out bearing and the fork and look to see if the fork is forcing the retainer over to one side.

Also did you check the run out of the bellhousing to the engine ?

Yeah, it's a stock retainer. I looked for a billet one for a 23 Spline A-body A-833 last night because I was going to get one on order right away and it said "no longer available" at Passon and I didn't a listing at Brewer's. Should be 4.354" with a 3.7 bolt circle. I see new and refurbished cast iron ones only.

Yes, I checked and corrected bellhousing runout when it was installed. I will go and recheck before a re-install just to be sure.

Your not the first guy to break one, I broke 2 over the years and my cars were stock. I don't know why mine broke.

That stinks , I was going to get one a while back , I am not sure if I did or not

I broke one in my 65 a few years ago.Was installing the trans though.Used one from a spare 64 trans and all was good.Rocky

The stock retainer is cast, by the time it's machined down to the sleeve diameter there isn't a lot of strength there; seen lots of them break.

I've seen many broke over the years as well. I wouldn't be surprised if you find that its been cracked for a long time. Seems they start with a small crack on one edge, and as time goes by, the crack extends around until its broke completely. It only lasted, what, 40 years? Gene

I was able to yank the fork out today...I dunno, looks pretty normal to me on where it was contacting.





I did order a new cast iron bearing retainer (not a refurbished original) and a new throwout bearing because when it came apart it clearly messed up the retention clip.

I checked the motion between the two parts and it seems pretty effortless. I guess we'll still see when it's apart but maybe this thing was just old and fatigued.

And here's the carnage:

Looks normal to me, been through a few bearing retainers! I always check them for cracks before putting the trans in nowadays, I should just buy a new one every time I install a trans...

Looks to me like its been cracked for a long time! Generally, a fresh break is clean and shiny, and something that been cracked will be darker, or more dirty looking. In a clutch environment, I would suspect a 6 month old crack to exhibit considerably more darkness then a fresh break, and a year old crack would be darker more then the 6 month old crack. The only shiny part I see at the break is a very small area at the very bottom. I'd say its been cracked for some time. Gene