Clutch Fork Questions

I'm having some issues with my clutch fork. My understanding is that the fork should fit in between the two flats on the throw out bearing and the wire clips should retain it, as cheesy as this is.

The tab in the fork should point towards the center of the car and the tab should slide through the hole in the bracket on the bellhousing, as cheesy as this is.

Is this all correct? I'm having alot of trouble keeping the wire clips on the fork with the tranny in the car on my Lakewood bellhousing.

I had the exact same issues with my Lakewood housing which prompted me to go to a hydraulic throw out bearing. The hydraulic bearing then failed in short order which is why I'm going back to the factory set-up.

You can bend the clips a little to make them tighter on the fork.

Could it be a geomertry problem?, where the linkage may be "pulling" the arm outward of the bellhousing?, or perhaps the Z bar dose not have the wire clip on the far drivers side of the tube, and the Z bar is sliding back and forth on the ball studs tugging at the throw out arm?, have someone run the clutch pedal while you observe from underneath, another possibility is the motor mounts allowing the engine to torque over too much?

Hey Dayclona,

Z bar not attached yet (wish I was that far along). This just the clutch fork with the throw out bearing clipped on. When you get the tranny input shaft through the throw out bearing it keeps popping out of the fork.

I tried using the stock pivot bracket as well as the B body bracket that came with the lakewood. I tried the A body bracket too but that puts it too far forward.

I'm thinking I need to slot the holes in the bracket supplied by lakewood for the b body to move the pivot point slightly more towards the input shaft.

Are you using a motor saver plate between the bellhousing and block? If so, you need a 1/8" spacer (the thickness or the motor plate) behind the fork pivot bracket. Without it the fork has to swing that much further to release the clutch and the clips will pop off.

Your last post has me wondering if you're using the correct fork.

Hey Stanton, the spacer idea makes sense to me, but shouldn't Lakewood have accounted for this? I know its an aftermarket peice and nothing ever fits right, but they're designed to run with the blocksaver plate. Shouldn't the bellhousing technically be 1/8 of an inch shallower so that the splines engage the clutch disc completely still and the undercut fits the same distance into the back of the crank?

It looks like a typical B body fork to me Ill take a pic when I get home. But weather or not a different fork might work is kind of what I'm wondering.

By the way the wire clips on my throw out bearing are shaped funny/crappy which doesn't help.

Someone could check this but I think the Lakewood bell is the same dimension as the stock unit. The 1/8" blocksaver plate is more of an "accessory" and moves everything back that amount. I think a lot of racers didn't bother with the blocksaver for weight savings, etc.. And I don't recall if its in the Lakewood instructions or not where it mentions needing that spacer. When I bought my bell I had to use the fork pivot from my stocker. If one came with your bell from Lakewood maybe its already the correct length.

And yes, those clips are strange but they've been like that for at least 50 years so they must be adequate !!

To my knowledge they made 2 different forks, The difference is in overall length, the distance from the pivot point to the throw out bearing should be the same. Do you have the pivot bracket oriented correctly to position the fork closest to the center? There could be a problem also with the throw out bearing, did you try it on the bearing retainer shaft?

My 65 I ran no block plate.Worked perfect.Then I installed the plate.Still works like it should.I run the factory pivot.IIRC there are 2 mounting points in the Lakewood bell.The TB will not function right if the trans isnt holding it in place.You dont have a hemi TB on a 23 spline tranny do you?Rocky

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My 65 I ran no block plate.Worked perfect.Then I installed the plate.Still works like it should.I run the factory pivot.IIRC there are 2 mounting points in the Lakewood bell.The TB will not function right if the trans isnt holding it in place.You dont have a hemi TB on a 23 spline tranny do you?Rocky

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Hey Rocky, no I have a Hemi TB but its an 18 spline tranny It fits slightly loose on the shaft but nothing excessive. Do you happen to remember which set of holes you had to use, the ones closer to the input shaft or further away?

A friend mentioned that he remembers them having two mounting points. It looks like the bean counters at Lakewood decided that its easier to make two different brackets than use two different sets of holes. I went to this friends house and we looked at his collection of 9 clutch forks. 7 were identical to mine, 2 were way too long overall and out of trucks.

I'm thinking the bracket marked "A Body" is the one I'm going to need to use, but I think I'm gonna have to pull the tranny back down.

Does anyone know more about the spacer that Stanton mentioned? My father was helping me with the transmission install and this fork (he is much more patient than I am) and he is hell bent on the fact that there must be a spacer to go behind this thing as well.

This is the newer style 335 housing by the way, not the earlier 330. Other than this it hasn't been too bad, interfered with the floor pan to firewall seam slightly but I just jacked it up a bit against it for a bend-o-just. My Hooker Competition headers cleared it too.