How do I find what the step height should be for my stepped flywheel?

OHIOHUBCAP

MEMBER
2001 FORD FOCUS
160,000 MILES

Hi. I'm the one who asked the question 'Clutch Not Working. Very Strange Circumstances' about 10 days ago. We pulled the transmission again and unbolted the pressure plate. The friction material on the flywheel side of the clutch plate was lying in shredds. The shreds, fibers, whatever they were were sticking out the side of the pressure plate and were all over - but most of the flywheel side of the clutch plate was bare metal. I think one rivit (sp?) Had some of the fibers attached.

What I didn't tell you before was that after the clutch was installed it was badly abused. The engine wasn't running right so I had to keep giving it gas to keep it running (my friend later found 2 hoses disconnected, so it was leaking vacume). Also, I later found that one of the rear wheel brakes was locked. The wheel would turn when driving, but you could not push the car or turn the wheel by hand - too much resistance. Both problems are now fixed, but when I first tested the new clutch I had to keep the RPMs up on the engine to keep it running, so I didn't let the clutch petal all the way up. Drove a total of about 1 city block. So the engine was pulling the back wheel with the locked brake while I was slipping the clutch because the engine was racing. BAD (yes, I could have kicked myself after - hard). BUT I still don't think it would be enough to totaly destroy the clutch plate. Besides, the clutch was still transmitting power and the friction material seems to have come apart when we tested it a 2nd time after the brake and engine problems were fixed.

The Focus has a stepped flywheel. I took the flywheel out to be turned when we did the first repair. We are trying to check that the step distance is correct, since of course if it is too deep that would be a problem. I have called both a local Ford dealer AND the place where I had the flywheel turned and neither place can tell me the correct step height (the machine shop has a book, but the man told me the info for my flywheel was not in the book - cause for concern!).

Do you know what the step height should be for the flywheel on a 2001 Ford Focus with the Zetec DOHC 2.0 engine with an MTX 75 manual transmission? Or do you know where I can find out?

2 Replies

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

From everything i've read and that includes the shop manual from ford I can't seem to find what you need. But one thing it doses say is to check certain items like the thrwout bearing for wear. Because it's hydraulic it relies on the clutch to send the bearing to it's starting position. So check that as it may be worn and hanging oup on the input shaft collar. I'll send thepic. Also just for the heck of it check the endplay on the crankshaft, it should be.003 -, 011 or.100mm to.300mm. If it is above that it may have a thrust bearing on the crank going bad causing the clutch to wear prematurely. Also in the ford manual it RECCOMENDS to throw away old pressure plate bolts and use new ones for an install. They needto be hand tightened then only two turns all the way around until reaching torque along with a spline to alignthe clutch. I'm sure if you contacted ford customer service they will direct you to the correct area to find the correct info that you seek. Howeveer ford reccomends replacing the fly wheel when it's bad as well instead of cutting it. That may be the reason is premature clutch wear. Good luck.

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