Christopher smith

I ordered a new 190 mm 1 inch 23 spline clutch disc to hopefully mate my Ford Pinto gearbox to my Ford Cortina GT motor.It was from from a UK dealer ordered Thursday just before the tariff went into effect Friday AM our time. I was surprised it came so quickly. I guess UPS had already put in place a system. I had to write a check at my door for 50% of the stated price ( not including freight). So I guess I was one of the first to be hit with a tariff.

Forgot to mention the importance of a pedal stop.If properly adjusted, allowing just enough to release the clutch disc and then just a little more per the Tilton info.

You may want to take a look at the tilton website as they have a lot of info about concentric slave cylinder throw out bearings and the Gap that they recommend for their products which may not be the same as Mazda

I am not familiar with either but suspect if they are fairly recent, you may have a concentric slave cylinder/ throw out bearing combination.Apparently some Miata years have that and since it is adapted to a different engine, maybe you have some after market adapter that is just not adjusted right. If so , sounds like the slave cylinder which wraps around the transmission input shaft could have over extended before it pushed far enough on clutch pressure plate fingers to release the clutch disc ( to allow shifting). So that would certainly dump fluid like I did a couple of tries ago. So not sure what adjustment method suites the Mazda or after market set-up, but you may need to open it all up and somehow move the slave cylinder/T.O. bearing combination a bit closer to the engine. Does the Mazda bellhousing have any sort of side, top or bottom opening for you to look inside and see if the concentric slave cylinder may have popped out, that is, pushed too far toward the engine?

sure sounds like what I have been going through with my concentric slave cylinder T.O. bearing unit. Mine is a Ford Cortina GT 1500, essentially the Cosworth 1500 used in mid 1960s Lotus Super 7. However the 2 grearboxes I had were beyond repair so a Ford Pinto box was adapted. Sure seems critical to have the spacing between the T.O. bearing mount, fingers of the clutch cover just right apparently. Too much gap and you will pop the hydraulic cylinder out the front ( so no more pressure) which is what I suspect happened. Or if too little space I assume you will have the T.O bearing constantly pushing against the fingers and will wear the bearing if light touch or disengage the clutch with no pedal pressure if heavy touch ( way too tight spacing). I am still working on it after an initial success with a Saab 3 bolt cylinder which finally gave up and Saab T.O. but now an my 3rd try with the Tilton bearing. What motor/trans are you using?

I always used a wink mirror for racing. I had an old one I put on the front roll cage and seems to work great. Not sure how it would be with a top up ( if I had one).

I really enjoyed driving in the UK shifting with my left hand. For one thing people who use the roundabouts actually no who has the right of way and respect it. That is not what we encounter when we drive in New Jersey where nobody seems to know who has the right of way

Probably best to adapt driving experience in N. America instead of parts. You will get some funny looks of course. We had a 1949 MGTC with RHD, no problem driving but that was a long time ago and, granted, it was laid up waiting for parts most of the time. The 7 series 1 is a joy to drive with RHD, again, not driving that much. I think the RHD driving position has you almost as close to the left side as a driver in many of the monster SUVs you see wallowing around. Never tried it with a top up or in the rain of course, but a wink mirror on the front of the cage works for me.

I wonder if the 7 point idea originated from someone having a failure at the floor mounting points of a 5 or 6 point in some adapted application with a very thin floor pan and somebody figured an additional point would spread the load. Sure would not have wanted to be the person who hit something hard enough to pull out floor mounting points- so just guessing. No doubt that sort of thinking was behind the rear (and front) angle bracing on roll bars back in the 1960s when roll bar failures did actually happen and something really was necessary. Happened to a very early 7 at Watkins Glen and they kept the crumpled roll bar to show during tech inspections as an example of what not to bet your life on.

I may have been to that same event. Saw him at The Glen, Bridgehampton, Pocono maybe as well. Great fun back then. I think I recall that the first Cobras did have tire traction issues until they tried Goodyear stock car rubber. Penske was our local dealer out in West Philadelphia and we got scrubbed Indy Car tires from him for a Mustang. Talk about loads of traction! Crazy times.

I guess it depends on what car and what you are trying to do with it as it varies widely. A bit of oversteer seems like fun but is not necessarily the fastest way around for some of us. However, everyone should, at least one time, watch the sprint car guys on a dirt oval then tell us about oversteer. By the way, their preferred tires look like an exact copy of the old Dunlop R5s from Formula 1 1960s. For autocross the hot set-up was race slicks on the front and street radials on the back. But that was back in the 1960s and I assume not allowed now. For SCCA regionals in my very old F production Sunbeam Alpine, I enjoyed outqualifying some of the E production cars, but those pesky 7 Americas in F with the Sprite engines would always fly through the corners and the D Production 7s with the 1500 Cosworth were way ahead. Later, a 5 liter Mustang was a real handful running with the Corvettes ,Camaros etc. so we did not want any major oversteer. Track day had not been invented yet so we did the best we could.

The USA car manufacturers and other makers seem to have always favored understeer and designed for it in an effort to protect drivers who do not have the skill to deal with oversteer. Having driven all sorts of rental vehicles for business in various road conditions I always was extra careful and conservative particularly with front wheel drive vehicles. The exceptions for sure were in Britain in an early Toyota MR2 and also an early rear drive Escort. They were actually fun to drive on the twisty back roads. I guess the preference for the track is what makes you go faster rather than choosing to hit the wall with the front or the rear. I opted for just a bit of oversteer but that was long ago and not in a 7 so my opinion may not count for much.

The Tilton 0400 type that I think will help has a wider release bearing (54 mm) compared to the other one that I could not get to work properly. It has a 50 mm bearing and a very different shape. I was told by clutch people in the UK that I should have a curved T.O. bearing like the 0400 type to go with the flat fingers on the clutch cover. With the old 50 mm it hung up in the disengaged position. Tapping very gently on the side of the unit with a 1/2 inch wooden dowel was all it took to get the fingers to push it back to the fully engaged position. So I think the slave cylinder mounting may be off by a couple mm and it is cocking the slave piston and making it hang up in the full release position.

It turns out the Borg and Beck HE3329 has the curved fingers although the ones in the Pegasus catalog photo looked flat to me. I just sent a note to Borg and Beck to see if they have one that has flat fingers, so await their reply. Hoping to couple it with an 0400 type slave cylinder/release bearing that is curved at 54MM. My 190 mm 1 inch 23 spline disc looks fine on inspection by a clutch specialist firm just outside Philadelphia. it is 8 mm thick which is the normal new thickness if I understand correctly.

The Pegasus itme will be here Tuesday so hope it works

Still looking for a new/good used 190 mm (7 1/2 inch) pressure plate (clutch cover) if anyone has an old one they want to get rid of. Apparently the configuration was used for some 1.6 Cortinas, some Morgan 4/4s and some formula Ford Hewland set-ups (with a 1 inch 23 spline disc in that case). Pegasus offers one but is a bit pricey and I just need it to test to try to get my concentric slave cylinder set up and hope the Tilton 0400 curved face 54 mm will work.

Thanks for the great info.

Actually it was Dave Bean where we got most of the original stuff but Ken said he can not get that sort of clutch set-up anymore. So that is why I have been looking around. I think Morgan uses that 190 mm pressure plate but a different clutch disc. I need a 1 inch , 23 spline to go on the Pinto trans input shaft.

Thanks! I have already dealt with Burton on other items. It looks like they have changed their website layout. Used to be easy and spelled out pre-crossflow items. I was hoping to find a USA supplier. Tilton has lots of racing clutches but this application is for the street. I understand the racing clutches grab very abruptly and might stall in mild use. I am probably going to use their 0400 series concentric slave cylinder/T.O. bearing combo when I find the other parts like the clutch cover that might be from one of the Cortina variants.

My mysterious clutch issues continue but have changed so I would like to put in some new parts. I have a 1500 early Cortina GT based motor hooked up to a Pinto 4 speed. The clutch set-up was apparently discontinued so am trying to source parts in the USA instead of trying to source from the UK. Not sure what the clutch parts were original to however. I have a 190 mm (7.5 inch) diameter clutch disc, the kind with the little coil springs locked in place. It has a 1 inch 23 spline configuration to fit the Pinto input shaft. The pressure plate fits the Cortina flywheel (223 mm bolt circle and is the flat finger (12 fingers) type. Although my old parts seem to look ok, I certainly am not a clutch expert and doi not know how to test anyway.I and wonder if I damaged them by overextending with the Saab type concentric slave cylinder/ throw out bearing and maybe had set the pedal stop wrong. I think I am on track with a Tilton slave cylinder with the 0400 series T.O. bearing but would like other new parts since pulling the engine just to test is no fun. Any ideas where to source a pressure plate much appreciated.

We used to spray a shot of ether into the carb in winter and hope there was no backfire. Now, I just wait until warmer weather.

FYI-Not sure of the exact figures on range of flammability but I remember a few workers in the nitrocellulose unit at Naval Ordnance Station, Indian Head died when the ether /alcohol mixture lit up back in 1968. Ether has a pretty wide range of mixes with oxygen/nitrogen where it is going to light from a small spark. That is why starter fluid spray works so much better than gasoline, particularly in cold weather. Not sure if anyone has been talking about hydrogen powered cars being dangerous but they better be extra careful.

I worried about not being noticed by stupid SUV drivers so I fly a rather large Union Jack from the top rear of my roll cage. I know they should hear me coming with the ineffective muffler and high revs.

Actually I use RT422 only to go to the Oaks, PA race car show in the dead of winter ( not in my series 1 Lotus 7 which has a salt and water phobia). It is a really nice nostalgic look at their race car technology which is approximately 80 % short oval, paved and dirt, 15 % drag racing oriented and maybe 1-2% sports cars. I certainly admire how some of the cars have coupled 1950s sort of thinking with cutting edge stuff, depending on their rules. Kind of like some of our 7s. Great fun to watch racing although not in January. Surprising to see the hot set-up for dirt oval cars includes tires that look like a perfect match for the 1960 or so Dunlop R5 formula 1 tyre.

Let's all remember these SUV guys are the same ones that think, because their all wheel drive has traction to start moving on ice/snow, that it can stop and corner just fine also. Keep your seat belts tight!