Clutch help

..my fork pivot broke off the bellhousing.

 

No… your initial problem is that you could not get the transmission into any gear with the engine running, this indicates that there is power flow to the input shaft even with the clutch pedal depressed. The broken release bearing pivot fork bending and breaking makes sense.

 

I’m not understanding you here, I don’t know much about transmissions. Should I have had them check the release bearing while the transmission was out? The clutch feels great now with the new fork installed.

 

No problem, I will explain. The purpose of the clutch is to disengage power to the input shaft of the transmission, this is the shaft that the clutch disk is splined to. At the end of the crankshaft there is a bearing in the end of the crank that supports the front of the input shaft. If this bearing/bushing is dry it will continue to spin the input shaft slightly even if the clutch is depressed. This is what thought was happening. There is only so much travel to the clutch slave cylinder, with a bent release bearing fork the clutch never truly disengages from the engine. Like mentioned above a bent or broken release fork, rare, very rare occurrence.

 

Ok, that makes more sense, thank you. The mechanic made it sound very rare as well. Would it have just been bad metallurgy? I don’t slam my clutch, occasionally everybody has to shift pretty fast, but I’m not regularly beating on it. I think it’s possible it was bent or cracked when I got the truck because I just thought that’s how the clutch felt in this truck, but with the new fork it feels completely different; smoother for sure.