As some of you may know we have a Mustang 5 spd in our Valaint. I used the original Bellhouseing , linkage . throwup bearing and 9" pressure plate. I also used a 9" clutch disc for the Mustang trans. We have put a z8illion miles on this combo with excellent results.
On Christmas day after dinner Alex drove the car home in a foot of fresh snow, backed in the driveway and parkder.
In the morning the clutch would not disengage. The linkage was operating fine, no big noises. With the engine off all the gears were available. We left it a couple of days with some kind of hilly billy belief it might fix itself. Apparently it wont.
He needs the car to get to work so I stopped by on the way to the ski hill to have a boo. Same game. I have some cardiac issues at the moment so decided not to drop the tranny in the snowy driveway. With Alex following in the Sub I started the car in 1st and drove to the shop that does our fleet servicing. The trans shifted all through the gears nicely (no clutch) and I ran the stop sign at the highway no probs.
By the time I got to town I figured if the clutch was frozen from ice it might have thawed. I tried depressing the clutch and reving the engine and sure nuff! I continued to the shop but by then it was froze again. It only takes 10 mins to drop the trans on the hoist ,,,so we did.
The Mustang clutch disc had worn enough to allow the spring retainer to contact the flywheel and bust it up a little.

New disc ordered ($75 cdn) and a little machining on the flywheel should fixer up. The plan is to take off .125 on the area where the interference occured.

Ill letcha know how it works out.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Hummm... have you thought about upgrading to the 10 inch HD pressure plate and making-up a special "full contact" 10" disc with the T5's splined hub?
Here is the shop that I use for this kind of work:
http://www.superior-friction.com/
Ask for Robin and tell him I sent you.
DD

Well~! We ended up using a disc from a Turbo 2.3 T-bird. The disc is constructed a little differently so it does not interfee with the flywheel. 2.5 hours labour and a new disc $75 and the Valaint is back on the road.

Doug: I hear you on the 10" clutch except it means a whole new setup. I would need a new bellhousing , clutch plate and disc. The 9" clutch is fairly matched to the RAP trans and 7 .25 rear. Although all of this is light duty this car is used for 90% highway driving. It is more of a corner carver than a drag racer. We live 2.5 hours from the nearest stoplight and 5 hours from the nearest dragstrip....and 2 blocks from the #1 motorcycle road in Canada. Once the car is rolling I never use the clutch again.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Oh yeah, well how'd ya break it then, huh?

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

It broke because as the disc wore the spring retainer contacted the flywheel. Several small pieces of the retainer broke off and jammed between the disc and flywheel. Given how long the disc was in use there was actually little wear. A disc constructed differently was used as a replacement. I dont envision a repeat failure.
I often dont use the clutch to shift between gears. I let the engine rpm slow to match the trans rpm and let the trans slide into the next gear. This is a legacy of learning to drive on old Clark 5 speed non-syncro boxes in Merc 2 1/2 ton trucks as a kid.

This car is driven daily by my 20 yearold son. For those of you who are parents this is an indication of some durability.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....