On to refurbishing the pressure plate. I bought a set of new springs from Gary Wallace in preparation for this work.
One of the first things I noticed when inspecting the pressure plate assembly is that one of the pivot pins had lost one of its spring clips and was sticking out the side (see photo 40 below). Not good.
Photos 41 and 42 show the front and back of the pressure plate assembly as taken out of Lurch. The clutch plate looks serviceable and the rest just needs a good cleaning and some paint.
To safely take the pressure plate assembly apart, I set up two large C clamps so I can take out the eight 3/8" bolts and then slowly let the springs push the assembly apart. See photo 43.
Photos 44 and 45 show the inside of the pressure plate assembly. Rusty, crusty, but not too worn.
Photo 46 shows one of the pivot pins that lost one of its spring clips and was rusted in this offset position.
I had to use a gnarly C clamp to move that pin back and forth (with some help of some lubricating oil) before it would come out. Before I put pressure on the pin with the clamp, I measured the gap on the side of the pivot arm and inserted a brass shim in there so the C clamp would not crack the cast iron side supports that hold the pivot arm. See photo 47.
I cleaned up the pivot pins with some used emery cloth (see photo 48) and bought some new 3/8"-16x3/4" bolts, new lock washers, and new spring clips at the local hardware store for the reassembly.
After cleaning off the clutch surface plate with some emery cloth wrapped around a square aluminum block, I cleaned and painted the two plates, the pivot arms, and the new set of springs. I used a rattle can of Rustoleum high temp flat black that was laying around.
Before reassembling the whole shebang, I put a teeny bit of Lubriplate 115 grease (very tacky marine grease) on the pivot pins to help the pivot arms move nicely.
Then came the reassembly itself. I used my big C clamps to compress the springs so that I could use the new bolts and lock washers to hold it all together. See photo 49. Now the pressure plate assembly is ready to go back into Lurch when I'm ready to do it.
