i'm getting rather tired of this sh*t, another clutch bearing on its way out. with foot off the clutch (not moving to hear it, window open, quite quiet) i can hear a bit of chirping out of the clutch bearing. hit the clutch and it goes away.



i've done this a few times now and i'm getting sick of this job. i thought these cars were supposed to be reasonably reliable, apparently i got a piece of sh*t.



its an '04 GSI, 1.6L manual. i've had it for about 3 years now and put 100,000km on it. in that time i have replaced the clutch bearing TWICE already and now sounds like i'm doing another. here's my train of thought:



- replaced just the bearing first time

- second time the bearing cut a nice groove in the pressure plate, replaced the entire clutch assembly and had flywheel blanchard ground at a machine shop.

- replaced the clutch cylinder to check if that might be the problem, did nothing.

- shortly after replacing the entire clutch and bearing, blew the transmission to hell. bearing on the input shaft from the clutch was screwed, its been replaced with a junkyard trans with 60,000km on it. had a problem with that and the wrecker paid to have it rebuild under a warranty i paid for. from new clutch to transmission failure was only around 5000km. noticed some chirping from the new bearing, but went away with the new trans

- now its b*tching AGAIN!



any ideas as to why? i'm really tired of doing this asinine job. its got some time, quiet so far. might make it until spring if i'm lucky. might not, who knows.



one question i have: that bearing appears to be gently held against the pressure plate by a spring in the clutch cylinder. i take it that this is normal? i can see sudden shock of not turning and then slamming on the rotating clutch being a problem for that crap bearing. any ideas??

 

i know on HP you had mentioned replacing the cylinder.



not too sure about an answer for your question but out of curiousity where are you getting your replacement bearings (hyundai dealership, local parts store, etc)?



when i did my beta swap, i had to get the bearing from the dealership. rockauto.com, and retail stores in the US like NAPA, autozone, advanced auto all had the wrong part. the SPEC clutch kit i purchased online for a scoupe turbo included the same wrong bearing.



although, the difference with the wrong part these vendors had is it wouldn't even mate to the x3 trannys fork.

 

try a centerforce tob from jegs it work well for me.

 

yeah i had the problem then, i figured it was the bearing on the old trans that was killing them. it would make sense!



i got one bearing from www.autopartsway.ca (since i live in canada) and the other came with my clutch kit which was a... dynapack? from the local partsource.



i noted a few things along the way:



- bearing from autopartsway appeared to be identical to what was in there, was also stamped with HMC on the back so i believe it to be OEM.

- clutch kit has the same bearing, slight difference near the rotating surface. the housing came up further was all, appears to protect the part better is my guess. also stamped HMC. the pressure plate was also stamped HMC and had the same part number stamped on it. not sure on the clutch itself. there was a mystery small ball bearing that doesn't go anywhere....i think they just goofed.



iheartmyrd - i took a look but could not find a TOB for the accent on that site....what one did you use?

 

All 3 of my Accents have TOB noise. Seemed to start at around 125k miles. I've put another 50k miles on the red Accent since it started and it's still working fine for now at least, just makes some noise.

 

yes agreed, they do tend to make some noise. i'm happy to ignore it, however i have seen scenarios where the bearing grenades and takes out the clutch itself.



also as mentioned i've had the damn thing cut a big groove in the fingers of the pressure plate. rather not replace the whole thing again! then again, that could have been cause by the thrown bearing in the transmission. it was making a nice howl too! very cool. and my lower mounts on the trans were blown at the time so i was getting some really cool vibration sounds.



my car sucks! lol

 

I gave $100 for an ebay OEM replacement clutch with pressure plate, bearing, and installation tool. Depending on how much you are paying for bearings, it is cheaper just to do that when it finally does let go.

 

not bad at all. just worried about getted f*cked on the road, i commute to work an hour each way...otherwise i wouldn't be so worried. but at the same time if a small amount of noise is normal for these shitty things and if it'll last for the winter, i can hold out until the spring

 

mine are noisy too, I'm not too worried

 

I was always more worried about the horrific noises the gears would make from time to time in my accent. Never really noticed bearing noise, but I traded it right at 50k.