Clutch/Pressure Plate Woes

[Nappers]

Greetings gang!

I have a 19 and 64 Chevy C-10. Original 230 inline 6. Dropped a 350 out of a 1979 GMC van with no problems years ago. Fast forward. New Crate motor from my local guy (support local auto parts eh!) and purchased a new clutch kit from him. I put the clutch, pressure plate, disk etc with the alignment tool to which I've done before with no hiccups. I tried dropping the motor in and the last 1/2 to 3/4 inch will not go at all, just enough to touch the guide pins.

The clutch I removed is a diaphragm and the fingers are flat, new diaphragm the fingers are raised up quite a bit like a conical. The clutch pressure plate went on okay, when putting it on, the bolts pushed the pressure plate the last 1/4 inch or more to which I don't remember having to do on the old clutch. The disk where the springs are is raised and faces towards back of motor, otherwise it may make a racket against the flywheel bolts..... I was curious if the raised fingers on the diaphragm would cause the motor to not seat against the flywheel (wrong clutch basically). Upon doing research on Summit Racing, the clutch I received did not match the truck. Forgot to mention it is the ol' SM420 and not sure if the old clutch was original or not. The disk is 11" and I used the shiny new pilot bearing and didn't ding it up and used the alignment tool as mentioned until the pressure plate was tight. There is nothing in the way, I jacked the transmission up and down and jacked the motor up and down trying to get it seated. The transmission was in neutral and the splines went in easy just that last little bit!

Any insight would be great. I thought of pulling motor and trying old clutch for giggles and see if it would drop in. The throwout bearing is toast on the old one. I have searched and thought of dropping transmission and install as a unit which I believe I did the first go, but it was many years ago and memory isn't as good as it once was.

Thanks a bunch,

Aaron

[dracko]

I ran into similar issues bolting my 4 speed MY6 to the 327, new everything, pilot bushing, flywheel, clutch, alignment tool, yadda yadda yadda, I could get the trans all the way on except the last 3/4”. I ended up loosening off the bolts holding the clutch plate to the flywheel just to see if it was getting hung up, sure enough, with things loose it fit all the way on easily, so I made some tweaks when mounting the friction plate until the trans bolted up easily.

It was a hair easier because the engine was out at the time, but it might be worth leaving the alignment tool installed but move the friction plate around til things fit. I was surprised at how much play the alignment tool still allows.