The next thing to check as a possible root cause of the failure is the TIR (total indicated runout) between the bell and the crank. You’ll recall I measured at .01 during install. Well, .01 is the generally agreed upon maximum allowed for TIR. I had in my head that it was something like .02. Had I know I would’ve done better.
Once I got the trans out I purchased a smaller dial indicator and came up with a couple of big washers so I could clamp onto the clutch fingers and have a solid platform for the magnetic base.
Mini dial indicator and magnetic base (from McMaster):
Giant fender washers (from McMaster)
You can also see my “notes” on the bell. Note that 0 and the max (5) are opposite each other, which is what you should expect. At this point I was getting pretty close to my .0045" final TIR.
A proper dial-indicator set up with the probe parallel to the mating surface and perpendicular to the surface being indicated.
