 Top Fuel 12 stage slider – lockup clutch – same as a crowerglide slider with 12 extra arms/levers |
 Basic 6 arm slider clutch – originally called a “Glide” from Crowerglide, view is from bottom of “doughnut” or pressure plate and behind it is the “hat” or cover |
 top – bottom of “hat” X slots are home of the “arms” or levers. bottom – top of “doughnut” were arms press on to apply pressure to the “doughnut” or pressure plate, the screws that hold the facings on and the studs that locate the stall springs ( on right of picture) and hold it together |
 Close up of carbide button the heel or toe of the levers apply all of the pressure to lock up the clutches to the flywheel. |
 The rest of the pieces of the hat assembly: levers, pins, and the stall springs and their washers and lock nuts. |
 Note: a second hole to attach weights , for higher loads – usually used on lower RPM engines , A/fuel or diesels |
 Slots for the lever and pin on bottom of cover. |
 Lever and pin in place |
 hat has been removed from view – Lever applies clamping force through carbide button. |
 Another view of both buttons and the radius on the lever. Neutral position – no “arm/lever” pressure is being applied to the pressure plate – except negative (hold-off) pressure from springs. there is also shims to go under the buttons to make them all the same and more consistent. |
 Exaggerated simulation of what happens during a run. (This is the heel radius that everybody talks/argues about.) |
 Simulation of pushing the pedal over center. |
 Stands/adjusters – screw ’em out for more air gap, in for less, originall they were just spacers with a pile of shims on top, you had to dissasmble clutch to adjust the height (air gap). |
 Notice the cutters( the grooves in the floater disc) are pointed in a direction so as to expel the clutch dust thats removed during the run. As the disc rotates it shoves the dust to the outside of the clutch assembly, preventing the dust from clogging up the whole mess. The cutter grooves used are about .050 deep, and .250 wide. they also cut a fresh surface as they turn, sharpe edges to the cutters (you can file them to dull the cutting action – don’t forget they become almost liquid as the go down the track) or cut 1 to 6 cutters into the floaters Make sure that the inside diameter of the floater… |
 …is smaller than the inside diameter of the facing on the disc. ( NOTE: the inside has been trimmed down on this disc ) |
 This will play hell with your air gap setting for the next run, as the feeler gauge will only contact the high part of the facing and not the surface that you just wore down. |
 Keep in mind that your air gap number is only a reference and not completely accurate. If your .050″ setting works, but it’s really only .041″, it doesn’t matter as long as you set it the same way every time. |
 Probably something everyone already knows, but just in case somebody doesn’t, the rivet (flat) side of the disc goes toward the flywheel… |
 …and the hub (tall) side toward the rear. |
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controlling surface area without adding a disk |
 H- JACK SCREW – Here’s a closeup of how the jack screws clamp the pack together so that you can remove the input shaft to put the bellhousing on, don’t forget and leave them in after the reverser or tranny is installed. G – SPRINGS – the springs must be calibrated and the nut above them (also holds assembly together) tightened to compress the spring far enough to “hold off” the pressure plate from touching (applying pressure) to the clutch pack. it can further be tightened to act as a stall (like a converter) for holding off the pressure excerpted by the arms/levers as they are being spun by the engine/flywheel. This is refered to as turns of stall or flats of stall ( referencing the flat sides of the nut – 3 flats would be 1/2 turn or x lbs of pressure when you calibrate the distance of the turns times turns per inch. F – Lever (and weight) – bolt and nut in picture is th weight used to add force to clutch pack as it spins – there are 1/2 (jam)nuts in the photo. Don’t be surprised to see aluminum bolts/nuts, or weight on only three fingers, none on the other three, etc. Weight on four and no weight on the other two–all kinds of combos. Make a chart for gram weight of all the counterweight pieces. The “84.X” on the photo of the levers is what those individual levers weigh (net weight). You add stall by tightening the nuts on top of the springs. The levers work against that spring pressure, you may have to re adjust the spring weight to compensate for changing the arm weight – to achieve a balance at the desired RPM. |
