Greg Storm
Member
Hi all, 97 on the clock so as the engine is all sorted it was time to overhaul the running gear starting with the clutch as it was heavy and juddered. So first rule is to replace everything and so I thought a solid conversion was the way to go. Now I had seen Valeo did this and found a conversion kit on fleabay through Techni-clutch which seemed a bargain which included solid wheel - friction - pressure and hydraulic bearing. To keep this short after fitting and adding a new master cylinder it became noticeably noisy and sounded like and old lathe as you came off the throttle at low speed, and to cap it all even worse judder 
So a lot of investigating and contacting Valeo UK they confirmed the clutch kit 826376 as supplied with the solid conversion is for a DMF hence the noise and juddering, the basic difference is that this one has 8 small springs in the pressure plate and the correct one has 4 big long travel springs to soften the power delivery. Also the proper 835051 has new bolts and don't believe that crap about weight as the solid is actually heavier. So as of today the gearbox is back off and awaiting a new DMF, I believe that a solid would be viable but only if it's a genuine proven bit of kit. I have found a few other things that I would like to share as some of my searches didn't show a few things, and some back to back tests on new and old parts but will cover these separately as the big issue here is not to let any one else waste their time or money. For the record the Valeo clutch kit and LUK bearing will be used and I am not bothering to get my money back as their response was simply that the kit was correct.
So a lot of investigating and contacting Valeo UK they confirmed the clutch kit 826376 as supplied with the solid conversion is for a DMF hence the noise and juddering, the basic difference is that this one has 8 small springs in the pressure plate and the correct one has 4 big long travel springs to soften the power delivery. Also the proper 835051 has new bolts and don't believe that crap about weight as the solid is actually heavier. So as of today the gearbox is back off and awaiting a new DMF, I believe that a solid would be viable but only if it's a genuine proven bit of kit. I have found a few other things that I would like to share as some of my searches didn't show a few things, and some back to back tests on new and old parts but will cover these separately as the big issue here is not to let any one else waste their time or money. For the record the Valeo clutch kit and LUK bearing will be used and I am not bothering to get my money back as their response was simply that the kit was correct.
