Loud "pop" after clutch install, won't go into gear..

[Chris_H]

Ok guys here is what happened;

Went over to a guys house and used his lift to change the clutch. I bought a clutch kit from Car Quest since I have one in there now and have liked it a lot. We drop the tranny, take the fly wheel down to have it resurfaced. We come back, install the clutch disc, pressure plate, and bellhousing w/ the new throw out bearing. We go to put the tranny up (Tremec 3550) and the tranny won;t go in. To make a long story short, we pulled the throw out bearing out about an hour later and realize it won;t go over the input shaft, its too skinny. So we grab my old throw out bearing and throw it on since we know it fits. We finally get the tranny up in the car, and it won't seat all the way, its about an inch off at the most. So we line up the bolt holes after trying for an hour, and walk the tranny in with the bolts.
We finally get everything back together and I put it in reverse and back off the pad. Seems to work fine. Put it in first and pull back up on the pad. Works fine. So my buddy leave and I stay to clean up. When I went to leave, I backed up about 10 feet, and put it in first to leave. As soon as I let off the clutch in 1st, there was a kind of loud "pop" sound and that was it. Car would not go into gear after that with the engine running. Tried to put it in reverse and it grinded. I tried adjusting the clutch with the firewall adjuster, tried to get it in gear, and again nothing. So i put it back up on the lift, and ceck the clucth cable. There is play in the clutch cable, by about 1-2 inches. This was yesterday afternoon. So I am going back over tonight when it drops below 100* to work on it some more.
I am thinking either the clutch cable came loose on the shift fork, or the shift fork came loose inside the bell housing, if thats even possible? Anybody have any suggestions as to what this could be? How bad is it to reuse the throwout bearing? Was it bad to walk the tranny in fully by using the bolts like that? I am hoping I haven;t screwed anything up too bad. But this was my first time doing a clutch, and it completely sucked.
I have the Steeda firewall adjuster, and clutch quadrant if that makes any difference there. Sorry for the long post, but this sucks having to leave it at this guys house even though he doesn't care. ANY help is greatly appreciated.

Chris

[Coupe50h]

Can you put it in gear with the car off? if so, what happens when you start it? i think the cable could have broke, sometimes it's hard to tell they are broke, because they will just stretch.
1-2 inches of play is way too much, so you need to figure out what happened there, if it took you an hour to stab a tranny in, even using a lift? something defiantely is wrong.
Now re-using the tob shouldnt be a problem, not recomended, but as long as it turns.
That is why i would never buy any clutch from autoparts store's, I only use motorsport clutches, or maybe a centerforce, because i have those part #'s in my head.
let us know what happens.

[Chris_H]

Looks as if I got it fixed. I was at least able to drive it home When I got there I played with the firewall adjuster, only made things worse. So I raised it back up, took the dust cover off and saw the problem. When my buddy put the cable back on, he put both nuts on the rear end side of the cable and fork. I took both of the nuts off, put one on each side, tightened it up, and it worked. It is still kind of hard to shift, but I can easily adjust that now. Just need to play with it some more. Now I have a new issue to deal with, which will be in a new post. Thanks for the suggestions Coupe, and for the answers on the ?'s I had.

Chris

['89GTStang]

on your question about it being a good idea to "walk" the transmission in to place it is definately not a good one. When I bought my mustang the clutch had just been replaced and it chattered a little bit. I didn't think much of it really it seemed to shift and engage fine. a few months later the clutch stoped disengaging very well so I was just gona replace the clutch thinking the guy really didn't replace the clutch. When I unbolted the transmission and tried to take it off of the bellhousing it came out a few inches and would not come out any further. after hours of prying and beating we decided to just unbolt the whole bellhousing. when we got it off we discovered the throwout bearing retainer was swelled out and would not slide back out the throwout bearing, clutch, etc. When we got all the parts and started puting everything back together that is when we figured out the piolt bearing had been pressed into 2 peices. The outter race was in the flywheel and the needle bearings and the inner race were still in the back of the hole of the flywheel. The guy had "walked" the trans. into place the last little bit when he coulden't slip it in and pressed the bearing apart because it wasn't lined up exactly right. now everytime I change a clutch I make sure to get it all the way seated without using the bolts to do it.