Whats your worst clutch failure?

So I want to see everyones worst clutch failure. This is from when I had my 97 Pontiac Formula. Went to shift from 2-3, instead 2-1.

Girl I knew in high school did something similar on the original 240k clutch in her '88 Mirage 3 door. Miss the car more than the girl.

Yea, this was a 140k clutch. I couldn't imagine if I had done that with a 240k mile clutch.

Tore the center out of a Spec clutch in my Neon. Too many 7400 rpm full throttle upshifts, I guess.

$2012 Challenge Mustang

Mine took place many years ago. My friends and I shared a car used only for auto crossing. At one event we lost the clutch and packed up and left. A day or so later we dropped the trans and then pulled the bell housing. We then removed the pressure plate and when we took it off there was NO CLUTCH! Nothing was left! It wasn't until we looked at the pressure plate and found only the center part of the disc stuck inside the PP. All other parts of the disc had exited out the opening in the bell housing for the release lever to operate. This was a new Center Force OEM spec. disc. We were able to get Center Force to replace the disc with a HD version at NC.

No photos, but I lost the clutch in my old 5-series on the Nurburgring. I wish I could remember which corner...

Here is mine, managed to get it in video. Bye bye clutch

Smoke pretty good by the end.

SWMBO tore the sprung section out of her exedy grabbing second on boost in the commute attack car. We replaced it with a ACT hd/ss combo that seems a little mild compared to the description and reviews, if I had it to do again I would go with more aggressive setup.

Sheared 6/10 pads off my Supercoupe's clutch just leaving a gas station. I wasn't even on the gas hard at all.

Happened during practice for an enduro:
Replaced the clutch and p-plate and lost another clutch the next day during the enduro:

Problem solved:

Made it to the checkered 7 hours later.

In reply to JohnyHachi6:

Holy E36 M3...

mine's nothing like these … actually just a broken cable … car in neutral, sitting at a stop light, Fri afternoon rush hour downtown Charlotte … turned the engine off, slipped it into 2nd gear, cranked the engine, shifted without the clutch (up and down) got where I was going … then drove it home 2 1/2hr later that night

Lost the clutch in my 75formula 400 grabbing 2nd gear comming out of a gas station. Something locked up and it dumped the geerbox out the bottom and destroyed the bell housing. I think the input bearing actually was the real cause.

Worst one I saw was a rx7 had the throtal stick at WOT while being worked on in the pits. Guy in a drivers suite jumps out and as he is reaching under the hood the clutch and flywheel came apart damaging the drivers hand and severing the fuel return line. This pumps gas all over the place. And up in flames it goes with the driver staggering away. My friend still in his fire gear from just fueling a car tries to get to the kill switch but is driven back others go to help the driver as he is bleeding all over the place due to missing parts of his hand. I go for the fire extinguisher and hand it off to my friend and he tries to suppress the fire that by now is very large. Shortly there after some others arrive with one of those really big fire extinguishers that get the fire down enough to get at the kill switch and then get the fire out.

It was only a matter of a minute or three but alot happened in a very short period of time.

Learned that day that bigger is better when fire extinguishers are concerned.

Back in the early '90s, I pulled the tranny out of a Honda CRX. Boy did something smell burnt. When I pulled the pressure plate off the flywheel, what remained of the clutch made a little pile of ash on the floor. Total immolation. The only thing left was the splined disc center. The flywheel was completely blue.

When I broke my T56, I was at the track for the first time in the Z28. I have and LT1 and my buddy had an LS1 in the other lane, he had been wearing me out all night and I just couldnt beat him. I launched a little higher than normal with a litle less slip and blew the tires off in 1st, pedaled it and got it hooked back up, grabbed second quick....still hooked...boom..Im in nuetral...try to get back into 2nd, no go, pt it in 4th and coast, my buddy goes on past. I limped it around going 1st to 3rd for a few months, still dig racing and beating on it, til I finally took it to TDP and had him viper spec it.

He said he was surprised I was still driving it, apparently it was QUITE broken, both clutch and trans.

The second time, I was headed to work, got to my normal gas station and boom no clutch, couldnt get 40 miles to work, so I killed it, put it in second and fired it back up and drove back home in 2nd.

3rd time was very similar to 2nd time had to have it towed.

In reply to sachilles:

Sounded like a CVT. Was it slipping all the way from the start?

Just springs out of the center section......

Best failure I've seen was a corvair at an autox.....but that was probably the flywheel that grenaded. It was epic but scary.

bgkast wrote: In reply to sachilles: Sounded like a CVT. Was it slipping all the way from the start?

Our events are practice on Saturday, and official timed runs on Sunday. Last run on Saturday it was obvious the clutch was slipping. I knew the clutch was toast, but needed an official run on Sunday for points. So I ran it up the hill anyway on Sunday. So it did slip from the get go. Barely had enough momentum to get the car on the trailer under its own power.

In reply to JohnyHachi6:

How in the world did you get that centered well enough to get the trans back in, let alone run seven hours without urping anything?

I had the clutch PEDAL break off in my old RX8.

wvumtnbkr wrote: I had the clutch PEDAL break off in my old RX8.

That must have been a real WTF moment.

I've had a clutch relase fork break on me, but not the pedal.

Entering Deal's Gap around midnight on a Friday night in one of my 900s. Two-three shift and the friction material didn't want to be attached any longer. We flat-towed it to Crossroads with a friend's WRX, then a 300 mile tow back home on Sunday.

I drank a LOT that weekend.

This is more like "best clutch win."