Should I use this clutch or return it?

Pretty bummed. Wanted to get my trans bolted up to the LS1 today and found my clutch disk a bit damaged from shipment.  should I go ahead with this or return it?  I don’t want to do this job twice.

I would return it. That doesn't look like a recipe for long life to me.

I'd send it back.

If it was mine, it'd go back.

I doubt that it would affect the life of the disc, but you did pay for a new one and that's what you should get. I would send it back.

I wouldn't be concerned so much about that little bit of fraying, as much as the fact that something hit it hard enough to damage it like that in the first place.  There's a good chance that it is warped and you might have disengagement issues.

Another vote for send it back.

Yep, I wouldn't want to do that job twice either, and once you install it they ain't taking it back.

Return it

You paid for new not scratch n dent

Got the replacement kit today and it was equally as poorly packaged and damaged the same way. Hopefully 3rd times a charm. 

But upon closer inspection of the pressure plates, they seem to be weighted differently around the perimeter. Do you think I need to make sure to use a pressure plate that is packaged together with a flywheel?  I already have the 1st flywheel mounted and was planning to stick with that. But now I’m not sure...and the first pressure plate has rust...fun

Dang, who's the vendor? I had a supplier that ended up shipping me 3 window assemblies for an interior shop door because they couldn't figger out how to package it well enough to survive a coupla days of FedEx mishandling without the reinforced glass getting broke. You know, they had ONE job and couldn't get that right...

It’s an LUK kit from Summit. 

Lof8 said:

But upon closer inspection of the pressure plates, they seem to be weighted differently around the perimeter. Do you think I need to make sure to use a pressure plate that is packaged together with a flywheel?  I already have the 1st flywheel mounted and was planning to stick with that. But now I’m not sure...and the first pressure plate has rust...fun

The clutch can be installed to the flywheel in any of three orientations.  If the balancing of the clutch were done in conjunction with the flywheel, there would only be one correct orientation and the other two would be very wrong.  Thus I would guess that any balancing has to be specific to the individual components.

I haven’t bought anything from Summit in quite a while but I’m surprised the last couple times I purchased from them excellent service excellent packaging

Driven5 said:

Lof8 said:

But upon closer inspection of the pressure plates, they seem to be weighted differently around the perimeter. Do you think I need to make sure to use a pressure plate that is packaged together with a flywheel?  I already have the 1st flywheel mounted and was planning to stick with that. But now I’m not sure...and the first pressure plate has rust...fun

The clutch can be installed to the flywheel in any of three orientations.  If the balancing of the clutch were done in conjunction with the flywheel, there would only be one correct orientation and the other two would be very wrong.  Thus I would guess that any balancing has to be specific to the individual components.

The flywheel has 2 dowel pins (off center) that only gives you a single orientation. 

Edit:  I’ll look closer at that after work today. 

Confirmed. The dowel pins give only a single orientation of the pressure plate. I guess I need to find out if the flywheel and pressure plate are balanced together. 

LUK tech support says they are balanced independently so I’m free to mix and match. I’m hoping the 3rd clutch disk is not banged up.