M5 E39 clutch notch - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

M5FOE · 14th April 2006, 01:12

I have spoken of this problem before. I have a pop / click / notch about 1/3 of the way down the clucth pedal travel. I have fitted over the last 10 months:

New pedal bushes
New 2 x Maseter Cylinders
Dot 5.1 clucth fluid
New slave cylinder
New Release fork
New spring on release fork
New bearing Sleave / Runner
3 x New clutches (1 Sachs) (1 LUK) (1 LUK that I had flown in from the german factory new)
New Dual mass Fly wheel

I have drilled a 2cm Hole in the bell housing for inspection (thats where a click comes from at the same point in the pedal). I have one of the clutchs on a jig at the moment, when you actuate it it does make a clicking noise, and feels like it stuters slightly. I still dont have a defintive answer though. I have read the bulitin regarding new uprated pressure plates form BMW Usa, thats why I flew a brand new LUK one in from germany. Has anyone got any ideas?

CSBM5 · 14th April 2006, 02:23

Sorry, no solution here, but I know exactly what you are talking about. My 2002 540i/6 had the same exact problem, and BMW replaced the clutch assembly at 3k miles. It reappeared about 4k miles later, off and on.

In my M5, I had a new factory clutch kit and new flywheel installed last August. It has been prefectly smooth up until 2 weeks ago when it started with the clicking noise and also a creaking noise when releasing the pedal (about 4k miles since clutch installed). It did this for 3 days and then quit last week. Just all of the sudden went back to being perfectly smooth with no noises.

I just drove it 1500 miles since last Saturday on a trip, and it was perfect the entire time...no click, no creak, and perfectly smooth pedal action.

M5FOE · 14th April 2006, 12:38

Someone has got to have an answer for this. On closer inspection the one I have on the test rig, leads me to think the face of the release bearing is to small possibly and the fingures on the diaphram can go just passed the edge. I would show you a picture of the rig but I cant work out how to post a picture.

greg · 14th April 2006, 13:32

I can't really contribute much except to say your theory makes very good sense - if a finger were to pop off the side of the throwout bearing it would make such a noise. I suspect it would leave some scratches on the side of the bearing - have you looked at that closely?

Thanks in any case for the detailed work to find the problem!