I cooked my clutch

[Fred Flintstone]

This evening I was having a bit of a bash and all of a sudden, my AMP MT stopped and wouldn't move. I pressed the throttle and I could hear the motor revving but the truck stayed put. So I knew something was wrong. At first I thought it may have been a stripped gear, but there are very few plastic gears left on my rig, so it was either the big pinion gear or something else. The car stunk of burnt plastic as I walked it back to my mancave. Once there, I took the transmission cover off and what did I find? A cooked clutch. Yes, one of the paper clutch plates had been turned to pulp and everything was hot AF. Pics below.
This is the result of me being negligent. A while ago I swapped out the plastic trans gears for metal ones and reassembled the transmission. I adjusted the clutch until it was just grabbing and thought that would be good enough. Turns out it wasn't.
I didn't allow for the clutch to bed in. I should have been tightening it a little it after each run. Its a very subjective thing, the slipper clutch. How much tension are you supposed to put on it? And how do you test this?
The only way I have found is to tighten it up until it is just slipping then tighten it some more. Does anyone else have any better ideas?
Also, the plastic gear seems to be chewed up a bit - the surface behind the clutch is all soft and rough and kind of sticky. My understanding is that the wear should happen between the clutch 'pads' and the metal discs. In my case, it looks like the paper clutch plates were spinning on the plastic gear. Anyone got any thoughts on this?

 

[aholmy]

I'm just getting into the short course part of the hobby and everyone's answer is different for the slipper clutch so it's kind of annoying
but the most I've heard is don't let it get too loose or it'll just burn out eventually, and majority of serious racers or bashers like it overly tight for that response, but sacrificing the drive train by running it hard with little to no shop slip

 

[zderekv]

I crank mine all the way down and back it off 1 to 1 1/2 turns. Been running like this for 20 years and never experienced a slipper failure. Most of the time when you blow a spur gear it’s because it wasn’t meshed properly, not because the slipper was too tight. The only benefit I see in running a loose slipper is protection against landing jumps on the throttle. But ya, I say run it tight although I a basher not a racer.

***This is all assuming you have full metal gears in your transmission as stated.

 

[REDdawn6]

I do mine this this, as well. Replace With 32p Associated Gears