Power Smoke Adventures - clutch destruction - November 5 2002

The attack of the torque monster. By Matt Yore

So there I was, grabbing second in a surprisingly user friendly way, and she basically just took a dump. I was confused at first and thought the linkage just came off again, but then I realized it was in gear and hidden behind the usual infamous diesel noise was something new. It sounded like a belt sander that got loose in a hen house. I pushed the pedal in to pull it out of gear and that just made things worse. I got it out of gear, opened the door and looked for transmixer parts rolling on the ground and happily found none. Then I got a whiff of something that reminded me of stock truck pulls in Hollister... that unmistakable clutch smell. So I shut her down and checked out some chicks driving by. That didn't help but it got my mind of my troubles for an instant. Of course they didn't stop.

So I got out my trusty cell phone and thought about calling Russ just on principle, but I decided to call the guys that were only a mile away. It was a two step towing process. First a chevy with a nice piss on ford sticker got to have its day and pulled me off the road. Then I pretended to work while I learned about clutches on the web. Then little Eddie got a workout and pulled me home via the car wash. We put the transfer case in low and were able to get enough torque to drive it into the mini-shop.

Happy to have something to do, we tied into it and had the drivelines and cross members off in no time. Another visit to the rental yard yielded a P.O.S. tranny jack. (I am beginning to see a pattern here) A trip to NAPA pissed me off and got me a $350 clutch pack with no warranty cause they didn't know anything about dual mass flywheels and that you can't resurface them (but I can get a new one for $850 and then they would guarantee the clutch). So I called the guys at Carolina Clutch and was talked into a LuK Single Mass Flywheel and updated clutch kit. It will give me 25% more torque. Like I need more torque... Hey, can I get a torque converter and convert it to something like chicks or money? Anyway, back to pulling the tranny. With the trusty jack in place, we removed the bell housing bolts. The four you can see were no problem.

Figure 1. Takin out the bolts. Takin out the bolts.

Those two between the turbo and firewall were a little different story. Andy ended up getting to them with a couple extensions and a wobble socket, through the hole in the floor board where the shifter used to be. They weren't too bad, but putting them back in will likely take some cussing. Turns out our favorite jack didn't go low enough to get the tranny out, so we had to jack up the truck a little more. But we got it. See?

Figure 2. Maybe now would be the time to change that seal.

So what did we find between the tranny and the torque monster? A few extra chunks for starters.

Figure 3. Check this shit out.

Figure 4. "You just want me to weld this back together?", "No Andy"

Here are some more pics.