Clutch troubles, do I need shims?

[tom37]

I pulled the 4 speed and trans this morning. Had the flywheel resurfaced and they had to take .050 off to clean it up.

I was told that I needed a shim to take the place of the .050 that came off the flywheel.

I have read many threads here and can't say that I remember reading of anyone shimming there flywheel.

Any advice would be appericated since I am sitting here with my ride tore apart and it looks like even if I order them its gonna be tues or wed at best before I get it back together. That is if I can find the right ones.

 

[MUDKICKR]

shim would go between the flywheel and crank, so that the release bearing linkage would work as if the flywheel hasnt been turned.
since you had the flywheel turned down, the pressure plate and clutch disc are closer to the engine, which in turn is further away from the transmission. on hydraulic clutch system it can either make the pedal low to the floor or not release correctly due to the clutch kit being to far away from the release bearing, but, if you have manual linkage system, then you should be able to adjust the linkage, and not worry about a shim. being you have a 4 speed, you should have linkage, but im not 100% what you truck has.
on my jeep (2000 wrangler)i installed a stage 3 clutch in it, the clutch pedal released right off the floor. it has hydraulic clutch system and i took the rod from the slave cylinder and cut it in half, welded a few nuts together (while being on allthread), and used another bolt on the end with a lock nut. that way i can adjust where the pedal is.

 

[tom37]

Thank You mudkickr.

Its on my 87 6.9 4 speed.

It does have a hyd slave cyl, but there is an adjustable push rod.

In my mind, I want to think that I could adj the difference that the .050 makes in the push rod.
I could be all wrong tho.

I have a little time to make my decision since now I am alone and trying to figure a nice way to balance the trans and transfer case on the jack. I'm close, right now I have a plate from the trans mount bolts forward to right behind the trans drain. Now to just build a small plate to balance the offset of the transfer case. Its only a pound or two, but if I turn it loose it wants to tip.

 

[MUDKICKR]

if its adjustable, then dont worry about the shim, shims are for systems without any adjustment

 

[anthonyj]

l had mine surfaced 4 or 5 years 1OOOOO miles ago and still have not installed shims. no trouble with shifting at all.

 

[tom37]

Well it seems that I got all excited.

The push rod is not adjustable, my bad.

Unless I get a ton of negative responses tonight I think I will go back together with it in the AM. At that point I will address the push rod issue and see if I can make one with adjustment in it. If the clutch does not want to release.

Does anyone see any issues with hardness of the rod?

It wouldn't take to much to cut the ball ends off the original rod and sub in a chunk of grade 5 bolt and a rod extender to allow for adjustment.

Or cut the original rod, thread one end and weld a rod extender to the other end. I would keep both ball ends in place at there current distance and have about 3/4 inch adj each direction.

 

[Double-S-Diesel]

should be ok with out a shim

 

[ford390gashog]

No shim needed!! But why did they take .050 off?? If the flywheel was that bad it should have been replaced and no may suffer from balance issues! When I resurface a flywheel I go .020 over at the max! My guess is there was surface fractures that they were trying to machine about and went a little crazy with it!

 

[tom37]

I know very little about machine work. But the way that I understood it was that the center of the clutch surface ( closest to the bolts to the crankshaft) was aprox .050 lower then the outter most edges.

I hope that I can get by with the one I have. Money is terrible tight until the first of the year, I already picked all I could off that tree in the back yard.

 

[tom37]

I went ahead and put it all back together, the pedal is low and its tough to find a non moving gear when the pedal is down. So right before I sat down to eat I welded up a new adjustable push rod. I was going to hard surface the ball ends then decided that I would rather the rod wear and need replaced vs the fork.

Now that its all back except for the interior I remember why I choose to climb poles and string line overhead instead of working flat on the ground. I actually enjoy doing the work, its just that my body does not like it so much now days.

Once I make it in for the night I will post a pic of the plate I made to balance the weight of the transmission and trans case. Not that someone hasn't already done it, just that it made it so that one person can easily handle the combo.

Had it not been for the slope of the driveway and the whole works kept rolling to the curb, I would have married it alone with ease.

 

[tom37]

All is good now. Thanks for the help.

Its all back together now, with only a few speed bumps along the way.

It appears that the parts that came out were LUK, the disc was thin but OK.
The pressure plate was toast, it lost all its spring. After all 6 bolts were out I could still hold it flush to the flywheel. Everything was still in one piece tho.

The factory push rod was 4 1/4 inchs long and the new one is 5 1/8 inchs long when extended. That was just a wild guess on length.

After looking at the new one, which didn't have ball ends. I revised my plan.
I simply cut and rounded one end, the threads on the other end welded to a rod extender nut, and a 3/8" bolt threaded into that. The end of the 3/8" bolt had to be cut and machined redneck style to fit the little plastic ball end that rest against the fork. Once adjusted, I was able to put the rubber boot back in place.

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Since the clutch bought the farm a little sooner then I planned, I didnt have time to be picky about parts. So I ended up with a needle bearing pilot.
But I pressed it in vs the hammer method.

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Last pics are of the plate I used to balance the transmission and trans case.
Not to big of a deal, but I'm alone most of the time and couldn't see buying a trans jack, and not even sure that would have worked for me.

It bolts to the trans mount and has a piece of angle on the drivers side so that I could wedge a piece of wood under the transmission so it would sit level. Then I made a ring slightly larger then the pad on the jack. This way I could push on the jack and not worry about pushing the jack out from under the trans. Been there Done that. It would have been nice if the driveway didnt slope to the street. I had to have the neighbor stick a screwdriver under the wheel of the jack after I stabbed it.

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Thanks for the advise guys, without the site I would have waited to put it back together until I could have ordered shims.
Please don't hammer me to bad about the exhaust, it came with the truck and I haven't had time to clean it up. Well cut it off and replace it would be more like it.

 

[typ4]

You would have never found a shim for the flywheel, and even if they made them I would NEVER use one. I think a shim behind the tob mount would work better, I like the adjustable rod, way tunable.

 

[subway]

I agree with Russ, adjustable linkage is the way to go. some of your clutch pedal height might also have more to do with the linkages under your dash, check those i bet they are worn.

nice job on the jack trick!

 

[tom37]

Thank You Russ and Jred,

I really didnt care for the idea of a shim behind the flywheel but oriely showed the shim and acted like they sell plenty of them for other makes and models.

I personally had never used one.

I really didn't care for the plastic cap that came with the new slave but I went with it. So long as it all last until I find a ZF all will be good.

Do you all have any ideas for bleeding the slave. I had the wife as a helper and the pedal only got worse during and after the bleed. Not sure what she was doing, so I pulled it from the bell housing and let it bleed by gravity. I had a decent pedal but tonight I had to pump it a couple times to get it back.

 

[typ4]

The best way I have found is to sit in the truck, pump up the pedal , hold it down for a long time, like 5 mins, do this several times and the bubbles will migrate to the master, works great for me.