[bigfish6025]

Here's the story:
I'm 50 miles into a drive going down the highway in 4th going 55 and I stop to meet a friend. 5 minutes later I'm back on the highway following him for another 20 miles or so when all the sudden I'm seeing smoke and smelling burned clutch. I drive for a few minutes and the smell/smoke continues and then it feels like I'm losing power. Putting on the gas just revs my engine so I jump off on a good pullout and theres smoke coming from under the hood.

I open the hood and let her cool and let the smoke clear =5 mins or so and then fire the engine back up. I have fuel spurting out of one of my injectors (the one on drivers side closest to firewall). So then I loosen, inspect, and replace the cap on the injector where the metal line runs in. I fire up the engine and presto no more spurting diesel.

So I think I'm good to go here and I throw her in gear and no go. The engine is idling fine and I can shift through all the gears in 2wd and 4wd without stalling the engine or moving 1". My clutch pedal action is normal and I depress the clutch, shift, release like normal, and the truck won't move.

Well I got it towed back to my garage and did alot of research on this forum as to what might be wrong.

Do I have a bad clutch?
Do I need to replace my flywheel as well, or can I get away with a resurface job.

I talked to a guy who says I might have gotten diesel on the clutch causing it to not work. He says to pull back the boot and remove thew inspection shroud and spray brakleen in there. Anything to that advice?

What I've done so far:
- pulled back boot & sprayed brakleen in there
- removed inspection shroud & spray brakleen, cranking the engine a little to make it turn and then spraying again -- see photos taken before application of brakleen

I wore out the battery trying to start it back up to see if my brakleen worked (its cold outside here still!), but I got a charger on it and will try tomorrow.
I'm trying to exhaust all my options before I run to Anchorage to get parts cause its about a 3 hour drive--so I want to get what I need when I'm up there- this is huge...

 

[cdnsarguy]

Do you have the dual mass flywheel still installed.........

Dual Mass Flywheel

Check to see if your TOB (throw out bearing) is not stuck on the shaft and releasing the clutch. Check to see if TOB moves clutch as required.

 

[bigfish6025]

Based on the research I've done, I should have a single mass flywheel, given that I have a 4-spd manual tranny. That being said, I dont know if that info is 100% accurate, or if a previous owner changed to a dual mass flywheel.

I can read a number stamp off the flywheel with that cover off, and I'll write it down tomorrow- maybe I can figure it out for sure then.

edit: is there a procedure for checking the throw out bearing without having to remove the tranny? That's going to be the next thing I'm going to look in to before buying a new clutch kit and just diving in I suppose.

 

[cdnsarguy]

The following is saved from archives.......Mel wrote it a long time ago and I just found it in my files.


Problem with throw out bearing
'85 F-350 Dually, T-19, GV Splitter, 100k, etc...(you can see my sig). Brief truck histroy. I got this truck from my brother-in-law about 2+ years ago. Before he had it his grandfather had it. Grandfather drove it 75,000 miles and has EVERYTHING maintenance related documented. Most everything on the truck has been replaced at some point, wether it needed it or not. PERFECT condition. My brother-in-law got it and ragged on it for 2-3 or so years adding about 10k miles. He passed away about 2 years ago and the truck was given to me. I absolutely love this truck and have been slowly getting everything back to that "perfect" condition.

I put about 3k - 4k miles a year on this truck and only use it for pulling loads (6-8k'ish lbs) on the highway. I don't use it much but when I use it, it better work (long trips in the middle of nowhere). When I first got the truck it was a pain in the butt to shift. Wouldn't go into first if the truck was sitting still. It would barely go into second.... only if you tilted your head in the correct direction and whistled the intro tune to ESPN. When you could get it in first or second, and were stopped with the clutch pressed in (disengaged) you could feel the truck bouncing/lurching forward slightly. Obviously the clutch was not disengaging fully. Eventually things shifted easier and easier (over 1-2 years)until it worked great!

Now my clutch is slipping. In a bad way. I'm leaving Thursday morning, February 27th, to tow a load about 1600 miles. I have completed all my normal maintenance I do before before long hauls. I decided to replace the clutch disc out of pure necessity. I put the truck on the lift and pulled everything off. Apparently the reason things started shifting better over time was because the clutch wore down near the rivets and the pressure plate and flywheel mirrored. The transmission "nose cone" had also sheared off. Had the flywheel surfaced, replaced cluth, pressure plate, and nose cone. Reassembled and drove it home. Guess what? It is now acting exactly like it did several years ago. It is not fully disengaging when I press the clutch all the way down.

I got on the board and searched and searched. I decided there may be air in the lines, considering all the action the slave cylinder just went through. My brother on the pedal and me on the slave cylinder... we bled 32 ounces of fluid through the thing and no change. (When he began pusing I would open up the bleeder screw. Just before he hit the bottom I would close the screw. Then he would have to pull the pedal back up himself...does that sound right? I expected the pedal to return on it's own... oh well) Apparently there is no air in the system so I replaced the slave cylinder. Figure the master cylinder is probably ok since there was only about 15k miles on it since it was replaced. Replaced the slave today and STILL THE SAME!!!

Seems to me the push rod on the master cylinder needs to be adjusted. Just lengthen it a bit....1/4 to 3/8 of an inch would be perfect! Sorry, no adjustment there. Just a solid rod from master cylinder to pivot point. So I start looking for other places to make an adjustment. Found one.

The pushrod from the master cylinder attaches to a bracket that acts as a fulcrum (I think). This lever attaches to the pushrod and goes up to attach to a long rod going over and eventually attaching to the clutch pedal. Where this bracket attaches to the rod there is a nut. Pull that nut off and you can see that the bracket is pressed onto the rod and a little bit of "help" will get that bracket off. I put the bracket back on, one tooth offset to apply more travel on the master cylinder pushrod. Reinstalled everything. Now the tranny shifts PERFECT!!! Only problem is that the clutch doesn't engage until the pedal is about 1/2" from the top of it's travel. The clutch probably isn't engaging fully and will probably, almost certainly, slip under load.

Now what?

I thought about replacing the master cylinder push rod with an adjustable one, but I don't know how to get it out. I tried pulling the push rod out and it seems it is attached to the master cylinder. I may return the bracket to it's original tooth setting (where the clutch doesn't fully disengage) and cut off the little bracket on the clutch pedal that hits the firewall and stops it's travel. That would give me about an inch worth of extra pedal travel to help the clutch disengage fully. Or I may leave the bracket offset one tooth (where it may not be fully engaging), pull out the master cylinder and cut a 1/4" - 3/8" piece out ot the pushrod and sleeve/weld it back.

Sheesh... I have so much OTHER stuff to be doing to get ready for this trip. Does anyone have a clue what I just said? And if so do you have any suggestions?

Thanks for reading my novel.

I must now go to bed as I am very tired. I'll have to listen to the wife complain about the stench of brake fluid. I showered.... but that stuff just needs to wear off I guess.

FIX
The problem begins with galling of the throw out bearing. This leads to high pedal effort, which leads to blown slave cylinders and cracked fire walls. If you only fixed the firewall, then you only fixed a symptom and not the problem. I know your going to hate hearing this since you just went through all that bleeding, but your going to need to pull your clutch fork and do the following. Remove the fork, and the pivot ball. Insert your hand with a rag and clean off all the dirt from the transmission input sleeve, on which the TOB rides. Inspect it visually, and by feel on the back side for scoring or gouging. If the tranny input sleeve is messed up, nothing short of replacing it and the TOB will ease your woes. If that checks out OK, get a big wad of bearing grease in your hand, and lather up the shaft and TOB. Go out and by a new fork and pivot point. There are wear limits on these, and for all they cost, it is cheaper to get new parts than worry about if your to far worn or not. Reverse assemble, and go through the bleeding process again. If your truck has 80K on it or more, and has never had the TOB serviced in this way, then you likely have problems with your input shaft. The TOB MUST be lubed in this manner on a regular maintainance schedule, or your doomed to clutch problems. - Mel

 

[LMJD]

Not being there I don't have a clue how bad your diesel leak was but bell housing to engine mating surfaces are sure not water (or diesel) tight. If you did diesel-soak the clutch disc there's absolutely no way you're going to clean it up with BrakeClean unless you have the disc sitting on a workbench. And then who knows if BrakeClean would draw out all the diesel. I know it's NOT effective trying to clean up oil-soaked brake shoes. Best bet is pull the rubber boot back at the TO bearing lever, look in while someone depresses the clutch and check the travel, make sure there's no problem with the lever, its pivot, TO brg travel, etc. If all that's OK it's a safe bet it's the disc/flywheel ass'y. I've replaced many a oil-soaked clutch, but never a diesel soaked one---that would be a first.

 

[bigfish6025]

Ok, I figured out I need to replace the clutch. I'm going to do the whole kit because I think it would be cheaper in the long run.

I'm going off a Chilton manual that says to remove/disable master cylinder and remove slave cylinder. I got that far.

Now I'm on to pulling the trans and I'm lost already. Chiltons say I have to drain all the fluid out. Do I have to do that? I got frustrated trying to figure out how to do that even!

I came home and read all about draining the trans oil on here but in my mind it just makes sense to skip that step and work on disconnecting the drive lines & removing the crossmembers, etc... I'm not trying to half ass anything here, but I'm a little skeptical of the Chilton manual right now, thats all.

 

[chuckster57]

When you remove the transmission you don't have to drain the oil. Where the driveshaft slides into the tail shaft of the tranny will drain if the tranny is tipped back. there are plugs you can buy so the oil doesn't leak out. I have two from Harbor Freight that I use when I take out FWD trannies or replace half shafts. The front of the tranny won't leak anything so don't worry about that end of it.

Main thing to remember is to support the engine when you take the cros member off and try to keep the input shaft of the trans "in line" with the crankshaft so it slides right out.

 

[Wicked_Rain]

Being a 4x4 Truck I don't think the driveline slides in and out of the back of the T-case. It should be a yolk that is slid into the T-case with a bolt in the center therefore nothing is going to leak out if i am not mistaken.

 

[bigfish6025]

"Main thing to remember is to support the engine when you take the cros member off and try to keep the input shaft of the trans "in line" with the crankshaft so it slides right out."

Can I support the engine with some 2-ton small-car jackstands with a 4x4 laid across them or something like that? The concern is that with the truck jacked up and the tranny off the engine will want to sag, right?

Glad I'm not having to drain the oil. Today was rough, everything seemed like a struggle. I'm taking a day off from this project to finish some other (more fun) ones.

 

[LMJD]

A shop manual can be invaluable but you don't always want to believe everything that's printed in it. As far as engine support, that's a common sense call. Every engine, trans, and crossmember location is different. On some the crossmember and engine mounts are set far enough back the engine doesn't need to be supported when the trans is removed, otherwise like you said, use a jackstand, 2X4's or whatever. I've always used wood blocks and a bottle jack, whatever works. As Chuckster posted, trans and engine lined up properly is real important, especially when re-installing the trans.

 

[Jrad235]

Being a 4x4 Truck I don't think the driveline slides in and out of the back of the T-case. It should be a yolk that is slid into the T-case with a bolt in the center therefore nothing is going to leak out if i am not mistaken.

Depends on the transfer case/driveshaft. My BW 1356 has that style for the front driveshaft, but the rear one has a slip yoke on it.(Solid shaft to the rear axle)


I am currently taking mine apart to change the clutch out, so thanks for the tip on supporting the engine, Chuck.

I like the jackstand idea Bigfish, since I only have one jack.