[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations!
Well, it appears that the clutch fork in my '99 f-350 has fallen prey to the bending/breaking problems reported elsewhere... Since I have to pull the blasted transmission ANYWAY...I will probably go ahead and put a new clutch system in.
My question is this: Any opinions about going with a solid flywheel instead of the dual-mass flywheel that was original to the truck? It appears that Ford uses the solid flywheel in the larger trucks (450 and up), so I wonder if there are any real drawbacks to using it in the 350.
I HAVE found some discussion online, but, no clear "thumbs up" or "Thumbs down" information.
Regards
Dave Mundt

 

[nastynotchback1]

ford stopped the dual mass in 1998.your truck has a solid flywheel or should have.i thought the same thing untill i went to buy a new clutch and found out it already had a solid.

 

[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations...
Thanks for the note. I FINALLY got the transmission
pulled out this afternoon, and, indeed, it is a solid flywheel.
Actually, it appears that the clutch itself is in near-mint
condition. There are some slight marks on the fingers, but,
the plate is still nearly full thickness, and, the throw-out
bearing is smooth and quiet. As I expected, though, the
fork has, indeed, broken just up from the back pivot point.
At this point, I am seriously thinking of just putting in
a new fork (and MAYBE a throwout bearing), bolting things
back together and calling it good. While a new clutch
would be great, right now it is a BIT painful for me to
drop the $500+ it would cost. In any case, I will see if
I can't post some pictures of the broken fork on my website,
just because I don't think anyone else has yet...
Regards
Dave Mundt