AndyMan

I originally posted this on the TDR, but thought it might also be beneficial to some of you when it comes time to decide who puts your new clutch in.


The purpose of this post is two fold:
1. To give you another reason to be extremely selective of who installs your clutch.
2. To give you an opinion of a lesser known performance clutch.


So with the Juice/Attitude and Mach 3's, I could slip the OFE at will. I talked to Peter and about it and we both agreed that those mods shouldn't be causing the clutch to slip. Peter offered to send me a replacement for a very reasonable fee. I decided to pull the injectors and wait a little while to see how the clutch acted. Well, with the injectors out, the clutch did pretty well. There was still some shuddering during 2nd gear engagement from a stop (6spd), but other than that, it ran out pretty good. During the same time, I had also been talking to my buddy Gary Croyle at Perfection Clutch. I met him a couple years ago at a local TDR function that I had organized. We keep in touch and catch up every few weeks or so. I had been talking to him about the problem and it kind of worked itself into a "bring it up here and lets take a look". It was twofold for them as they didn't have a part number specific to my application (I have a 99 with a factory NV-5600 and a 1-1/4" input shaft), and they needed a truck for an upcoming article in a trade magazine.

So Tuesday afternoon, I left Nashville headed east to South Carolina. We got the truck on the rack in their lab on Wednsday morning. I was astounded to see some of the things we found. Here comes the big part of "purpose #1". The South Bend Clutch install was botched. BADLY. I would imagine a great majority of issues that Peter may have are due to things that we found, not any fault of the South Bend Product. The first observation was that one of the two dowel sleeves was missing from the bellhousing. Next we noticed that there was some wear on the nose of the input shaft. Not bad, but it was worn. I'll get to why here in a second. Next we noticed that the "nubs" on the release fork were worn flat. This is the area where the release fork contacts the bottom of the throwout bearing. This caused the throwout bearing not be be able to pivot during a release/engagement and putting pressure on the bearing retainer and the bearing itself. Next, off came the clutch cover (attached with the wrong bolts - they were not shoulder bolts), and we noticed that the flywheel was re-drilled to accept the cover... 5speed cover and 6speed flywheel if I remember correctly (not neccessarily a bad thing). Oddly, the pressure plate, friction material, and flywheel surface looked pretty good. No visual hotspots. The springs on the torsion damper however were a different story. Loose, and severely worn. An impending failure for sure. But the mack daddy of the problems was that the pilot bearing was pushed almost completely out of the flywheel. It APPEARS that what happened was that during the installation of the transmission, long bolts were used to "stab" the tranny and pull it in to be seated. This method of reckless abandon and brute force to install apparently caused the tip of the input shaft to catch enough of the pilot bearing to force it out of the flywheel when the tranny was being forced in. Although I don't know for sure, I suspect that this is what caused such severe wear in the torsion damper.

Now that the old one was out, the new one went in. I'll spare you those details, but will say that a new 13" flywheel, ceramic disc, and VT clutch cover went back in. Accurately and correctly. In addition, a new ball stud, starter spacer, release fork and throwout bearing were installed.

I've had a couple of SBC clutch's This OFE, an an FE in a previous 12valve. The failure of this clutch was NO FAULT OF South Bend Clutch, but rather the imbecilles who installed it. I bought the truck with that clutch already installed, so I do not know who it was that performed the install.

Now for a short driveabilty report of the clutch system. It's incredible. I encourage anyone in who's ever in the Nashville area to come by and drive the truck. As a passenger with earplugs and a blindfold, you'd be hard pressed to tell when I switch gears. With the Edge HOT Juice/Attitude on level 6x5, there is no slipping, no chatter, and no otherwise negative indication of issues.

To sum up: No matter which brand you buy, a poor installation will result in a poor performing clutch system.

In closing,
Thanks to Peter @ SBC for great customer service

and

Thanks to Gary @ Perfection Clutch for a great installation of a great system. I couldn't be happier with the performance. I highly recommend checking one of these systems out. I've never driven anything like it.

BTW: I have no affiliation with any clutch manufacturer/reseller/distributer. I'm only a consumer.

AndyMan

Pics from the install for those who might be interested...

Clutch Install Pics

Box5

After I did my 5spd swap, I can understand why people would resort to using that bolt method to install the trans. But just like u discovered, it should never be used (unless ur just using the bolts as alignment) because ur just forcing the trans in. I spent 12 hours straight under my truck alone trying to get the trans to align into the clutch and pilot bearing when I installed the new clutch, and didn't get it in. Came back the next morning and it took me minutes and it slid right in with no friction. It's just a matter of getting the trans aligned perfectly and it will slide in with ease. All I can say is when I need a new clutch, i'm gonna bring a friend this time to adjust the jack as I adjust the trans to get it in.

AndyMan

It can certainly be a pain to get it leveled just right to pop in, but when it's right, you know it cause it just glides right in.