South Bend Clutch

Don,

It appears that you have made a new choice in the clutch department. That is fine, the choice is always yours. One thing that I do not appreciate is that you are posting pictures in comparison and plate loads that are incorrect. For the record, the plate loads that you are stating about our clutch are stock #'s. We modify our pressure plate for a higher clamp force. I guess you didn't know that. The weighted cover that you spoke of is defiantly higher depending on the RPM.

You purchased our cheapest clutch, which is about half the cost of a JD clutch, and it got you near 500 hp. And you told the world how impressed you were. Now you come on here and say how inferior it is. ??? You sound like a clutch expert now but it sounds like an echo straight form Joe himself. Before you post what you think or here as fact you should get the facts first.

As for the Sachs disc, Back in the late 80's and early 90's we saw this disc coming in our doors broken apart with stock engines. The encapsulated spring design is good but what you are not showing is the backside of the disc. Flip it over and take a picture of it. You will see 3 or 6 tinny springs that are tack welded in with a tin shield. These springs are for the dieseling or spiking that is created by the diesels. We saw them continuously brake apart and fail. Now for the fiber washers that separate the top plate from the bottom plate of the disc. Take a picture of that while you are at it. Then I will post the pictures of them puked out of the assembly. They become brittle and crack apart then spits out into your pressure plate. Let alone the chatter that the Sachs clutch was notorious for. This is why DC made the choice to change companies when they went to the NV 4500. Not only that but we have the charts from 1994 that show the (stock LUK clutch was capable of holding more torque then the Sacks unit. Torque sheets done by DC themselves. We saw lots of failures with the LUK design disc and decided to go with a better design (Valeo) in our eyes witch proved to do well for a while. The hp power kept going up and coupled with heavy hauling this design was not good enough. The new ETH design proved to be a very durable and well built clutch disc. We have found a way to retrofit this design into the earlier models and are doing very well. Then we went back to work on the Valeo design; we are now hand making springs that are 60 pounds a piece heavier to eliminate the bottoming out of the springs.

Now as for Joe's re re re engineered clutch, All he has done is gone from a 6 button Meba disc to a 3 larger button Meba disc to a 3 button carbon fiber disc. I have the charts at work that is supplied by the friction companies that show the differences in friction coeficiancy between the two materials and it is not that great. What is funny is they all use a base portion of feramic or gray iron. This is what our higher end facings are made sully of. 100% gray iron. Joe's buttons cost approx. $6.00 each *6 = $36.00 our facings cost over $100.00 each *2 = $200.00+ Which you never tried!!!!

To put it in a nutshell...why do you feel the need to put down what you once praised.

WAIT!!
I don't want to know, I just wanted to set the record staight.
If you are buddies with Joe and wanted to try his product then that is fine, Joe and I are buddies too. But, you should not slander what once worked well for you (at half the cost). This is not a comparison. Try comparing my 13" feramic with his which is closer to the same price.
Peter

Rob Thomas

Great post Peter, for a second I almost believed that you made infierior clutches because of what one guy said. :<br><br>Peter, you have nothing to fear, everyone that I know,(who has one of your clutches) is very, very pleased with them.<br><br>Later, Rob

patriot pearl blue

just giving my .09cents [.07 due to inflation]<br><br> <br> [move]GOOD TO SEE A VENDOR WHO SPEAKS HIS MIND!!![/move]<br><br> seems these days that alot of vendors hide behind a alias name to avoid conflict- { not here, i just see it all the time}<br> <br> glad to see some spirit left in a business~~<br><br> wished it was like this all over the internet!!<br> <br> peace<br><br>BRYAN<br> <br><br> <br>

DarrellB

I second what Rob said Peter. 8)<br><br>Your reputation speaks for itself, as does your customer service. <br><br>DB

TxDieselKid

Peter is DA MAN!!!!!!

Thanks for saying something about this Peter!!!!!!!!!!

Andrew

Alan_Reagan

Well stated, Peter. As usual, your ability to make your point in a calm and informative manner is appreciated by me (not that that means anything).

drawson

Just to add my 2c worth on this. I don't claim to be an expert. But here is my real life experience. I am close to the same HP levels as Don(He's got me by 30HP) and Don and I have been really close in the HP development all a long. We both put the Con O at almost the same time. I found that the Con O exceeded the Level of HP South Bend rated it at. It held 487 HP and never did it ever slip. And man oh Man was the thing smooth ;D When I first got it I though there was something wrong with the clucth it was just too light of peddle pressure. The Con O for being South Bends cheap clutch is one heck of a great value!!!!! <br><br>I have drove and seen Joe's Sach clutchs and have seen them broken. Joe's Clutch is a good clucth but it is not even close for smoothness and the peddle pressure is a good way to build some calf strength. <br><br>What was started by Don M in the thread that got out of hand was an on going rivialry between Don M and Gene that goes way back to the TDR before Don M Left. I have always thought that Gene and Don should get together in a ring with boxing gloves and work out there frustations with one another.<br><br>In my book Peter and South Bend have the best products for us non puller guys and it has been my experience that they have by far the very best customer service around....

Riflesmith

I have 16,000 miles on my South Bend Clutch. It does everything Peter claimed it would. Never slips no matter what I throw at it. It is so streetable my wife could not tell the difference from the stock clutch. It is the only clutch I recommend to people asking for one with more holding power.<br>Great products produced by top-notch people.

Don M

Hi Peter,<br><br>I always liked your clutch. I had zero problems with it. Nice light pedal pressure and great drivability. It held up to 478HP on my truck and once held just over that. On the street, it slipped around 480. It held much better than I was ever told it would, and it held more than it was advertised to hold as well. Kudos to you and to me as well for driving it right and making it sure it was engaged fully before pouring the coals to it. This is important. Even with the very high weight of my truck 8775lbs without me (185 lbs) in it. it worked pretty dern well for the cheapest clutch you make for our applications.<br><br>I went back and read the thread again and did not see any negative remarks about your clutch. I even read a few good ones I made. I mearly stated facts. The Valeo clutch disk I used had a 5 pin arrangement that held the hub to the disk. This is true. The pins are smaller in size than the Sachs pins and the Sachs uses 8 pins. These are all true statements.<br>The springs are not encased in the Valeo hub either. They are in the Sachs. True again. Springs can wiggle and pop out with a good healthy torque load. The encased springs cannot.<br><br>AS for chatter, yes the Sachs can chatter. This goes back to the statement of having to compromise a few drivability issues with the higher HP trucks/engine combos. My Southbend Con O never chattered, ever, but the Con FE and even the Con OFE do chatter some, about like the Sachs does in the trucks I have driven and head comments about.<br><br>I do have to comment that you may think you have part of the reason DC went to the Luk disk over the Sachs, but a large part of that reason is the Sachs is made in Germany and the cost per truck was substantially higher than the LUK version. This saved DC a ton of money when multiplied by the number of clutchs they would be installing. Just like DC no longer uses a hood liner for noise supression on the new trucks, to save money. In todays world, the buck is king in many cases. <br><br>If I have gotten the plate clamping force or loads incorrect, can you please post the correct numbers? Joes are below:<br><br>Joes first clutch ( the one that Sled Puller got ) was at 3600 pounds and used the 6 pucks you speak of. <br>Joes second version ( Like I have ) uses three pucks and is at 3800lbs. <br>Joes also has a few pressure plates at 4100lbs for even more clamp load.<br><br>The Sachs is a 13&quot; clutch right out of the the box, even for the 5 speed trucks. This means you can use your stock flywheel with the Sachs and not have to buy a 6 speed flywheel. With the Con FE for the 5 speeds ( the big one you speak of ) you have to purchase a new flywheel. This adds cost. Not a slam Peter, just the truth. The price to use a Con FE in my case ( 5 speed) is considerably more money to buy and use than the Sachs would be. I would also have to box up and ship the flywheel back up to SouthBend to recover a core charge for my stock flywheel. The lower inertia of the stock 5 speed flywheel was a benefit to me as well. I also did not like the idea of redrilling the 6 speed flywheel to get the bolt pattern to line up. This tends to weaken the entire design, IMO only of course. Drilling extra holes in the flywheel may be ok, but I have not looked into it yet. I just did not like the idea on face and at a glance.<br><br>The stock 6 speed guys dont have to worry about flywheel dilemas though. Just us lowly 5 speeders. Which brings me back to the Valeo hub and the Sachs hub. Looking at my Valeo hub it only grabs about 50% of the input shaft that the Sachs does. This is not a slam either. Its just true. I saw a broken input shaft in a 5 speed recently after he switched to a Sachs. His Sachs was holding the power and may have caused the shaft to break. when it did break, the large area the Sachs contacts on the shaft was able to keep the shaft intact long enough to get he truck back home. Since the shaft was broken in the center of the Sachs hub, this means it was already stressed from the contact area on the stock LUK disk. <br>DC has had many failures of the 1-1/4 inch input shafts in the 5 speeds. They always stress and break right where the hub ends in their newer and less expensive LUK disks. I suspect this breakage is caused over time from the disk contacting a smaller portion of the shaft than the older trucks that used the Sachs disks that contact the 50% more area. This would tend to stress a smaller area more. Applying more torque into a smaller localized area does this. Spreading this type of load out over a larger area will only help and the Sachs disk does this.<br>In another example I saw an input shaft that was just slightly twisted from the Valeo disk. The twisting was not visible to the eye unless one looked very closely. Very closely. You could freely slide a SouthBend hub over the twisted areas with zero effort. We could not slide the Sachs hub over the twisted area of the shaft at all. It would stick. This was caused by two things: The Sachs hub had a closer tolerance between the hub and the shaft. The width of the Sachs hub was wide enough to cause it to stick on the light twisted areas and the SouthBend hub had a tolerance greater than the Sachs hub. The fit between the input shaft and the clutch hub splines for clarity.<br><br>To sum up, I never put your clutch down. Nowhere in my posts did I make a false statement unless I got the clamp loads somewhat incorrect. I do know they are very close though. Very close. I will also say that you must somewhat agree that increased clamp loads are important, because your latest pressure plate is the Centerforce pressure plate that has a higher clamp force. You also machine the pressure ring to get on the best portion of the diaphram spring. Right? <br><br>My Sachs clutch was 950 bucks complete with new allen bolts and a bronze pilot bushing. To go with the SouthBend flywheel upgrade and the Centerforce pressure plate CON FE would have been almost double that price. <br><br>I will be more than happy to remove any false or incorrect statement you find in any of my posts regarding your clutch or products. For the overwhelming majority of folks in the Diesel world I feel the SouthBend clutch is more than enough clutch. I still recommend it to folks all the time. I did not &quot;jump ship&quot; on you in full. At the same time I feel that Joes latest clutch will hold the higher HP trucks better and still provide the sprung hub design that most need. Hence the title of my latest post about &quot;holding high HP&quot;. I just call them like I see them. I was very happy with my SouthBend and made the call, so to speak. I also like my Sachs, but never posted prices of your products VS. the Sachs. I felt that was in bad or poor taste. <br><br>Don~<br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br>

Don M

Hey Dee,

One problem, Gene is way too big for me to handle ;D That beer/food gut would flatten me. ;D

Yes, my Con O was great to drive and yes the Sachs has a stiffer pedal presure when compared to it for sure. It is a compromise I am willing to make. The Sachs is not for the younger crowd or the lower powered trucks. it is for the guys who need to hold big power. As the months pass by and I tweak out more power I needed the holding power of the Sachs.



Rob,

Like you, I went to a clutch that is better suited for my application. You want to pull sleds so you have a pulling clutch. I want to hold big HP in the near future, so I went with a clutch that will do this the best and still give me a sprung hub, a larger contact area between the input shaft splines and the input shaft, and have the 8 large pins holding the hub to the disk. I have seen and heard of too many disks with the center section ripped out from the smaller diameter and lower number of pins. Many times when the hub grenades they can take out other stuff with them. My truck is very heavy and is a dual rear wheel set-up. When many trucks will slip the tires on the street mine will grab from the extra wheels and the extra weight. I need a strong hub. You need a clutch that will hold when sliped and pulling weight. SouthBend was not the choice of either one of us.


Don~

South Bend Clutch

Don,<br><br>I understand what you're trying to say but here are the points that I was trying to make:<br><br>1. You are listening to Joe on the quality of the Sachs disk and posting it's superiority when, in fact, there are also flaws to that center that I felt needed to be brought up.<br><br>2. When you stated the clamp force of our clutch you were incorrect, which you recognized.<br><br>3. You drove that clutch for quite a while with high horse and the center did not fail, yet you said that it was inferior to the other unit which you have not driven for a period of time to see it's cause and effect. <br><br>Again, I just felt that it was important to give both sides of that story.<br><br>4. Again, you are stating something that you think you are right about, and you are wrong. All you needed to do was call and ask. The flywheel that we use is not the 6 speed flywheel. We use the 5 speed flywheel. Yes we do redrill it to accept the larger clutch, with a precision jig. As for losing integrity in the flywheel, it is simply a statement from someone who does not understand clutches. Many flywheels on the market have multiple drill patterns to accept different types of pressure plates.<br><br>5. As for the spline size difference, I just calibrated the difference between the two, new to new, both hubs outside spline size demention had a 1.257&quot; and the inside tooth diameter was 1.015&quot;. They were identical and in tooth width as well. The overall length of the hub in the Sachs is 1.765&quot; the Valeo hub is 1.145&quot; and the 13&quot; design is 1.375&quot;. Now, does this make a difference on the stress that it applies to the input shaft? I believe it is more to the rigidity of the dampened or non-dampened center that causes the shock to the input shaft. As to the reason in the difference of the two splines sliding onto the slightly tweaked shaft with variance, one is the length of the hub and 2 is you were compairing a worn hub to a new hub. Obviously, the worn hub will have a slight difference in size. <br><br>This is what I am talking about, when it comes to stating things that is only a guess.<br><br>I would, however, like to thank you for the kind words that you have said.<br><br>Peter

Don M

Peter,

I or anyone else can see the strength differences in the designs of all three hubs. It goes hands down to the Sachs disk. You dont have to be a clutch professional to see the differences. Right? The modified Sachs is a full 1.5 pounds lighter than the even the stock Sachs with the organic lining. This makes life easier on the syncros of the tranny.

From your measurements I can see the Sachs hub contacts 54% more of the input shaft splines than the Valeo hub I had and about 28% more than your latest design. The Sachs hub will spread the load over a larger area and tend to fatigue stress the shaft much less because the load is not concentrated in as small an area.


Saying that I was &quot;person that does not understand clutchs&quot; is somewhat incorrect. I understand them pretty dern well. I do not have the time you do in the industry,but this does not disqualify me totally. I have a valid set of points.

Yes, I was wrong about your clamping force. Once more, will you tell me what the clamping force is of your pressure plates? I am still betting the clamp force is right about what I said it was. I also know the clamp force on the Centerforce to be correct or I was given bad data by Centerforce themselves.
I understand that machining the pressure ring can help the force somewhat and get you on the sweet spot of the diaphram spring that you apply by blanchard grinding the ring to help match it to the thickness of the disk facing you use. Joe does this as well.

As for broken hubs...there are zero Sachs out there with broken hubs and many a Southbend has broken in that region. I can name over 10 guys that ripped the center hub out. Yes there are many more SouthBend clutchs in service than modified Sachs, but there are many more stock Sachs in service than Southbends as well.

Clamp loads are important to holding ability. Can you tell me yours? I have show what mine are.

I also like the Southbend Clutchs, I never said I did not. I just felt the modified Sachs was better for my application. I do not always make a popular decison in these discussions and generally come out on bottom by the sheer number of posts for the other side, so to speak. . A recent thread about Piers camshaft got me a good, but the fact still remained the stock camshaft that is reground is not the greatest idea for a maximum effort engine plain and simple. Perhaps some were listening, Piers now has a reground marine cam and even a custom billet shaft. It was my point all along to use a stronger shaft with a bolt on gear. He has now gone to this design. Good for him and for the guys who wanna run hard. The same applies to the clamp load for clutchs. You knew that the stock pressure plates needed more clamp load, so you went to a Centerforce to aid in this area. Right? Further, the larger disk you now use has an increased area it grabs the splines when compared to the older Valeo hub you sold me. This increase was to keep the splines in contact with more of the input shaft and spread the load. The Sachs followed this thinking from its inception.

The original post was to show the reasons I went to the Sacsh VS. the SouthBend. I was overtaxing the little SouthBend and the next step up was a redrilled flywheel with a pressure plate that had less clamp force and a hub that was visually weaker in design. I went to the Sachs. It does drive harsher and it is more difficult to push the pedal down. Its not for the wifey to drive or the average traffic fighter either. Its for the guys who needs to hold max power and provide an increased strength level. I bet as time goes by and the HP goes up in our trucks you will begin to increase the clamping force even more in your clutchs. Joe did this two years ago when he made the 609HP on diesel alone at Silver State Motorsports. Since we cannot change the friction material we now have available the only thing left to do is increase the force the pressure plate exerts on the clutch disk. Joe realized this 2 years ago when modifying the Sachs. You will need to do the same thing as we all learn more ways to squeeze out more power. Its not a slam just the only way this dumb clutch guy can see is the best way to go.


Don~

Hired Gun

Time out fellas. I was given a number of a fella the other day. I was in a pickle about what clutch. Rob gave me info about a pulling clutch. This clutch was way to high for me for what I wanted. Rob is a great guy with a lot of knowledge. I respect him. I also talked to owners of the Con Fe. They stated that if I wanted to pull this clutch would hold. Warranty is no good, but a warranty anymore is a piece of pro-rated crap. The fella I talked with puts more than 60 pulls a year on the Con Fe. He also won the points at his area. He raves about the Con Fe. I also talked with DarrellB. He just had a Con Fe put in at Black Mountain Diesel. Had to do that guys. He loves the clutch. I also talked with Enterprise Engine. I feel they know what they do. They too said the Con Fe would do great for what I need. Thats my 2 cents. I am just glad to have guys like you all that have numbers and knowledge to give to us all. 8)

South Bend Clutch

This is the last time I will post on this issue, but since you said there have been no broken disks to date I thought I would show you a few from our bin of cores:<br><br>This is the back side of the disk, as you showed.<br><br>This is the front side of the disk with the tiny little springs that I had mentioned.<br><br>This is the front side of the disk with the tiny little springs broken and missing.<br><br>This is the side view of the fiber washers that I spoke of, where they have broken and came out. Where did they go?<br><br>This is another disk with the same problem.<br><br>Now you have three disks that have failed.<br><br>Peter

Scotty

Its good to see some great info and knowledge and for the most part it has stayed very civil.<br><br>I love the way my Con FE 2001 has worked for me.<br><br> ;D<br><br>Its just the right thing for what I do.<br><br>Glad there are choices out there too. <br><br>We all know theres only one brand of Grill that works the best though.<br>Go George Go.