'97 F350 PSD clutch recommendation, now build and whatnot saga :)

[00t444e]

Let us know how loud it rattles.

 

[scotts90ranger]

After you posted that I was curious since I hadn't done much research (other than seeing some 10 year old posts on random forums saying they were good...) and didn't see any complaints so I'm hoping for being reasonable , it's not a daily driver and is straight piped after the turbo (exiting just behind the cab) so I'm not THAT worried, my main wants are the ability to feather it for trailer maneuvering or whatnot... now that I know the huge amount of slop in the geartrain was the counter shaft bearings and somewhat the hub of the Luk friction disc so it should be more pleasant to idle around campgrounds in first... I'm goin to lose my semi auto shifting ability though so I'll have to actually try to shift (with all the slop it would shift without clutch super easy)

Anywho, got the counter shaft bearings installed tonight, tomorrow I get to pull the two bearing races out of the case then clean that out and maybe check how much I have to shim the counter shaft so there's some preload... I have some shims... Might just make my goal of putting it in on Sunday...

 

[scotts90ranger]

I think all the micro metal particles make things harder to take apart... the output bearing race was STUCK, conveniently at a swap meet this morning I found a 3 jaw slide hammer for way cheaper than the OTC price which eventually got it out... the input shaft race was stuck but after destroying the oil baffle thing I was able to get my smaller slide hammer that I'd taken a 1/2-20 nut and welded a washer to it behind the race which was enough to get it out... the output bearing laughed at that setup last night...

I'm to cleanup then setting up for measuring for counter shaft shimming, as per "bulletproof garage" I want 2-4 thousandths preload

To sum up the special tools I've used:
-3 jaw pullers (one 8" puller modified to fit around synchro teeth)
-bearing separators (I think all 3 sizes HFT carries)
-20 ton press to save time (I'd never say anyone shouldn't have one of these, don't bother with the 12ton)
-3 jaw slide hammer puller (could probably get away with one with just a good strong hook attachment)

 

[scotts90ranger]

Trans is now in 1 piece, time to install the flywheel then clutch and so forth... already got the new carrier bearing in today and put in another transmission mount bolt (somehow was missing one...). Little behind schedule but not too bad, should be running Wednesday or Thursday night

 

[bilbo]

I've been busy with the yearly maintenance outage at work and missed all the updates. Looks like good progress! Thanks for the tools list and video references. It will come in handy when I get around to mine.

 

[scotts90ranger]

The clutch itself is silent and works great, pretty grippy when warm starting in second it seems to want to start grabbing a little rough but not chattery like the old warn out Luk... with no slop in the countershaft it's a lot less surgy idling in first... the only dumb thing it does is the throw out bearing squeals against the fingers on the pressure plate when the clutch is released, don't know if this will go away once the bearing goes away or if I should take the dust shield off and put some grease at the tips of the fingers or what... it's annoying. The trans itself is way quieter than when the bearings were spinning, still whines but it's probably the wear on the input gear... noticed it was showing wear when I was putting it together but whatever... The clutch engages in the last little bit of pedal travel at the back just like the Rangers do, that's new, that old clutch was screwed... the pedal feel is fairly light from what I would have expected, not upset with the clutch so far...

It feels like there's a little air in the master or slave so I'm wondering if a bit of bleeding wouldn't help the throwout bearing issue...

Drove it to work today so there's about 70 miles on it now...

 

[bilbo]

When I put everything back together after replacing my clutch it would not release. The linkage rod between the pedal and the MC has a little plastic bushing where it connects to the pedal. Mine was shot and wouldn’t allow the pedal to actuate the pushrod in the MC far enough to disengage the new unworn clutch. Might be worth checking before messing around with bleeding it. Apparently it’s common and there are kits available to change it to a bolted on heim joint.
.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I changed the pedal pivot bushings (was metal on metal too long... still some play) including the link on the pivot rod that goes to the master pushrod a few years ago when I put in the new "bled assembly" or whatever they call it with a new master, hose and slave... has a good bushing on the end of the pushrod on the slave, when I put it on before I even left the ears which made it convenient to pull the slave off since I just clipped them back on the bracket... when I first got it running it disengaged near the floor and I had to do the ol dump the pedal a handful of times to get it to feel right... probably need a new master I'd guess...

 

[scotts90ranger]

Now that I have around 300 miles on the thing I can give a better review, throwout bearing is chirping on the fingers pretty annoyingly but I didn't lube the lever pivot ball (was in the clean everything mode, forgot about that... will get to it when I change the fluid tonight or tomorrow...), other than that it is kinda grumbly when engaged in neutral when walking around it but NOWHERE NEAR what my buddies dual mass is on his Cummins... Drivability is good, really grippy but you can feather it...

Driving home apparently there's something going on with the rear passenger side brakes, locked up on me twice when engine braking (with mid brake pedal pressure) to a stop, once with a plume of tire smoke... so apparently I get to look into that... everything inside the drum is less than 2 years old so we'll see...

 

[bilbo]

Glad the clutch seems to be working.

I had that happen with the brakes a couple of times with the pass rear on mine, thankfully it never did lock up solid. But it would stick periodically, then permanently. I ended up cutting the parking brake cable and it popped free.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Might as well make this more of a saga thread kinda like Eric's...

Got the thing in December of '13 if I remember right so right around christmas, it's green and came with a red canopy which got it dubbed as the "christmas tank" since it's huge and loud... and hence the one stencil I made up to paint the passenger fender (never got to the drivers side, the wally world paint is still there ). Not long after that I moved and ended up with a big pickup bed camper so I pulled a spring up front and put F250 blocks in the back which dropped it like an inch in the front and 2 in the back. Since I was towing with the camper and cheap I made a home brew "super hitch" with a crossmember forward of the hitch (since I don't have a spare in the factory location) for the lower bar to push up on some and pinned for side to side, I've since gotten shorter campers so have cut that ridiculous hitch extension down to about 18" from almost 4'... At one point while towing the HPOP gave out 20 miles from home so I had to get a coworker to drag my trailer up to get it, drove it on and off the trailer with the starter (forgot to mention, before this I'd put on one of the fancy bigger '03 starters). A friend offered me a free engine so I couldn't pass it up, wish I hadn't sold it super cheap to another friend (stuff's expensive, he still got a screaming deal, I was kinda hard up at the time and wasn't as close as he is now). I've been fighting an issue where it runs hot when driving up hill for a long ways, the radiator was original from the looks of it so I got a fancy aluminum race radiator which helped some but not all (the old one was plugged inside and out so not wasted) so I got a replacement Borg Warner turbo ($700ish, wasn't too bad for a new name brand turbo) which did wonders but not enough...

I think that's the bulk of what I've done so here's some random pics in no apparent order:

 

[sgtsandman]

My 2011 was similar but opposite on the color scheme. Red truck and dark green cap until I got a cap with a reenforced roof and a roof rack.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Well a couple weeks ago no on the way home from camping 5th gear started making a horrific noise (still worked) so I'm guessing the pocket bearing in 5th let go... too long ago to remember if I changed that or not... the rest of the gears work fine, I was able to make it home. Of course no S5-47 transmissions available locally and all the S5-42's have dried up over the last month somehow... I might try to tear it out in the next week and see if it's rebuildable, I have til labor day weekend basically...

 

[scotts90ranger]

Yesterday I finally lined up parts to get this thing back on the road... what a pain... put all my eggs in one basket and the guy ghosted me... Anyway located a 50k mile transmission for $1250 that has a bad output shaft and tail housing (they wanted $1500 but I talked them down for the output shaft cost) then talked to Transmission Exchange (they quoted me $2700 for a rebuilt trans but 4 week wait... if only I asked them sooner) and have them making me a pile of parts to put a new output shaft in that transmission while I'm swapping tail housings... The junkyard the trans is from says the story on the thing is it was from a county owned snow plow truck that was stolen and got stuck in a ditch and they beat on it enough to break the tail housing (apparently doesn't take a lot, common issue, mine's fine) and just kept trying until it wouldn't move which wore off 1/2 the engaged splines for the T case...

So not to change my MO I'm picking the transmission and parts up Monday at lunch then going to try to bash it together by like Labor day... Monday is supposed to be hot so that evening is going to be screwed, tuesday and wednesday evenings are busy so that leaves me a couple evenings and a couple days, very doable...

 

[scotts90ranger]

To keep things in this list instead of just in the "what'd you do today" thread I bashed the thing back together last weekend... Friday I got both transmissions torn apart and Saturday I got to swapping parts around onto the new output shaft. For the most part that went all fine until I realized I didn't have any super strong loctite for the counter shaft races (for good measure, don't need them to have any excuse not to spin). By the end of the day I had everything sealed up and assembled ready to be put in Sunday which worked fine, the throwout bearing I put in last time squealed from the start so I put the one that was on the donor trans and that worked out great.

After I got the trans and drivetrain in I moved to the front brakes, changed the one rotor that I knew was bad and new pads of course then moved to the other side and found a cracked rotor and a sticky caliper so changed that and the other rotor (bought rotors at Advance when they were closing conveniently, didn't have any calipers or pads though...).

First test drive was before bleeding the brakes (gravity bleeding wasn't working and the wife was out shopping) and the only complaint is it doesn't stay in reverse... which is still the case but I met the deadline I set for myself and it works. Judging by the videos on YouTube when I was making sure I was putting the transmission together right there's like 5 videos about not staying in reverse so I'll look into that... will try my second shift tower first since it's the easiest though.

I think it drives better than it has since I've had the thing... clutch chatter and squeal is gone, everything actually worked out... so far.

Oh and when I was getting ready to back it out of the shop I noticed a tire was low then saw the rock in the center of the tread... the tires are like 11 years old so even if it wasn't Sunday evening a shop likely wouldn't have done anything to it so I pulled the tire, broke the beads free and put a plug/patch in there, worked out but those Goodyear Duratrac tires have some mean beads... when it gets time to get new tires I think I'll stick with those... I have around 35k miles of just towing miles on them and they've held up great.