Gotta replace a clutch, need some ideas on brands.

[bufordanthony]

Well, after 10 years and 140something thousand miles it's time to replace the clutch in my 99 4.0L . I pull two jet skis (about 2200 lbs fully gased with trailer), and was wondering if a regular OE kit would work, or if I should upgrade to a heavier kit, and if so what brands were good ones? I was looking at a spec class 2 kit, but just don't know if I wanna shuck out the extra 200 bucks if I don't HAVE to. Anybody got any good ideas

 

[orangealpine]

Look at it this way:

The OE unit lasted 140K. If you replace it with an equivalent unit, what do you think you will want to do with the truck when it is 20 years old and has 280K miles?

Bill

 

[Hopman]

140k? Weak! The clutch in my '94 4-banger is up 153K right now!
Then again, I try not to abuse it either, even though I'm a leadfoot 20-somthing.
The only time I REALLY abused it was yanking out a nasty tree stump while working at our church one day.

Okay, now I'm serious. Maybe you could upgrade the disk slightly, but keep eveything else stock.

 

[bufordanthony]

Well in my defense, the clutch was working fine until the girlfriend decided she was going to back the jetskis up the driveway to the carport (about 1/8 of a mile up hill) and she rode the clutch the whole way. I could still smell it when I got home from work. It has gone steadily down hill ever since, and I was not exactly nice to that clutch to begin with. It's still "driveable" but very moody. Yeah I thought about the OE one, but now I have a tent trailer, and jetskis and often times tow them acoss the mountain passes around here to find sunnier playgrounds. I suppose what I'm getting at is the OE lasted this long when I didn't tow and just 4 wheeled. Now I will be 4 wheeling and towing. Just wanted to beef it up a bit.

 

[SMTGREG]

I use centerforce I clutch kit and never had to replace one yet. When changing the clutch replace slave cyl assembly input bearring in the back of the crank shaft and have the flywheel machined.

 

[Yellowsplash]

The original O.E. clutch is a Luk....I would recommend it over any in house parts store brand.