Well, I finally got my new Southbend clutch in this weekend.
Wow, what a difference!
The pedal is a good 20lbs lighter and the engagement is unbelievable.

I installed the new "tranny saver" bearing from Bob at Dieselsite as well as an upgraded clutch fork. Simple install and great insurance in the longrun.
The kit he sells comes with clear instructions and the driver needed to install both the sleeve and bearing.

We ended up dropping the tranny and transfer case together but decided to seperate them once on the ground. With 3 big guys, this was still a chore.

I was a little intimidated doing this job at first, but honestly it is very straight forward. It is however very time consuming. Lots of disassembly / reassembly for 20 minutes worth of part replacement.

If your looking at doing this, I recommend having at least 2 jacks (one being a tranny jack, or a jack with a tranny adapter), you will need 2-3 feet worth of extensions as well as a u-joint to get to the top bolts.

Things that made the job easier:
Remove the entire shifter assembly. It makes clearing the tunnel much easier. (we only did this because no one had a T-35 torx bit, but it worked out better in the end)
Mark everything with a sharpie, you will be glad you did.
When re-installing the t-case, install the skid plate (if you have it) first.
Indexing that #$%#$ thing was the hardest part of the job.
And offer at least 3 of your best (and largest) buddies lots of beer and food to help out. Made the work much easier.

All in all it took us 7 hours taking our time. In the end it was well worth our efforts.


I would like to thank everyone here who walked me through this. Your advice was worth its weight in gold.
I would also like to thank Bob and Clay for all of yalls help getting everything I needed to do the install!

 

Awesome which southbend did you go with? I am going to have to drop my tranny to fix a broken 1-2 slider and might as well replace the clutch while im down there since the factory clutch has 205000 on it and the pilot bearing is on its way out

 

I will have to check the box when I get home, but when I talked to Clay about it, I think we agreed on the 450hp version: 1944-6OFEK. (this was back in May / June)
As long as your in there, may as well. Its not a job I would want to have to do again in the near future.

 

It is the 1944-6OFEK that I installed.
Great clutch, grabs like crazy.

 

I had a Southbend clutch installed in mine back in June. I too like how it grabs and how light the clutch pedal feels, the pedal feels like a 4cyl Ranger clutch.

 

i'm on my second southbend clutch the first one i smoked, i really like the clutch and both times i've done it pulled the tranny and the transfer case together and put them back in together
two guys can do it just fine
i did do a write up on it a couple years ago