Hey ya'll,

I hear a rattle like noise coming from my transmission area sometimes in my 1996 F-250 with a ZF5. I opened up the cover to see if there was anything obvious. I don't know too much about this Dual Mass Flywheel setup these trucks have. There is a lot of play in the assembly. Is this normal?


UPDATE #1: Transmission and Transfer Case Out

UPDATE #2: Old vs New Clutch Assembly

 

Looks like it's toasted to me...

 

It's broken. While the two halves are supposed to be able to move relative to each other, they should not move that easily.

 

Max play is 5/8", time for a new one or smf conversion.

 

I had one of these flywheels on my 87 F250 Diesel. I first noticed a problem when I started finding pieces on the ground where I parked. Eventually it failed altogether. The cost was impressive, Ford is very proud of these flywheels. I was able to get a Luk clutch/flywheel kit for considerably less than the price for a dual mass flywheel. The Luk kit included a new flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, pilot bearing, and throw-out bearing.

 

Updated the first post!

 

so you didn't go to a single mass flywheel why ?

 

After pouring over all the older threads I got the consensus that if you go with a SMF you could end up with gear rollover noise. I read a lot of complaints about that. If there was even a chance it could happen I didn't want to risk it. I sleep in my truck quite regularly with it running so I wanted to avoid that issue.

It's also an experiment on my part. I'm curious as to how long I can make a DMF last. I just got the truck and it had 3 previous owners. The DMF lasted 125,000 miles with them. I have no idea about the service history or what kind of towing they did, but I know that I tend to care for my vehicles better than most. So, I would like to see if I can make it last past 125,000 miles!

 

good enough reason

 

To anyone who reads this thread, I have a LuK setup in my 1997. I had to put it in almost immediately.

It growled horrendously at low speeds from day one. Being a truck driver among other things I was used to that sort of thing.

I have never cared one bit about the noise although it does alarm passengers. I try not to lug the engine so much. It has been almost 15 years and 150,000 miles and not a hiccup since. Total mileage about 250k. Truck still performs great, though mostly parked these days because I don't want to push it and I have another newer truck.

 

Both of my OBS psd's have had SMF conversions, my 250 was a bit noisy, but overfilling by a litre helped lots.
My 350 I put the trans together myself and shimmed it to the tight end of spec and it's dead quiet.
Rollover is only noise, which happens at which load/low speed, like taking off from a stop, it doesn't hurt anything, I would much rather have some noise than have a flywheel that is a wear item.

 

Do you sleep in the truck while it's in gear, decelerating? That's about the only time you hear gear rollover with a SMF. And if our cats are any indication, it's not loud enough to wake you up. I've never heard it for more than a few seconds at a time.

To me it's, hmm, a little noise on the one hand, a risk of grenading my tranny case on the other hand, hmm, decisions decisions (not).....

And yes, you dodged a bullet getting that old flywheel out in time. It was just about at the stage where it could have let go with, er, "bad day" results. The DM flywheel is not a "wear item", it a "potential catastrophic failure" item.

 

This is how a DMF not caught in time ends:

 

Were the DMF found only in the 7.3's, or in the gas engines also?

 

They were diesel only, all of the gas engines were single mass.