OK, for a year I have been trying to track down the thunk my truck made when shifting. Sounded (felt) like a bunch of slop being taken up in the drivetrain. Had the rearend checked, that was tight, was blaming it on bad tcase. Then my fuel bowl started to leak at the orings. That lasted for a month before I was able to fix it. While it was peeing fuel out everywhere I went, I found out that the clutch was slipping when I throttled it hard. So, I blamed it on a wet clutch.

Well, not being satisfied with the wet clutch theory, I called the ford dealer. I was the 2nd owner of the truck and the original owner was a friend of the salesman. I found out that truck had the original clutch in it. I decided to buy a new FORD clutch kit and had it installed today. The old clutch disk looked really good, almost as thick as the new disk, BUT, the center flex plate was weak, I could rotate the center hub quite a ways. The scary part was the pressure plate. the fingers were wore about half-way through where the throughout bearing hits. New clutch and plate in, the truck drives like BRAND NEW. No slop feeling, no slip, just perfect and tight.

NOW, for all you manual transmission nay-sayers : 254,000 ORIGINAL MILES ON OEM CLUTCH. Why do so many autotrans lovers keep saying clutches need to be changed at 80-100k ? This is the 5th 200k+ mile truck I have owned, and only the 2nd one that needed the ORIGINAL clutch changed. Every truck I owned that had an auto trans had to have a new trany before 150k. Ford and chevy both.

The rest of my rant : Why on earth would I look for a diffrent brand of clutch when the original lasted 254k miles ? And YES, I do pull trailers almost every day, not dinky snowmobile trailers, BIG HEAVY tri-axel gooseneck trailers.

 

Most aftermarket clutch kits sell for less then Ford OEM kits. And like us PMSers we want more power....more power+stock clutch=watching the chebbys and rammers pass us as we sit for the tow truck. I replaced my stock clutch with an upgraded Luk Clutch, its built better then the stock clutch and the clutch material it self it much better.

What did that clutch job cost you? If you dont mind me asking.

 

I got the kit from Ford for $560 something and cost me $350 to have it put in. The simple fact that this truck was used to haul from day 1 and lasted 254k miles on the original clutch makes me even more of a believer in OE parts.

I have also had a 4 position DP tuner in for the last 30k and used it..... I can tell you this (its so sad) I let a friend borrow the mustang for a date, we met up and he tried to take me a few times, and just couldnt. he said all he saw was black smoke and my taillights getting smaller. The stang couldnt even keep up.