When my 460 / T19 4-speed gets warmed up I get clutch chatter. I don't have it when the clutch is cold (first few stops after start up). Less than 2000 miles on this clutch.

What is the likely cause?

 

-Engine roughness
-Throttle linkage improperly adjusted
- Equalizer bar misalignment and/or excessive end play or wrong parts installed
- Engine misaligned (not properly seated on mounts)
- Body mounts improperly torqued
- Oil or grease on clutch disc
- Glazed flywheel surface
- Clutch disc warped or bent (little or no reserve)
- Pressure plate attaching bolts loose or missing
- Loose engine mount attaching bolts
- Loose transmission and/or clutch housing attaching bolts
- Clutch housing loose or misaligned
- Pressure plate fingers bent, out-of-plane or sticking (will not return hung-up)
- Improper clutch adjustment
- Release lever (fork) bent, broken or cracked

 

Do you mean when you are pulling off and you feel vibration? Sounds like the pilot bearing.

 

Rough engagement! It happens when first engaging the clutch to pull away from a light (for example). Not pulling any weight either except the truck itself. Worse condition is starting out on a slight incline, like every time I slow to go to 2nd or 1st to pull my driveway.

I was wondering if the over the counter non OEM clutch packs are not good enough. Should I buy a heavier duty clutch or a Ford OEM clutch instead of one from an after market supplier?

I know about keeping things clean. I could have touched the flywheel or clutch plate with dirty hands but don't think so. Fly wheel was resurfaced.

 

I had problems like this with an OLD (although it'd been replaced some time ago) clutch in a 1981 F350/400M/T18/4WD. It was weird in that the symptoms were inconsistent; some mornings/days were fine, others not at all. It seemed particularly bad when it was raining out but I suspect that was just my perception, I never drove it enough to get a true feel for how it was behaving (gas mileage sucks rocks).

Upon taking it apart, I found that the clutch disc had apparently at one time trapped water between it and the flywheel and sat for a LONG time, causing what appeared to be significant pitting & rust on the flywheel. The clutch disc was dang near worn down to the rivets, anyway, so I'm glad I took it apart sooner rather than later.

As an aside, this was an el-cheapo Taiwanese-made remanufactured clutch; the clutch disc itself was made up of relatively small pads riveted to a disc; the pads were pretty small, and the surface area contacting the flywheel looked to meet the bare minimum requirements (I guess that's the case, I don't really know the actual OEM specs but it was the cheapest clutch I'd ever seen, I'd never seen such small pads before).

A friend of my father's is a retired Ford mechanic who has a 1981 F250 he's had since it was new, he recommended the Borg Warner Brute Power series and so that's what I got. Got the kit from Rock Auto (one of the sponsors here) and they were having a closeout sale on the things, something around $80 for the kit (but only a 3-mo warranty included). The kit came with a solid pilot bearing, I didn't like that so much so I went to NAPA and purchased a roller bearing for around $15. This was about 3 months ago.

I have a mechanical clutch, not hydraulic, and found I also needed a clutch rod but that's prolly irrelevant here.

Anyhow, the BW clutch is made in USA and has performed really well for me. As for your problem, it's hard to know, I guess it could be a lot of things. That list of possibilities I posted above, I copied that out of the shop manual; as I'd recently been working on the clutch, I knew where in the book that stuff was. ;-)

EDIT: Forgot to mention, that guy told me to not get a Centerline/CenterForce/somesuch, at least not the variants that have only 3 fingers in the pressure plate as that's apparently (according to him) not heavy-duty enough for towing and hauling.

HTH.

-chris
colorado, usa

 

I will be pulling the engine next summer to replace bearings. I think they are worn because my oil pressure is dropping lower than I like at freeway speeds. Will install a new oil pump also! I think I'm going to go for a quality clutch at that time. Maybe what I have is just JUNK. Fortunately, like most, I don't have to rely on the truck for daily use. I hear you on the gas use!!! Ouch! I'm considering swapping in a small block.

Tom

 

OK don't cringe because I'm going to mention the T and D words......
I had a 1980 Dodge work van that I bought new. Around 80,000 the clutch went. I had it repaired locally and always chattered after that. I think it was cheap parts mismatching. Had it adjusted several times-clutches are not my thing, I traded it in shortly after because no matter what I did, every time it rained it kept stalling. So my vote is for the parts. Just as a side note best clutch I ever had was a 89' corolla wagon, 136,000 not a hint of trouble.

 

I can beat this! ;-)

My parents (used to) give me their old cars after 10 years/100,000 miles (whichever comes first). My Daily Driver is my mom's 1986 Ford Tempo (I know, NOT a chick magnet that they bought new, it now has 172,000 miles on it! 2.3L 5 spd manual trans, still has the original clutch & timing chain! And it passes the Colorado emissions test great! But, I'll tell ya, driving a car like this kinda makes me nervous, I half expect it to spin a bearing or sumthin' at any moment....

-chris
colorado, usa

 

I kinda-sorta think of doing the same thing. Or not, I really don't know. I use my truck for hauling firewood, and a few weeks ago when I was on the highway with it, the oil pressure ***as measured by the factory electric gauge*** dropped to below half, which I'd guess is 40-45 or so lbs. "That's odd," I thought to myself; when I last had it hooked to a mechanical gauge, I seem to remember it hangin' out around 70 or so. I changed the oil (it was time, anyway) and am now using Mobil 1 15W50 + a can of STP and it was just fine on a subsequent highway ride last weekend. But I haul trailers on these rides, and some of these trailers screw with my electrical system (e.g. putting it into reverse = blowenfusen) and the gauges tend to be all over the road so I'd need to verify the symptom with a mechanical gauge.

But it's also recently begun burning a bit of oil on startup, haven't done a compression test or anything yet but I'm hoping it's valve guides. Was already planning on putting a 4 bbl on it this Spring, it's really not that much more work to remove the heads at the same time. But when I was replacing the clutch a few months ago I found that the rear main seal seems to be leaking a bit. And a new cam & timing chain might be cool. So, what began as installation of a 4 bbl carb +manifold quite easily turns into engine removal and total disassembly all over the garage floor. Scope Creep....

-ct

 

Regarding the oil pressure, my 460 is only low pressure at high sustained rpms ( as on the freeway at 65mph or more). I have changed the oil pressure sending unit resulting in no improvement. Last time I had the engine out of the truck to replace the seals and gaskets, I measured bearing clearance (plasti-gauge) on one of the main bearings and it was right at the upper margin. My engine has either 102k or 202k miles on it. I believe it is only 102k but the PO used it to tow a large trailer so one might expect more bearing wear do to the hard use (towing). Before I go into the engine though I'm going to switch oils and oil weight to see if a heavier weight will help. The oil pressure is always nice and high on the electric stock gauge at cold start up when the oil is thicker and at all mid range engine speeds regardless of temperature. After replacing all engine seals last year, I went to 10-30 synthetic oil, and that may also be a factor here. It may do better on regular oil and maybe the PO used 10-40 or other heavier oil. I will experiment with oils and see what happens!

 

Well, a synthetic oil would keep a cooler temperature/hold higher viscosity on those long, high RPM runs on the highway you were talking about. Maybe synthetic Rotella 5w-40 would be a better bet for your engine. If you have been running synthetic with no problems, then stick with it. Also, use a good flowing filter. Motorcraft flows well.

 

I never noticed the lower engine oil pressure until some time after I switched to Castrol Full Synthetic 10W-30. That is why I'm thinking it may be the oil I am currently running (the Castrol).

But, it could be totally unrelated to oil viscosity. It may be bearing wear and/or an oil pump getting worn.

It does not smoke or use oil.