F350 in sig. Factory clutch went 190k miles before it was contaminated with oil/diesel. The pilot bearing was FUBAR, but the clutch still had plenty of meat left. Input shaft appeared tight. Replaced with LUK 'conversion kit'.

Now a little over 300k miles on truck and I figured I'd pull trans and inspect/replace pilot bearing w/Kevlar bushing (mostly an excuse to make up-pipes easier to install). I DID NOT expect to find pilot FUBAR, clutch disk worn out, pressure plate springs falling out and throwout bearing shot!!! It was still working PERFECTLY btw....

Truck is used to tow 10k lb 5ver all over the country for work. I easily tow 50% of the time, including Rockies, Cascades, etc. I do not slip or 'ride' the clutch and I use 'granny gear' off the line - I often only use clutch to get off the line. I do have a few mods and since my fuel is almost free, I stand on it regularly - 60tow is my standard tune, loaded or not.

The QUESTION(s):

Should I go with a LUK Cerametallic this time or something different?

What is the Cerametallic like to live with? I don't mind 'getting used to it', but I do need to be able to have others drive it.

Should I use the Kevlar pilot or get the input shaft repair kit? I suspect the pilot caused the damage and likely input shaft killed pilot...

THANK YOU!

 

Here's a bump for ya...

 

Never had a cermanic clutch but have rode in my buddies truck and he has a cermanic cluth and they are real jurky i would not want it for a truck i pull trailers with, i also need a clutch and i have been looking at Valair clutches, never ran a LUk tho

 

Well, sadly I had to use an autozone clutch due to time constraints... I hated to downgrade, but if I didn't put it back together tonite I couldn't pull 5ver to TX for next job and 3 weeks in a hotel and having to pay for fuel (VO costs me about $0.10/gal) would cost more than 2 clutches.

Closer inspection of the input shaft revealed wear where the pilot bearing rides. Even a LITTLE slop there and the stock-type pilot never had a chance. The stock pilot does not fail 'a little' or slowly - its either full-on or FUBAR. Really a POS design, I'm pissed I didn't do the kevlar bushing sooner. It seems like the kevlar would wear down slowly. I would NEVER EVER do one of these again w/o the kevlar bushing. That $50 part may well have saved me 15x its cost.

I talked at length with Bob Riley and also South Bend Clutch this AM. VERY knowlegable folks and kind enough to give a dum redneck like me an education. At the end of the story here, I think the LUK may not have been up to the task. I say that because the stock disc had more meat left after 2x the miles. Granted, most of those miles did not have as much HP as I subjected the LUK to, but next time I think I'll go with a South Bend Con OFE on my re-surfaced LUK flywheel.

Now just hoping I don't have to take my foot off the skinny pedal 'cause the autozone clutch slips under load...

 

Give Kevin a call at Valair he can fix you up just tell him how you drive it. Check out there web site first.

 

surprised you haven't replaced any synchros with all those miles of shifting without a clutch

 

You really think I'm using synchros more w/o clutch? I can see it occasionally, but after 200k + driving this thing every day, it usually falls directly into the next gear - I don't 'feel' synchros doing their job very often. Seems like rushing it into the next gear using clutch would put them to work more...

How many miles can we expect to see out of a ZF6 anyway? I've been putting fresh Mobil 1 in it every 50k miles so far. I've considered adding a filter, maybe its about time?

Thanks for the replies. I will call Valair before I get another clutch.