After removing my fuel pump and experiencing a large fuel leak this morning I've noticed that my clutch will slip under heavy throttle. Is this a temperary problem? I'd imagine it will go away once the diesel evaporates and the disc dries out.

I hope my clutch is not shot. This Val Air has less than 5k on it...

Anyone have any experience with this kind of problem before?

 

As bad as I hate to say it, Travis had the same thing happen to him. I did not get better. Worse case, if it were me, I'd pull the tranny and give the clutch a good cleaning with a huge dose of brake clean. But if that didn't help, I'm sure you could talk to Dan, Kevin, or Gary and they would hook you up with another disk.

 

It happened to me too when the fuel filter lid o ring gave out. My clutch never got better either and I used half a case of brake clean, steam cleaner and then the other half a case of brake clean to no avail. I had to replace it all. Get that valair. It was worth every penny. I bought the middle of the road one for mine since I pull way over weight a lot and I'm just more than happy with it.
My wife can't drive it though. She kills it even in Low range first gear. I have no idea how! When I taught her to drive a clutch I had a 65 MGB with a 4 speed crash box and a 69 f350 swbdually. That was a big ugly beast of a truck with a 4 speed non synchro. She never did quite get it in either. With the mgb I had to carry a ball peen hammer and chunk of a 2x4 to unlock the transmission with. She somehow managed to get that one stuck between gears all the time.

 

yep, happened to me too. clutch stopped slipping after driving it for about 50 miles, BUT the throwout bearing was TRASHED and it wore a groove into the sleeve that the throwout bearing slided on b/c i kept driving it that way. i changed the throwout bearing and it stopped making noise for all of like a day then started making noise again so i guess its b/c of that sleeve. i found out later that the pilot bearing ate it too. the diesel washed the pilot bearing and throwout bearing of all their grease and thrashed both of them. there weren't any needle in the pilot bearing when i pulled it out, but it didn't appear to have messed up the input shaft. if it were me i would go ahead and change the throwout bearing and pilot bearing, clean up the clutch disc and roll. i ran that clutch disc for another 15k or so IIRC with a screwed off pilot bearing. i still have that clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, and pilot bearing if you'd like pics of it. doesn't look too bad except for the pilot bearing. if you keep driving it will probably mess up that sleeve for the throwout bearing so fix it as soon as you get a chance. Dan actually told me that he wasn't worried about the clutch disc so i never cleaned it, just changed the throwout bearing.

 

Thats not the response that I wanted the hear!

I called Valair this morning and told them about my problems. I can't remember who I talked right now, but it appears that if it doesn't get better in a few days the clutch disc is shot. I thought about spraying brake cleaner up through the inspection plate but I don't think it would help as it probably won't reach the buttons.

The clutch holds a decent amount except when I hit 20lbs boost in overdrive.

 

So what your telling me is that I'm probably going to have to get a whole new clutch kit minus the flywheel...

I don't have any noises. I figure if I pull the transmission out I might as well replace the disc.

 

thats exactly what mine did. you definitely wanna change those bearing before you mess them up too bad. no need to change discs, just those 2 bearings. less than $100

 

Nope, throwout bearing is not making any noises. Clutch sounds normal.

 

if it were me and it happened to me again i would change the throwout and pilot bearings even if they weren't making noise. especially after seeing that throwout bearing and the fact that i drove it for a week that way and now my clutch has never felt the same since and i now always get noise from the throwout... even with a new one.

 

Your probably right Travis.

I looked underneath the truck in the lastnight and the diesel is basically dried up. I'm going to wait a couple days and see what happens. Hopefully it holds under full throttle... if not I'm be calling Valair again.

 

That's a bummer. So how does the fuel get to the clutch? I assume thru the inspectoin plate. Does the wind blow it up under there and get to the clutch?

The only other way I could see is if the fuel ran down the drivers side and it went in thru the fork hole.

Or I guess it could enter thru the starter hole.


I had a friend on here (ZIGGY.) that had the same problem. Toasted his clutch. His leaked when he had the tranny off though so it soaked the clutch. Had to replace that one for sure.

 

Thats why when I did the work on my turbo I pulled the clutch right off and the flywheel and got it all out of the way.
That way when I cleaned out the valley, it wouldn't have a chance of getting on anything.

I am with Travis on this one.
Just a smidgen of fuel in that pilot and the bearing is gonna eventually be toast.
The throwout on our trucks seems very sensitive to changes to me. It looks like its a break in style part, and if you upset that balance it obtains eventually, you should replace it immediately.

I doubt your going to trash anything on there before the clutch starts to hook up for you again, but I would keep that in mind in the future.

I'm sure ValAir will take care of you if it does not return to normal.

 

I agree. This is something I need to look into in the future. I don't think there was any harm done, but I'm curious to see if it still slips under WOT.

I'm not sure how it gets on the clutch disc, but it dripped off of the oil pan and the bottom of the inspection cover.

The good thing is that the truck was mostly idling when it started leaking (because I was warming up the truck).

 

the fuel runs out the hole in the back of the valley which puts it in the bellhousing thus getting all over everything there. when mine did it i was in stop and go traffic so i know wind doesn't effect it at all. my bearings were making all sorts of racket, but then again i drained right at a half a tank of fuel on the clutch in 10-15 minutes trying to get to a point where i could pull over to see what was leaking and by that time it was all over. mine was the driver side front return line back when i still had the crappy fuel system. haha

 

That sucks. I lost less than an 1/8 of tank after it was all said and done.