'72 CJ 5 clutch

the cable clutch at sometime was changed to a hydraulic clutch, at some point someone stole the steal bowl. The guy i bought the jeep from tried to put a plastic bowl but he said it wont hold the pressure to engage the piston.What would my best option be? the bellcrank i keep reading about or maybe even going back the the cable? can you buy the bell crank aftremarket?

Thanks for the help.
Eric

 

Are you talking about the bowl on the clutch master cylinder. If so then buy a replacement clutch master cyinder and put it on. Hydraulic is much better then the bell crank which can bind up or even fail when you twist the whole jeep while offroad. The Cable is good but if you dont have all the brackets and pieces it will be a pain to go back that route. I personally prefer the hydraulic and changed my 72 over to it.

This is the clutch master I use. Bought it through Parts Mike in California.

 

I would love to have a hydraulic clutch! I'll trade you my parts for yours. Seriously...

 

If you went with the bell crank, you will need the bellcrank, frame brackets, all the miscellaneous parts, and a clutch pedal from a '73-75 CJ. I believe the pedal is different in a '72 because it came with a cable clutch. In 72-73, there was a warranty service kit available from Jeep, that converted from the cable to the bellcrank. These kits fit the '72 pedal, and they are no longer available. The setup used from '73-75 was almost identical, except it used a pedal meant to connect to the bellcrank pushrod instead of the cable.

The main problem with the bellcrank comes from flex between the body and the frame. With the left (?) front wheel stuffed into the fender and the right front wheel hanging, the distance between the frame and body changes and you can no longer disengage the clutch. You can work around this by alternately stalling the engine and restarting it with the starter motor, but that's a pretty clumsy work-around.

The replacement cable is still available, if you want to try and convert back to a cable clutch. A cable gets around the body flex problem, just like a hydraulic clutch does. The bellcrank was used to replace the cable because the cable would sieze and the pedal became very difficult to move.

Hydraulic is good though - it's definitely the 'premium' solution.

 

Stay hydraulic ! the clutch cable rots ! I put in a bellcrank it it works fine, hydraulic is the way to go if i had to do it over again !

 

Keep hydro! Figure out the bore size on the slave and get a master to match.

 

Another vote to stay with the hydro.

 

I still have the bell crank but I plan to convert to hydraulic in time.

A PO of my Jeep changed the way the bell crank fits into the pivots on either end making it less prone to fall apart with frame flex but the whole set-up is still a little shaky!