Clutch...hydrolic or linkage

Well today I was pulling out of Lowes parking lot and whent to change gears and the clutch pedal hit the floor board. Looked in the rear veiw and seen my release rod sliding across the road. Been thinking about going with the hydrolic set-up for a while. Right now I'm running a Borg warner clutch. With enough tension to make me put it in neutrel at red lights. The T-O bearing starting to squeale pretty good too. what do you guys think about a hydrolic clutch? Any thoughts or replies welcome.

 

Chain clutch. Hydraulics suck! Nearly impossible to repair on the trail, flakey and expensive.

 

Also, does anybody have a particular preference of clutch manufacturer. I believe my T-O bearing has worked it's way down to rubbing into the clutch fingers and I'm pretty sure the T-O bearing needs replaced anyway.

 

Yeah- something made in AMERICA. LOL

I like my hydro clutch. Works smooth and has easy pressure. I don't see where a trail repair would be any worse with a hydro versus a mechanical clutch. Either way you need spare parts.

 

LOL - Chain clutch - repair with a piece of bailing wire. How do you fix a slave cylinder on the trail?

 

Replace the slave cylinder and add fluid. HEHEHE. Actually I have never had a slave fail on a car, of course a car doesn't see off road use either. I guess to each his own. I'm actually not familiar with chain clutch operation. Is there sprockets involved and all that?

 

re-do the factory linkage. Do it right this time! Chain linkage is workable, I have seen the setup. Hydraulic works as well. Toy had one, as does my old Dodge. About the only thing that goes wrong is being low on fluid, unless you break a line somewhere. Besides what honest jeeper needs a clutch anyway? Power shift it to get it home!

As for duing it right, you can change the length (a little) on the clutch shaft arms. Gain a little mechanical advantage. Make sure you can full release so that the TO bearing aint spinning, and make sure you can fully dis-engage. My V6 has a fairly soft pedal, and the factory linkage with a few "mods". Good luck!
-Hill

 

If you set up a hydro clutch correctly, it should be pretty reliable. It shouldn't bind up on you when flexing either, provided your slave cylinder is mounted to the bellhousing/block. I'm going hydro on my Jeep. As for fixing on the trail, if you're nervous, carry a spare. There are a million things that aren't easily fixed on the trail, this isn't high on my list of things to worry about...

 

Well I'm leaning towards the hydrolic set-up. I've heard theclutch master cylinder off of a Wrangler is a direct bolt up,not sure about what model to get one off of. And the clutch slave cylinder,anybody got any ideas? I know if I do go this way I'm gonna' go with steele braided lines, just seems like it would be easier to work with. Any body got any pics of a clutch slave cylinder mounted to give me some ideas that they could post? Any help apreciated.

 

I think it's doubtful that a Wrangler slave cylinder is a direct bolt up. In my experience, almost nothing on my Jeep was a direct bolt up. Anyway, Advance Adapters makes a bracket for Chevy applications that mounts the slave cylinder using the bellhousing to block bolts. I haven't seen it in person but it shouldn't be too difficult to copy the design and make your own for the :v6: . I think you can find a picture of it on their website. HTH.

 

I have the Novak system on my 4.3 Chevy. I think it might work on the :v6: as well. It uses the lowest 2 bolts on the bellhousing. IIRC the lower 2 bolts on all GM blocks share the same pattern, it's the upper bolt pattern (center of block) that is different. The nice thing with the Novak setup is they give you a nice long travel slave cylinder, the bad news is you have to supply your master. My master is out of a late 80's early 90's Blazer with manual trans (to have enough fluid volume). I also think you could use the slave cylinder out of a Blazer as well and make a mounting bracket. HTH. I will try to post a pic if there isn't already one of the setup in my Webshots folder (See link at bottom)

 

I like my full length one piece cable for the V6
the brackets might be a little harder to find though
can push the pedal down nice and easy with your hand

 

Duke - CJ7's used a hydro clutch in '80 and '81 151 4 cyl's. The slave cylinder mounts in front of the clutch fork (push style), to two bolts on the bellhousing. I don't think it would be a direct bolt in, but you should be able to drill a hole or two in the V6 BH and make it work. Also, the master cylinder is pretty much the standard-type on these models; just a small canister mounted beside the brake MC.

I think the slave cylinder, from Auto Zone was about $75. Not sure about the MC - we didn't replace it.

 

Thanks for all the replies. They've been real helpfull. And JohnyJeep, I checked out your Webshots and that clutch set-up is what I'm trying for. So I'll look up Novak and Advance Adapters as well and see if I can get this under control. Thanks guys.