Did I mess up my clutch and flywheel install?

Ahoy!
If you look through my recent post you’ll see that I’ve been working on getting my LJ back running. Well, new flywheel/clutch have been installed the transmission and TC put back in as well and it turns on and runs decent.

After turning her over, I wanted to make sure clutch was working, so I attempted to put it in gear. Only problem is, it’s already in gear and I can row through all the gears without any grinding or clutch or anything, I get no feedback. I can however put it in reverse.

If that explanation doesn’t make sense see below video.


Thanks!

Steel City 06 said:

Transfer case in neutral?

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With the TC in neutral it stills shifts through the gears without needing the clutch

TurboTJ said:

What is that spinning shaft I see about halfway through the video?

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It’s the forward drive shaft yoke cause the TC is in 4WD, at that point we were testing to see if it was shifting at least in the TC

P man said:

I'm just throwing this out there..but what if the clutch disc was installed backwards?

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I thought of the possibility of this, but everything I’ve read and seen, and even the way the old one came out, the hub was facing rear towards the pressure plate

psrivats said:

Put your transfer case lever all the way down and try shifting through the gears like you did, and then report back.

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Alright I’ll do that as soon as the new shifter cable comes in cause now I can’t get it back in 2H

freedom_in_4low said:

Is the rear driveshaft installed?

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It is not installed

freedom_in_4low said:

I can't rule out that with no resistance, the synchronizers may be able to spin up the output and shift relatively normally, even without depressing the clutch pedal. I wouldn't pull my hair out about it until you have at least one shaft installed.

I only caught the front output once in the video, when I believe your foot was off the clutch and trans was in gear. Does it continue to spin (with TC in 4H) when the clutch is depressed or when the transmission is in neutral?

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Gotcha, appreciate the feedback!

Both yokes continue to spin in 4H even when the clutch pedal is pressed in and the transmission is in neutral. I can put the transmission in reverse gear with the clutch pushed in and the yokes will reverse direction as intended.

So what I’m gathering so far is I need to sort out my TC going back into 2H and attach the rear drive shaft and give it another test.

Rickyd said:

Transmissions and transfercases do weird things when allowed to freewheel,including not shifting or grinding into gear.they aren't designed to function like that.friction could make the front output spin and it be perfectly fine,same with the rear output.

Put the driveshafts in before doing any diagnosis so long as the clutch pedal feels like its functioning.at this point you are costing yourself time and effort.not saving it

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Understood! Thanks for the feedback, I’ll give that a shot once I get back to the Jeep in a week or so (On a work trip)

UPDATE!!

Alright everyone so got back from my trip and was able to do some wrenching yesterday and here’s what I got for you

Here’s what I did

Installed drive shaft
Upgraded to cable shifter for transfer case (goes into 2H now wouldn’t not before)

So after the changes I ran through the same test as the video I posted. Got the same results. Was able to shift into gears without the need of the clutch, drive shaft was spinning.

With the transmission in neutral, and the tires off, the rotors would spin (im guessing this is the case because there is no resistance or my trans is FUBAR) so we apply pressure to the rotors ( not using brakes) and I try and shift into gear without the clutch as before and it would not go into any gear. I then press the clutch and I was able to easily get it into 1st gear and the rotors over came the resistance and started spinning. I then tried the same test with the tires mounted, my dad applied pressure to the tires to keep them from slowly spinning in the air while the transmission was in neutral. Again I could not put it in gear without the clutch, once I pressed the clutch in and put it in gear I was able to successfully get into gear and reverse.

Today I’ll mount the front wheels and give it a proper test drive and report back.

Appreciate everyone’s input and feedback!

The only other gremlin I have now is, about every 3 or 4 starts of the Jeep the next one the whole Jeep dies and I have to disconnect and reconnect then negative better terminal to get it to start. But maybe that’s for another new post.. or for me to search for

Finally update!

Mounted all tires and took her for a spin, clutch and transmission worked with no issue!

As per my last post I think it was just shifting into gear without the clutch because there was no load/resistance in the driveline, thanks @Rickyd and @freedom_in_4low for the pointing that out.

Again appreciate everyone’s input!

She’s alive!

edit: to add proper recognition for input and feedback