To clutch or not to clutch?

UglyDuck

TJ Enthusiast
Supporting Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2021
Messages
404
Location
Goodyear AZ
I have the transfer case out as I’m doing an SYE and rebuild on it.
Occurred to me that I’m 70% of the way towards replacing the clutch. No idea how old it is. Jeep has 205k on the clock. Seems to work ok ish but….?
 
I swapped mine out when I had to pull my 5-speed out to replaced a pilot bearing.

I was at 145k miles and the clutch and related parts looked new imho. I feel like I probably wasted my money.

But……

At 205k I’d think it’s a safe to bite the bullet and replace everything.
 
The throw out bearing on mine fell apart at about 160k miles. I replaced everything except for the flywheel while I was in there, even though the clutch disc looked fine.
 
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I suspect the clutch plate itself is fine; it’s the other stuff that’s unknown. I have zero data on it but I am more than halfway into the job if I decide to go that route.
 
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Grease inside throw out bearing could be dried up, the point before symptoms of failure.
Pressure plate fingers could also be worn without any symptoms yet.

My clutch felt great but I did it anyways just because I didn't know it's condition, clutch disk and flywheel was in great shape but the Pressure plate fingers where worn to 1mm from po using the pedal as a foot rest.
 
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I'm apparently the weird one here but I don't view having the transfer case out as being "that" close to having the clutch out. I've had mine off a few times and I've never considered doing the clutch even though I have no idea how old it is on a Jeep with at least 180k miles on it... and probably closer to 200k since the PO never calibrated the speedometer. It's just not that much work to drop the transfer case out if you aren't tearing the case itself apart.
 
to clutch
every time i ignore a though that tells me "might as well while in there", a day, week, moth or a year later im under the Jeep busting knuckles, stripping bolts, catching dirt with my eyes, feeding mosquitos and telling myself that i have deserved this for ignoring myself earlier.
 
to clutch
every time i ignore a though that tells me "might as well while in there", a day, week, moth or a year later im under the Jeep busting knuckles, stripping bolts, catching dirt with my eyes, feeding mosquitos and telling myself that i have deserved this for ignoring myself earlier.

That’s why most of my projects tend to snowball
 
I'm apparently the weird one here but I don't view having the transfer case out as being "that" close to having the clutch out. I've had mine off a few times and I've never considered doing the clutch even though I have no idea how old it is on a Jeep with at least 180k miles on it... and probably closer to 200k since the PO never calibrated the speedometer. It's just not that much work to drop the transfer case out if you aren't tearing the case itself apart.

Haven’t done the job yet, but I’m curious if you’ve gotta drop the exhaust? Dropping my exhaust to put a new intake/exhaust gasket on was not a fun activity. Do you need to drop the exhaust to get the transfer case out?
 
Haven’t done the job yet, but I’m curious if you’ve gotta drop the exhaust? Dropping my exhaust to put a new intake/exhaust gasket on was not a fun activity. Do you need to drop the exhaust to get the transfer case out?

I think I just loosened mine at the manifold and big cat to swing it out of the way. I don't remember fully removing it.
 
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The throw out bearing on mine fell apart at about 160k miles. I replaced everything except for the flywheel while I was in there, even though the clutch disc looked fine.

me to exact same thing,,,160 thro out gone but the rest looked great,,,,but new oem
kit on amazon under $100
 
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when I did my clutch 2 summers ago the rear main seal was right there for the plucking & I asked myself the same question. Decided not to swap it since it never leaked a drop in my years of ownership.

When I returned from my post-clutch replacement test drive I had a, you guessed it, rear main seal leak; fucker hasn't stopped dripping for two years.

Light a smoke if you want your food to come faster
 
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when I did my clutch 2 summers ago the rear main seal was right there for the plucking & I asked myself the same question. Decided not to swap it since it never leaked a drop in my years of ownership.

When I returned from my post-clutch replacement test drive I had a, you guessed it, rear main seal leak; fucker hasn't stopped dripping for two years.

Light a smoke if you want your food to come faster

My RMS leaks like a sob , so is it easy to do with the trans out?