On 27 Jul 2018 17:20:42 GMT, Hank Rogers wrote:

Break it in just like you would do with new brake shoes or pads. Easy
for a while before you lean hard on it.

Thanks for that advice. I took it on a flat road and up a hill but not yet
on the highway as it's kind of far so I'll let the driver do that.

I did stall it a couple of times when I was doing a first and reverse K
turn, which is strange but that's because it used to grab almost at the top
of the clutch pedal return, and even then, it had grabbed smoothly (since
it was super worn).

Now it grabs much earlier and very firmly on the pedal uplift. Much earlier
than it did before. But that old clutch had something like 90K miles on it,
and about 10 years of driving, so a difference in feel is to be expected.

It's a self-adjusting (so to speak, but really that just means it's
hydraulic) so there's nothing to adjust but pedal play to the master
cylinder.

I'll deal with that adjustment later, as I've done it before and it's
really not a hard science it seems, as there's nothing but a bit of free
play to measure (you can't really measure it ... you just feel for it).

BTW, it's a stock 1:1 replacement for the 900 foot pound original clutch,
where the Marlin Crawler outfit sells a 1200 pound clutch that they 'say'
is better but I can't imagine what more foot pounds will do for a clutch
since the engine only develops something like 250 foot pounds (which may
not be the same type since one is angular and the other maybe not).

Anyway, everything is working - where I appreciate the help because it was
my first clutch, which took more than twice as long as I had thought it
would take and where, with your help, I did everything alone except for the
starter motor replacement - where a friend helped me.

It feels good to finally know what a pilot bearing is, and where it goes,
and how it goes in, and how it comes out. Likewise with the throwout
bearing.

I did test Clare's suggestion on the old clutch plate and diaphragm where I
can see now that gravity will pull it down off center which will then be
bolted off center if I don't use the alignment tool. With the alignment
tool, there was no alignment problem (other than having to jiggle the
bejesus out of the transmission to get the splines to line up).

Another thing Clare and others suggested was to spin the transmission
through the driveshaft, which turned out to be very easy when I tried it.


Overall, I'm glad I did it, as there are some jobs that are too big to do
at home, where lots of people consider this one of them. I feel like I
graduated, a bit, into an elite group, who has done a clutch at least once.