Bad Clutch - how long before damage occurs

[John Berger]

Most of you have probably seen my post on the slave cylinder problem I had on my most recent road trip. I've pretty much assigned the problem to the clutch based upon what I've read on this site and after talking to Peter at South Bend Clutch and Cory at Standard Transmissions. Let me summarize briefly: I have a hard time getting into gear (mainly first and reverse) from neutral, but not all of the time. The truck shifts fine most of the time and I don't get any grinding or clunking while upshifting or downshifting, so I'm eliminating anything internal to the transmission. I'm thinking my throwout bearing is probably the culprit, so with that in mind, here is my question. How long can I run with the truck this way before I risk internal damage. I don't plan on making any long hauls with the trailer and most of my running will be to work, with the occasional foray to Jacksonville or Brunswick, both of which are 35-50 miles away, depending upon what part of town you go to. TIA



By the way I have 60. 4K miles on the truck and the clutch has been chattering under 1000 rpm in 1st and 2nd gear since last summer

 

[Steve Campbell]

John, with the description you gave, I feel that one of these days the clutch is just going to give up. How long, I do not know. My past experience has beed that if I fix something before it completely brakes (a stitch in time saves nine) that it is a lot cheaper. If it was me, I would get my parts in a row and change it out soon. Peter would have the best guess in my book.

 

[Alan Reagan]

I agree with SCampbell. Thing is, if it is the throw out bearing, your problems will get worse for getting it into gear. You'll probably end up bending the forks. But forcing it into gear with everything moving is rough on the transmission. One day, it won't go into gear at all from neutral. You'll crank up in some gear and drive home, shifting without the clutch.

 

[nps]

John,



Get it fixed as soon as possible because you will only cause more wear on all the other parts.



Your symptoms sound more like air in the system than a throwout bearing - I've not seen many intermittent TOBs, usually good or bad and when bad alot of noise when depressed and stationary - but I'm on my first manual Ram and all my experience with them is on other vehicles. Would not want to contradict clutch experts with alot of Ram experience.



Another question - where in the travel does the clutch engage/disengage at other times? At the floor - at the top - intermittent? If consistently at the top then the problem may be entirely something else. Maybe a sticking shift fork.

 

[John Berger]

It usually engages around the middle and disengages between the top to the middle and it is pretty consistent. It looks like anything that I would have a problem with requires the transmission to come off of the truck. If that's the case, there is no sense in not putting on a new clutch. Peter, I'll probably be calling you soon. Imagine that, BOMBing out of necessity

 

[Joseph Donnelly]

Check the hydraulics carefully to be sure the engegement pedal height is the save every time. Changing the hydraulics is the easiest thing you can do to diagnose the system and possibly find the problem.