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97 TJ 4.0L Clutch Won't Release - Throw Out Bearing Gone?

Evening, Of course in the middle of the busiest intersection in town @ 5:00 pm I was pulling up to the red light stopping, however, no clutch peddle pressure! Having a hydraulic system I gave it several pumps hoping to get enough pressure to at least get through the intersection, but no dice. The clutch was stuck engaged with no chance of it releasing. My best bet was to start it in gear and limp through and work from there. Long story short I did finally get it home and on the driveway. I assumed the possibility of the slave cylinder being blown or out of fluid. There was no loud noises from below on the way home, so assumed no lose parts. I checked fluid, it was low, but not dry. I pulled the slave cylinder out and it was fully extended! I feared the worst at this point. I got a handy mirror and peered inside and could see the clutch fork was fully pushed in, almost down to the fly wheel. Basically bottomed out, but the cones in the pressure plate were not pushed in. Almost looks like there is no throw out bearing! I can't see any more because the slave cylinder hole is to small. So what is this? Could the fork be bent in the middle keeping the throw out bearing away from the pressure plate? Maybe broke on the pivot end? I'm up near Seattle and we've had tons of rain with massive water puddles on our gravel road. Possible the muck on the shaft keeping the throw out bearing from moving jammed and then bent the fork? Anyway, if anyone has had this happen or have some ideas please pass it on. I have no problem fixing clutches etc, but some heads up on ordering parts would be great. Any heads up on pulling the tranny for clutch replacements? Clutch kit recommendations? Thanks Retrojeep

Reply to
Tqm
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Not sure what's up, can you pull the fork out of the transmission? I'm from Seattle too. What intersection were you in?

Carl

Reply to
Carl

Reply to
L.W.( ßill ) Hughes III

Hi Carl, It's really strange, it is all the way down almost against the flywheel but it will not move or retract. I put a screw driver and tapped, wiggled etc on it and it is solid and will not budge. I did notice that before I pulled out the slave, while running, you pushed down to the flow on the clutch there was a grinding noise. Which from what I see now is the end of the fork against the flywheel/clutch cover. I went out and fired it up with the slave out just to see if it would pop back into place by some miracle. No dice. The fork is internal and does not extend to the outside of the bell-housing. So you can't take it out/move it unless you pull the tranny. I'm in Poulsbo, so I'm across the water from you. 25 straight days of rain and more coming! I'll have to wait until July to get out there and work on it! I'll drown in the yard!

Reply to
Tqm

Maybe tomorrow I'll throw a heavy wire around the end of the fork and give it a pull with some creative engineering. I figure I'll have to take it apart anyway, but it sure is a puzzler. Maybe part of the throw-out bearing is down in the cones and buried. Status update in a few days... Thanks Tqm

Reply to
Tqm

The trans isn't hard to pull from your Jeep. Have you done one before?

Carl

Reply to
Carl

Haven't pulled one from a TJ before, but have done several in the past. I'm not to worried about it. Probably hose it all off tomorrow and get all the muck out from underneath before I get to far into it. Can you get buy with out pulling all the linkages off? Pull the shift handles off and let her back enough to get in there? Of course, pull the drive shafts. Have a good clutch recommendation?

Reply to
Tqm

I did the Ax-5 in my 89 Wrangler. E-mail me at carlsaiyed at hot mail dot com for some more tips.

Carl

Reply to
Carl

I helped my nephew with his jeep last year. Same symtoms as yours. What happens is the throw out bearing has two small ears on opposite sides that make contact with the clutch fork. The two ears are held against the clutch fork by spring clips. The spring clips rusted away allowing the throw out bearing to rotate and pass through the clutch fork. It looked like it would have been possible to just get some new spring clips but being we had it apart we replaced the clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing. The clutch fork had a few dings in it but we were able to reuse it.

Reply to
Mike

How did you replace the pilot bearing in the crank? I have heard on the

6cyl, it's in the end of the crank.

Carl

Reply to
Carl

If I remeber correctly it was in the flywheel. I just removed the flywheel and tapped it out from the backside with a punch. I don't know for sure as we did the jod a year ago but I do remember removing the flywheel.

Reply to
Mike

Reply to
Will Honea

Reply to
L.W.( ßill ) Hughes III

Reply to
RoyJ

Well I have part of the job completed and the verdict is a broken clutch fork. Seems it folded up under the pressure. Once I get the old pressure plate off I'll be able to tell if there was some sort of damage to the pressure plate to cause the failure. Tqm

Reply to
Tqm

Reply to
L.W.( ßill ) Hughes III

All factory, had my jeep since new. I'll post a pick of the fork in the morning. Really odd.

Reply to
Tqm

I've attached links to some photos of the bad fork from my TJ. The throw out bearing was still loose and smooth and turned with ease. However, it was really jammed into the fork. Clutch and pressure plate were fine with lots of life remaining. I replaced it all with Napa clutch kit (about $200) and a new flywheel exchange. Flushed out the tranny and transfer case and all back together now.

I will say the new Napa pressure plate has a shorter engage than the factory (hope this doesn't mean it will slip or fail on the side of Mt. Rainier!). Lets say the clutch peddle full travel in total is 1 -10 with 10 being completely on the floor and 9 being where the clutch ignition switch kicks in. The factory clutch disengaged at around 7 and completely engages around

  1. Now the clutch is disengage at around 4 and engages around 2 as before. A very short motion.

When I first backed it up I pushed the clutch peddle to the floor and kept letting the clutch out further and further and further and I about gave up on it. For a second I thought oh crap what the heck is this! Then it grabbed and took off fine. I'll probably bleed the slave cylinder one more time to make sure there is no more air in the line.

The first photo below shows the bearing spun down into the fork out 45° from where it should be. Clips probably rusted and gave out.

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Can see the transmission side of the fork. You can see the slots where the clips should be. Also, the fork is wedged open. I put a straight edge on the side and it was really stretched open.

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This is the clutch side of the fork right under the slave cylinder end. Because the fork was fully engaged the fly wheel ground into it.

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Another view of the carnage.

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Reply to
Tqm

Reply to
L.W.( ßill ) Hughes III

I don't know, my 64 Polara with a max wedge 426 4spd had about the same setup. An interesting thing I remember is about 5 years ago on an on-ramp I remember pushing my clutch in and it wouldn't completely release the clutch. I had to pump the clutch peddle a few times to get it to work. When I got home I bled the system and got the feel back to the clutch. (You can probably do a search on google on newsgroup and find the old post). I'm wondering if it didn't actually spin out then, but finally now just worked it's way through the fork from the repeated pressure. Who knows... I just remember it was really strange when that happened.

Reply to
Tqm

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