The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop T-5 with TO bearing noise

Had the T-5 in and out of my truck more times than I want to count. The only things that have changed on the truck are the clutch disc and the transmission. I extended the splines, replaced the pilot bushing, had the tranny inspected for a rebuild (not needed), and still have TO bearing noise. In order for the pressure plate to release the clutch disc the TO bearing rests on the fingers. Is it possible that the clutch disc is in backwards? The flat side is towards the flywheel with the elongated hub inside the pressure plate. Reading the post below the original clutch disc is installed with the elongated hub towards the flywheel?

Clutch? Tranny? Linkage?

Could this be the problem I am experiencing? Anyone had similar issues?

You have it in right. When does this noise occur? When you put the clutch in? There are 2 different lengths of TO brgs. & 2 different typs of clutches. If they don,t match you can have serious release problems. I,ve done 2 T-5 conversions & they have both worked good.

The truck ran fine before... the only changes are the T-5, a new pilot bushing, the clutch disc (RCF-4190 9 1/8" 14 spline disc), and a shortened driveshaft.

The T-5 has been trimmed to match the original 3 speed and the splines were lengthened to increase disc travel (somewhere around 3/8"). With the TO bearing resting on the fingers the clutch disc only releases enough for me to spin it with a screwdriver... not enough of a gap to measure.

The noise is constant: clutch in/out, in neutral and in gear, whining/growling increases with engine rpms.

At a real loss here. Nobody seems to know what the problem is. I guess the next step is to take it apart again and see if the disc will nest into the flywheel. If not I will put the tranny in with out the PP and see how much travel the disc has on the input shaft. Anyone else have any suggestions?

Make sure the new pilot brg. is seated all the way in, I had to radius the OD of the brg so it would go deeper in the crank. It was rubbing the input shaft and binding the tranny a little. One of these day's I will get mine out for a test drive.

That is why I replaced the pilot bushing in the first place... Guess I will pull it all apart and look for wear on the pilot bushing again. How much did you turn yours down? Thought somewhere that I saw this issue disappeared if you replace the bushing with a needle bearing... anyone done that?

When the pilot bushing rubs/wears it is normally an indication of trans. mis-alignment. That will make the input shaft try to keep turning even though the P.P. & disc are released. After the mach. work on your input shaft did you check it for runout? It also could be causing the mis-alignmemt. Doug

Runout? Sorry. Not familiar with that term.

Runout is wobble. I can,t see how you could cause it if you cut some off the front of the shaft & ground the splines back a little.
This has me stumped. Maybe you will have to dissasemble it & look for indications of the noise. Are you familiar with the trans. I tore one down a while back & the bearing between the main drive & mainshaft was gaulled.

I mentioned checking the shaft first mostly because its so easy & just possible if there was any heat created in the machine work it could have caused it to move, especially given that its been heat treated already. Cutting off the front end, the center was lost but it could be chucked at the front diam. & a center put in the rear bore & then indicate the front bearing area.
When that main drive/mainshaft br'g. is shot, its almost a guarantee of a mis-align somewhere. Takes a really hi-torque motor to apply enough gear load to hurt one.
The orig. trans. were very forgiving & would live with a block face not square to the crank or the bellhs'g. faces not parallel or the bock dowels off center. The newer boxes won't tolerate it. Some of the hi-dollar gearbox sellers won't warranty them unless you furnish them four-position indicator pics before installing.
Doug

I had the pilot bearing shortened 1/4". Measuring the difference in spline length from the face of the transmission the T-5 is 3/16" longer than the original 3 speed. Hope to get to this early in the weekend. I will post on here if it solved the problem.

Would have it done tonight but work sucks! The Operations Manager left for a five day weekend leaving me in charge of the warehouse. I am short 2 out of 3 supervisors and we are moving into a new 80,000 sq ft expansion. Needless to say looks like I won't be working on the truck tonight or tommorrow.

So maybe the splines or the shoulder where they start was rubbing on the rear face of the pilot bushing? Be great if this fixes it 'cause its sure easier than the other things I mentioned. Good Luck! Doug

Quick update... Went to pull the pilot bushing and stripped the fingers on the puller. Snap-on guy is taking forever getting replacements.

Hey Josh...sorry to hear you are still having problems with the clutch. I installed the flat side of the clutch disc towards the pressure plate...extended the splines so it would side to the rear and additional 1/4-3/8". I bought a new disc/pp for my rebuilt engine and the same part number clutch disc had a stencil indicating the flat side went towards the flywheel. This is exactly opposite my original disc so I just reused my original. Flat side goes towards the pressure plate!!

On your pilot bushing....pack the hole with water soaked toilet paper...use a 9/16-5/8 dowel to pack it tight....then a 3 pound hammer smartly to get the bushing out. It works better than using grease and makes less of a mess. I discovered that the pilot bushing from the major suppliers is the correct diameter to fit snug but not overtight. NAPA couldn't get within .005" and I had to turn it down. If I had tried to install it there would have been distortion from excessive hammering. Also, I sunk it 1/8" inside the crank hole.

Hope this helps.

Dave