Long story short. I lost the ability to get the truck in gear. I ordered the clutch master / slave cylinder and line assy(pre-bled) from Dodge. Installed it last Wednesday morning and all worked fine....until this morning. Now it is hard to shift into gear while moving using the clutch. It shifts fine if you "float" the gears. If you stop, you hold pedal to floor and it bumps & jumps and crawls forward. You cannot get in gear unless you turn it off and start it while trans is in gear. The clutch was replaced when I bought it at 160xxx miles, now have 194xxx miles. Do I need to just go ahead and replace the clutch?
Thanks in advance...

 

Sounds like clutch to me. Sorry.

 

Sounds like the pilot bearing is hanging up. But with 200k, might be good to throw a clutch at it as well. You'll know more once you open it up.

 

Sounds like you have a leak in the items you just put on. Add some more brake fluid and bleed the system. I'm really not familiar with dodge so correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I kinda figured the clutch is hitting the flywheel or the pilot bearing has bit the dust. No way will I drop the trans and not change the clutch.

 

I just went through this with my truck and it was the pilot bearing. Only gear I could get into when cold was 5th, and if I held the brake and let out the clutch momentarily in 5th it would break the stiction with the pilot bearing then I can shift into any gear. Also if I bumped the starter in gear while holding the clutch down would also help break the stiction.

BTW, my pilot bearing was still intact and looked fine, but the grease on the other hand looked like coal tar. The rest of the clutch components looked good too. But everything was tossed for South Bend components.

 

Just pulled the slave cylinder off and pumped it to bleed it like I've read on here. No luck. It works fine until it heats up?

 

Sounds like the pilot bearing then. Any noise when it's in gear with the clutch in?

 

I don't notice any noise. If you are sitting in a flat parking lot and push the clutch and put it gear, the truck moves forward about an inch. When I got home tonight, I couldn't get it in reverse, had to turn it off and put in revertand then restart.

 

When my pilot bearing was sticking the truck would try to move forward when trying to put it into gear.

I highly recommend ditching the stock OEM needle bearing setup for a HD roller bearing. The OEM needle bearing is the weakest link the clutch setup. When it goes it can damage the transmission input shaft which will get really expensive. South Bend and Valair both sell the roller bearing which you have to have the flywheel bored for the larger diameter bearing. Or buy a new flywheel with the HD roller bearing already installed like I did.

 

which SB cluth/flywheel did you end up with, how many miles so far? have you posted a review or something of it? its time for me to replace my OE @130k

 

I went with the SB 1947-OK-HD. Had it installed last Saturday and have about 200 miles on the truck now. The clutch pedal is stiffer than with the OEM clutch setup but the new clutch feels much smoother in operation.

 

I replaced my OE at 105K with a SB OFEK, it died 15k miles later- put in a Valair for 500 miles, hated it- noisy, jerky, stiff, lot's of weird vibrations, went back to OE style (dual mass and everything). Bought an OEM style LUK full kit w/ everything in it for $500 on Amazon, spent about 7 hours reverting everything back to stock and have loved my truck again ever since.

If this interests you I have a whole write up post on this board here:

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...ite-up-318715/

 

JG.
I think we agreed Luk could sell heaps of DMF + 60 hp units for the G-56.
My stock clutch was like new @ 37K with Smarty sw#3,2000# camper and 34" tires. The rear main was seeping and the installer recommended chucking the stock unit.
My OKHD works quite well but I do miss the silent trans.

 

Yep- I just thought I should post quick as I sure wish I had known that the stock setup isn't as bad as one would come to believe reading this board. I wasted thousands upon thousands of dollars dealing with the aftermarket clutches and the fallout from them (transmission had to be rebuilt- input shaft was way too loose after the South Bend failed) - if I can save somebody that headache, I'd like to.