I want to weld my clutches

  • Thread starter Thread starter jaydougempire
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jaydougempire

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So a few weeks ago my drive axle bearing let go chain case side. No big deal. I bought 5 new bearings for the beast and had it back together and kicking a$$ in no time. What I forgot do do was loctite one of the two bolts that hold the bearing retainer behind my secondary on the jackshaft. Well you can guess what happened next. 220 km ride and 35 km from the truck my secondary started to vibrate. I stopped and found the loose bolt... Snugged everything up (with loctite) and tried limp it back to the truck. I made it about 100ft before my secondary decided it wanted to leave it's mate (jackshaft) and have an affair with you guessed it! My primary. f#%$. My clutches are both dinged up a bit. I work in a very high tech custom fabrication and machine shop and I have the tooling behind me to get these puppies right back to beautiful. There Aren't any cracks anywhere that I have found (yet) so I'm thinking I'll just clean everything up , touch up the dings and dents with weld, machine and file surfaces back to original and then I'll send them out for precision balancing. Someone tell me if this is a bad idea. There is a few weeks left In the season and I can't spend anymore $$ on this sled. It serves me right to have to buy new clutches but... But...I really don't want to lol any Input is much obliged . Thanks.
 
Sounds like your headed in the right direction to me.If you say the shop you work in can touch up the bad spots with weld just make sure that everything is smooth once it's done and after they are balance I can't see any issues.One thing I do want to ask is did you replace the 2 nuts and bolts for that bearing retainer? The factory ones were lock nuts and shouldn't have come loose,even if they had been removed a time or two before there should still have been enough nyloc in them to hold them.
 
Secondary clutches are a dime a dozen on ebay or here. I would just replace rather then go through all that work for a clutch that they probably wont be able to balance right.
 
The hardware that was holding the retainer in was a carriage bolt with a flange style lock nut. Not a nylock. These nuts get a little tired after coming apart a couple times. Anyway I found a jackshaft for 60$ with the retainer and hardware. Also found a secondary for 100$. The problem is I can't find a primary for less than 300 so I'll be 500$ when I'm done. As opposed to a few hours of welding and machining, then 140$ for balancing. (I've been working in custom metal fab for about ten years) However if they won't balance which is quite possible I've thrown 140 out the window then I'll be right back to where I started. What to do...
 
I can't imagine not being able to balance the clutch after it's been welded,it's why they do it after all.If they have to add weight or take it away it most certainly should be doable.
 
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