Ford 850 Clutch replacement

[Mike Hodgins]

This is my third post on this job and I cannot thank the guys enough that posted. It has been extremely helpful.

Replacing a 10" single clutch on a 850. I am at the point where I'm ready to put the tractor back together.

When I bring the transmission up to the engine it doesn't quite want to go all the way. It feels like the end of the input shaft is hitting up against the flywheel bearing and it is not seating all the way in.

The spline on the shaft is meshing together properly with the gear in the pressure plate and the two halves of the tractor appear to be lined up pretty straight.

Any ideas?

I was going to back off on the clutch bolts and re-align the pressure plate thinking maybe it was off enough to make it not line up.

Anything else?

Thanks again

 

[awhtx]

There is a tool that is used to align the clutch disc and the pilot bearing as the pressure plate is tightened to the flywheel. If you don't have this tool I believe you can remove the input shaft from the transmission and use it as the line-up tool.

Get a couple of 7/16" coarse thread bolts about 6" long and cut the hex heads off. Screw them into the engine block where the bolts that attach the trans to the engine go and use them as guide pins as you roll the engine and trans together.

 

[john_Bud]

That's the way it goes 99 times out of 100 (at least for me). I am assuming that you actually used a guide to center the disc to start with. If not, back off and do so. My "solution" is to use 2 bottle jacks. One on the trans and one on the engine and line up them as perfect as possible. Most of the time, just having the trans and engine EXACTLY square is all you need. I measure the gap top, bottom, left and right. Then, if needed, turn the engine over (plugs out) just a touch. That works a fair amount. I also use 8" guide bolts (bolt head sawn off) to get it up and in the correct direction.

If it is real persnickety, rocking the differential by turning the tires back and forth a touch helps. You don't ever want to get frustrated and force it!

Good luck!

jb

 

[old]

Did you use a clutch aliment tool so as to have thing aliend right?? If not you need to or you may find that you have to buy another clutch disk. DO NOT force it or you will be buying another disk. Also it does help the grease the pilot shaft bearing so as to slip in easier. Learned this stuff the hard way back when parts where cheap. Ya they where decades ago LOL

 

[Mike Hodgins]

Thanks for the ideas.

I did use an aligning tool but am not sure I had it in all the way. Am going to start by repeating the process.

 

[RodinNS]

Assuming you aligned the clutch before you tightened the PP down, then it ~should~ just be a matter of playing with it until it goes together. Sometimes I'll set the transmission a little bit higher as the input shaft does droop a little bit. That gets them started, then turn the engine over a bit to get the splines lined up.

Whatever you do, don't force it. Don't draw it in with bolts. You WILL bend the clutch disc. If that happens you can sometimes straighten it out in a press. Sometimes not....
It really sucks if you need to buy a new disc... as some tractors are cheaper to buy a disc and PP as a unit. Big money. Don't muff it up.

I also sometimes lift the steering pedestal off on the smaller tractors so that I can look in and see what's happeing in there but that's probably a bunch of extra work on the 850... Some tractor's it's the first thing I remove.

Rod

 

[Jim.UT]

I did that job a year ago. The link at the bottom of my post is to the photo album from that project. Maybe it will help, maybe not.

The one thing that I found I needed to do (and didn't read in any manual) is back off the clutch adjustment before putting the two halves together. I found that my clutch pedal was adjusted for a worn out clutch. With the new clutch installed, when I tried to mate up the two halves, the throwout bearing contacted the clutch fork when I was about 1" away from being able to bolt it together. If I had backed off the pedal adjustment first I think it would have slid back together much more easily.
clutch job album thumbnails