An odd clutch problem that's new to me!!!

[Tom Foster]

Originally Posted by bnchief

I wonder could a guy fasten the transmission on a stand and turn the input shaft with a drill to see what happens could be play and two gears trying to lock up, do not know just saying but it is rather curious.

I did meet Marshall years ago at Picacho Peak, and I knew him from his Ahooga posts. I'd be surprised if that's not the SECOND thing he tried. ;-)
Fearless

[bnchief]

I did not do that with my transmission just put in all new bearings and seals the thought of pulling an engine after building it and putting it in would keep me up at night.

[Marshall V. Daut]

FINAL UPDATE: It appears that all is finally right with this piece of ^%$&* Model A owned by an older friend. Rather than rehash all that I went through to reach this point, it'd be better for you to go back to the beginning of this thread and re-read my postings, as well as the suggestions made along the way. But before I supply what I THINK was the problem all along, let me say that I have NEVER experienced either of the two suspected culprits in any Model A I have worked on, either mine or others'. I would not have automatically pointed a finger at an obvious smoking gun and said "Aha! There it is!" - and I doubt whether many of you readers would have, either. I have been fighting unbelievable stupidity and gross incompetence on the part of a previous "mechanic" (and I use that word loosely), as well as my own stubbornness in repeatedly going down well-trodden repair paths I have been following for 50 years of a Model A association. Some of you guys were partially correct about the problem, some were not. I think in the final analysis, I may have been closer to the root of the cause in my initial posting's heading than I thought, especially after chasing my tail trying to fix problems that weren't problems. Anyway, there were a couple things going on in this horsesh*t engine and tranny at the same time that complicated the matter. They all disguised the real problem or sent me off in the wrong direction.
First, the loud tapping noise before the engine shut down. And recall that one of the last checks was with ONLY the engine running in the chassis without the transmission in place. That eliminated the transmission and isolated the engine. But did it really? I think there were two banging sounds going on at the same time: one inside the engine and one inside the tranny or bellhousing. The engine tapping was easy to solve. Although a friend with a valve seat grinding kit re-did the VERY deep seats in the engine block and trimmed the valve stems according, there was definitely lifter noise emanating from the original lifter area near the back of the block. Recall that a previous "mechanic" had cut the valve seats at an angle, which my friend straightened out. Two valve stems were even bent. Two new valves were installed and trued to the valve seats in the block. Still, tap, tap, tap was heard with the engine running alone, even though I checked the valve lash several times before buttoning everything up. The solution was to order and install adjustable lifters, which I wanted to do in the first place, but couldn't convince my penny-pinching friend to spring for the expense. I need to listen to my own gut feeling in such matters from now on and insist on what I KNOW is the best way to go in future repairs. It's going to be "MY way or the highway!" from now on and d*mn the expense. Don't like it? Find some other sucker to fix your junk cars! Anyway, installing the new lifters eliminated the engine tapping sound. One less problem to deal with, but obviously not the cause of the engine dramatically shutting down.
Now that the engine was out of the equation, attention fell upon the clutch and transmission. Reluctantly, I disassembled the transmission now that it was lying on the garage floor, not really expecting to find anything wrong inside. After all, the car had been driven to my house from Illinois and the owner had no complaint about the transmission's operation other than it leaked like a baby in diapers. All I did to the tranny during the initial stages of repair was to replace the two large main bearings and install a new gasket kit. Upon disassembly this time, however, I looked over the gears and removed the cluster gear. Inside the cluster gear I found two SHORT bearings instead of one long and one short one. Plus, the spacer was undersized in its outer diameter compared to one I specially removed from a spare transmission. I can't see how a thinner spacer would contribute to transmission problems, as the cluster gear rides on the roller bearings, not the spacer. But two short bearings MIGHT allow the cluster gear to flex as the bearings and spacer do not fill up the center of the cluster gear from end to end. Possibly there was just enough "give" when the bearings moved forward for the rear of the cluster gear to change its orientation. Both the reverse idler gear and the gear teeth at the rear of the cluster gear showed signs of clashing with metal peeled back on the teeth. Slight peel-back, but there had obviously been a clashing between the two gears. I wonder if installing the new main bearings changed the alignment between the cluster gear and the reverse idler, causing them to suddenly bind against each other and thereby stop the engine by locking up the engine? That would explain the damage to the teeth on both gears. Probably not, but to avoid future problems, I ground off the metal flashings from the gear teeth and installed two long and one short roller bearing inside the cluster gear, tossing the spacer altogether. I like the fact that now the entire length of the gear is supported, whereas the portion previously occupied by the spacer contributed nothing. The bearings now run from end to end inside the cluster gear. No other problems were noted inside the transmission, so it went back together.
Not fully believing this was the only problem, I then looked over the clutch area a little closer. The clutch disk that was in the car was glazed over and the grooves in the material had been ground away by use. I had pulled out a disk from my parts stash to replace this worn disk. This disk was in since I had gone through the engine. Looking it over after the pressure plate was removed, I noticed that the center hub stuck out way farther than on the disk I had removed. (Yes, the disk was oriented correctly. It cannot be installed flipped around!) Measuring the depths of the flywheel cuts, it was discovered that they were within tolerances = not too deep, not too shallow. BUT - I wondered if that extra long clutch disk snout was keeping the engine from turning over once it had run for a few seconds? Was it binding against the flywheel's center area? There were no obvious signs of rubbing, but recall that I could only get the engine to turn over once it locked up by pushing in the clutch. Possibly the longer hub of the disk combined with the misalignment of the cluster gear vis-à-vis the reverse idler gear were acting in tandem to lock up the engine? I have never heard of this. Have you???
At this point and after removing the engine a total of five times, I was NOT about to try just one or the other repair to gauge which (if either) was at fault. No, Sir-ee! I no longer CARED what the problem was. I just wanted this car done and out of my life. So, against my instincts to isolate a problem-maker, I made both suspected repairs: the old disk faces were sanded to remove the glaze and re-installed. Doing that teamed up with the cluster gear parts would hopefully solve the problem. With the engine and transmission re-installed, I crossed my fingers and started the engine. HURRAY! No knocking or tapping and NO locking up!!! So, the cause of the problem all along had been either the cluster gear misalignment or the odd clutch disk hub, or with my luck, a combination of both. As I say, I DON'T CARE!!! The problem is fixed.
Life, freezing temperatures, last minute house repairs before winter hits and a certain reluctance to lay myself open to further criticism/inneundo questioning my mechanical abilities for not IMMEDIATELY finding the cause of the engine stoppage have delayed this final response. Besides, the problem was only discovered and repaired two days ago during a brief warming up period in the weather. How I wish a pile of broken transmission teeth lying at the bottom of the case had been the obvious smoking gun cause of all this misery. Unfortunately, the cause (or causes) were more subtle and not ones I would have suspected right away. It took the process of elimination to finally track down the guilty party/parties. Whether some readers will believe it or not, the cause had to have been one or both of the repairs described in this posting. Nothing else done during the previous four teardowns fixed the locking up.
Problem solved and this old dog learned a new trick.
Marshall

[gweilbaker]

Well played sir. It's difficult to diagnose a problem when there is more than one and especially with previous unethical repairs. Hopefully your "friend" is grateful.

[Big hammer]

Originally Posted by gweilbaker

Well played sir. It's difficult to diagnose a problem when there is more than one and especially with previous unethical repairs. Hopefully your "friend" is grateful.

BTT :-) congrats Marshall, we all new you would fix it! I hate to try and fix problems when people say don't want to spend much money :-(

[George Miller]

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Glade you got it fixed. Do you think maybe when you fixed the end play in the crank shaft, which I think you said was 1/8 helped to make that dang mess compress to the point to binding. Any way glade you got it fixed and will be able enjoy Christmas.

[Marshall V. Daut]

George -
No, I fixed the endplay during the 3rd or 4th removal and teardown. The engine still locked up afterwards. The endplay had to be fixed, of course, but I don't think that was the problem because nothing changed afterwards. That would have been WAAAAAAAAAAY too simple of a solution. I hadn't yet been punished enough by the Model A gods.
Marshall

[tbirdtbird]

i never had any doubts

[Tom Foster]

Wow, thanks for relieving our suspense! I'm sure your friend has a great car now.

[Ray in La Mesa]

We deeply appreciate your perseverance in solving this problem, will ad it to the library of things seldom checked!

[Dick Steinkamp]

Congrats, Marshall, and thanks for the report!

I'm a relative A newbie, but I had an engine recently that I bought without hearing it run although the seller said it ran fine. During the tear down and inspection I found one valve that I could pull up when that lifter was on the heel of the cam and that I could turn easily when the valve was raised by the cam. I found that the seat was cut deep AND the valve face was cut quite a bit. This resulted in a lot of valve stem ground away in order to get the proper clearance. So much so that the spring retainer didn't have anything left on the valve stem to sit on. The engine probably ran but I imagine it made quite the clatter. Could this be what the problem was with your "tick"?

[Tom Wesenberg]

Look those two clutch disc over carefully.
Aren't they the style that has the problem with springs coming out of place?

[Marshall V. Daut]

Tom -
I've only had one disk with springs come apart on me and that was during a 1974 cross country drive in my 1928 Roadster. It happened while passing through Columbia, Missouri. BANG!!! It took a day and a lot of walking around town to locate a new disk, which also had the springs. I won't even go into the scary details of how I changed the disk with two borrowed bumper jacks! 'Beats me how I have been able to reach the venerable old age of 67 doing dumb stuff like that. But I got back to Arizona o.k.
The only times I have been around Model A engines with the non-spring disk plates, there was clutch chatter. Replacing them with disks integrating the springs solved the problem every time. I think I'll risk only one disk failure in 50 years rather than live with clutch chatter. I'm sure others could relate different experiences.
Marshall

[Herb Concord Ca]

Marshall, what a story!!
I had faith that you would find the problem(s).
Herb Concord CA

[Gold Digger]

Bravo!! You stayed with the problem till you concurred it. I had a friend who is now passed on but if he couldn't fix a problem second time, carb for instance, he took a sledge hammer and beat it off. Then had to find another carb and usually a manifold. Patients and persistence will always pay off.

[harleynut]

Marshall, Just wanted to say thanks for posting the results. This is probably the longest thing I ever read on the Barn. Very interesting and informative. I give you credit. I probably would have been throwing wrenches down the driveway in frustration.

[Marshall V. Daut]

"I probably would have been throwing wrenches down the driveway in frustration."

I did, but nobody saw me do it.

As for the length of my post, check back to the early 2000's on "Ahooga". Some of my posts back then make this one look like an interoffice memo!

Marshall, the tipsy typist

[George Miller]

Originally Posted by Marshall V. Daut

"I probably would have been throwing wrenches down the driveway in frustration."

I did, but nobody saw me do it.

As for the length of my post, check back to the early 2000's on "Ahooga". Some of my posts back then make this one look like an interoffice memo!

Marshall, the tipsy typist

Ya and You always liked good spelling and grammar. That kind of leaves me out, was not my best subject plus my mother was a school teacher. See never could understand why I did not get it.

Again glad you got it going.

[C26Pinelake]

Originally Posted by Marshall V. Daut

FINAL UPDATE: It appears that all is finally right with this piece of ^%$&* Model A owned by an older friend. Rather than rehash all that I went through to reach this point, it'd be better for you to go back to the beginning of this thread and re-read my postings, as well as the suggestions made along the way. But before I supply what I THINK was the problem all along, let me say that I have NEVER experienced either of the two suspected culprits in any Model A I have worked on, either mine or others'. I would not have automatically pointed a finger at an obvious smoking gun and said "Aha! There it is!" - and I doubt whether many of you readers would have, either. I have been fighting unbelievable stupidity and gross incompetence on the part of a previous "mechanic" (and I use that word loosely), as well as my own stubbornness in repeatedly going down well-trodden repair paths I have been following for 50 years of a Model A association. Some of you guys were partially correct about the problem, some were not. I think in the final analysis, I may have been closer to the root of the cause in my initial posting's heading than I thought, especially after chasing my tail trying to fix problems that weren't problems. Anyway, there were a couple things going on in this horsesh*t engine and tranny at the same time that complicated the matter. They all disguised the real problem or sent me off in the wrong direction.
First, the loud tapping noise before the engine shut down. And recall that one of the last checks was with ONLY the engine running in the chassis without the transmission in place. That eliminated the transmission and isolated the engine. But did it really? I think there were two banging sounds going on at the same time: one inside the engine and one inside the tranny or bellhousing. The engine tapping was easy to solve. Although a friend with a valve seat grinding kit re-did the VERY deep seats in the engine block and trimmed the valve stems according, there was definitely lifter noise emanating from the original lifter area near the back of the block. Recall that a previous "mechanic" had cut the valve seats at an angle, which my friend straightened out. Two valve stems were even bent. Two new valves were installed and trued to the valve seats in the block. Still, tap, tap, tap was heard with the engine running alone, even though I checked the valve lash several times before buttoning everything up. The solution was to order and install adjustable lifters, which I wanted to do in the first place, but couldn't convince my penny-pinching friend to spring for the expense. I need to listen to my own gut feeling in such matters from now on and insist on what I KNOW is the best way to go in future repairs. It's going to be "MY way or the highway!" from now on and d*mn the expense. Don't like it? Find some other sucker to fix your junk cars! Anyway, installing the new lifters eliminated the engine tapping sound. One less problem to deal with, but obviously not the cause of the engine dramatically shutting down.
Now that the engine was out of the equation, attention fell upon the clutch and transmission. Reluctantly, I disassembled the transmission now that it was lying on the garage floor, not really expecting to find anything wrong inside. After all, the car had been driven to my house from Illinois and the owner had no complaint about the transmission's operation other than it leaked like a baby in diapers. All I did to the tranny during the initial stages of repair was to replace the two large main bearings and install a new gasket kit. Upon disassembly this time, however, I looked over the gears and removed the cluster gear. Inside the cluster gear I found two SHORT bearings instead of one long and one short one. Plus, the spacer was undersized in its outer diameter compared to one I specially removed from a spare transmission. I can't see how a thinner spacer would contribute to transmission problems, as the cluster gear rides on the roller bearings, not the spacer. But two short bearings MIGHT allow the cluster gear to flex as the bearings and spacer do not fill up the center of the cluster gear from end to end. Possibly there was just enough "give" when the bearings moved forward for the rear of the cluster gear to change its orientation. Both the reverse idler gear and the gear teeth at the rear of the cluster gear showed signs of clashing with metal peeled back on the teeth. Slight peel-back, but there had obviously been a clashing between the two gears. I wonder if installing the new main bearings changed the alignment between the cluster gear and the reverse idler, causing them to suddenly bind against each other and thereby stop the engine by locking up the engine? That would explain the damage to the teeth on both gears. Probably not, but to avoid future problems, I ground off the metal flashings from the gear teeth and installed two long and one short roller bearing inside the cluster gear, tossing the spacer altogether. I like the fact that now the entire length of the gear is supported, whereas the portion previously occupied by the spacer contributed nothing. The bearings now run from end to end inside the cluster gear. No other problems were noted inside the transmission, so it went back together.
Not fully believing this was the only problem, I then looked over the clutch area a little closer. The clutch disk that was in the car was glazed over and the grooves in the material had been ground away by use. I had pulled out a disk from my parts stash to replace this worn disk. This disk was in since I had gone through the engine. Looking it over after the pressure plate was removed, I noticed that the center hub stuck out way farther than on the disk I had removed. (Yes, the disk was oriented correctly. It cannot be installed flipped around!) Measuring the depths of the flywheel cuts, it was discovered that they were within tolerances = not too deep, not too shallow. BUT - I wondered if that extra long clutch disk snout was keeping the engine from turning over once it had run for a few seconds? Was it binding against the flywheel's center area? There were no obvious signs of rubbing, but recall that I could only get the engine to turn over once it locked up by pushing in the clutch. Possibly the longer hub of the disk combined with the misalignment of the cluster gear vis-à-vis the reverse idler gear were acting in tandem to lock up the engine? I have never heard of this. Have you???
At this point and after removing the engine a total of five times, I was NOT about to try just one or the other repair to gauge which (if either) was at fault. No, Sir-ee! I no longer CARED what the problem was. I just wanted this car done and out of my life. So, against my instincts to isolate a problem-maker, I made both suspected repairs: the old disk faces were sanded to remove the glaze and re-installed. Doing that teamed up with the cluster gear parts would hopefully solve the problem. With the engine and transmission re-installed, I crossed my fingers and started the engine. HURRAY! No knocking or tapping and NO locking up!!! So, the cause of the problem all along had been either the cluster gear misalignment or the odd clutch disk hub, or with my luck, a combination of both. As I say, I DON'T CARE!!! The problem is fixed.
Life, freezing temperatures, last minute house repairs before winter hits and a certain reluctance to lay myself open to further criticism/inneundo questioning my mechanical abilities for not IMMEDIATELY finding the cause of the engine stoppage have delayed this final response. Besides, the problem was only discovered and repaired two days ago during a brief warming up period in the weather. How I wish a pile of broken transmission teeth lying at the bottom of the case had been the obvious smoking gun cause of all this misery. Unfortunately, the cause (or causes) were more subtle and not ones I would have suspected right away. It took the process of elimination to finally track down the guilty party/parties. Whether some readers will believe it or not, the cause had to have been one or both of the repairs described in this posting. Nothing else done during the previous four teardowns fixed the locking up.
Problem solved and this old dog learned a new trick.
Marshall

Just glad I was not the customer paying by the hour well this scenario was playing out! Model A Fords are not supposed to be this complicated. Wayne.

[Marshall V. Daut]

George -
So much for heredity! Grammar didn't pass through the genes to you? Tsk, tsk, tsk...
M.