by TransitNut » Wed Oct 15, 2014 12:09 am
As it appears this post still gets the occasional read I'll provide my experience to date having now owned my 17 year old Transit for 11 of those years.
I was convinced there must be a solution to the clutch judder as the vans would not have done it from new and indeed the works Mk4 2.5Di I drove did over 100,000miles fully loaded and massively abused without any "judder". (I was young and not paying for fuel or repairs).
I have now replaced the clutch twice, replaced the spigot bearing, doubled up on the spigot bearing, had a flywheel resurfaced, tried 3 gearboxes, replaced the propshaft bearings, tried another complete propshaft, replaced engine and gearbox mounts, replaced rear crank oil seal (only because I was changing the flywheel and I had a new ford crank seal to hand).
All of the above did result in slight "differences" as to when the judder would occur but nothing has cured it.
However the light bulb has finally illuminated having read the entry by "supadik" as it describes the circumstances under which the judder occurs perfectly, ie no judder having stood for a few days/weeks but returns when a reasonable distance has been traveled.
This has made me realise this is likely to be down to the fitting of aftermarket clutch friction plates rather than Genuine Ford items. I have only used what I consider to be decent quality aftermarket clutches (never re-conditioned ones) but on researching any type of replacement clutch manufacturer there doesn't appear to be any one which receives 100% positive reports.
My old works Mk4 did have a couple of clutches during the 100,000 miles of abuse but i know the company garage only used genuine ford parts.
So it may well be that the torsional coil springs fitted in the genuine ford clutch friction plate are up to the job and aftermarket ones aren't. This is supported by the entry by "voetsekman" which suggests the larger diameter clutch friction plate may have contained torsional springs which were up to the job.
Ironically I have had the exact same problem with a Suzuki V-Strom (Lumpy Torquey 105bhp V-Twin Engine) which uses a clutch from a Suzuki Hyabusa (Smooth, Torquey 180bhp in line four) yet on the V-Twin the torque pulses overpower the torsion springs in the clutch back plate causing what the bike fraternity refer to as "Chudder".
A bit of machining and some stronger torsion springs was the solution.
So the plan now is to see if I can locate a genuine ford replacement clutch and when the mood takes me fit it and see if it is the answer.
(I will also be having a good look at the torsional coil springs and see if there any obvious differences)