Overlander's Preventative Maintenance

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Hi folks,

I just spent my long weekend on my back under my 2013 JK removing the transmission for the 3rd time. The first time was because the Throwout bearing went bad at 20,000 kms. The second time was at around 90,000 kms when the factory clutch finally went. At 120,000 kms, the slave cylinder gave up the ghost, and then most recently at 180,000 kms, our JK had an issue with the pilot bearing (which was my weekend project). In short, the service life of the transmission components has left me wanting.

This experience has given us a good lesson on how to ensure reliability, and for us, we've decided that we'll be doing a transmission pull every 75,000 kms and replacing everything in that system -- pilot bearing, clutch, throwout bearing, master and slave cylinders, etc. -- just for peace of mind, even if there are no symptoms of failure. It'll cost us $1000 every two years or so, but that's worth it. In our context, our day to day driving is only 20-30 kms, but on our trips at a minimum we are doing 100-200 times that distance, sometimes more (one trip was 15,000 kms in a month). If one of these parts breaks on a trip, we're in trouble, because even if we had the spare parts, it's a beast of a job to pull & reinstall a trans at home in the comfort of my garage; I can't imagine doing it on the side of a muddy track in Columbia. And at least in Columbia I could probably afford to get a local to help -- here in NA, the dealer quoted us north of $2k just to diagnose the problem when the Throwout Bearing first failed.

So, onto my question to this group: Obviously the service schedule doesn't call for a clutch replacement every 75,000 kms and most stuff is "replace when symptomatic of a problem". However, for an Overlander, it is probably worth replacing some things before there is a problem, in anticipation of ensuring the problem doesn't happen on a trip. What other "Routine Maintenance for Overlanders" do you folks recommend for the Jeep (or any other) platform? In other words, What should be replaced every X thousand kms, whether it needs it or not, for peace of mind in your books?

I know there isn't a "right" answer but I am very curious to see people's opinions and perspectives.

[Edited to clarify the question I was asking]

 

[Zeep]

Clutch's in that era Jeep should be lasting 150,000 miles (241,000 kms) or more. I can't help but wonder, if you have some driving habits that can be improved on!

 

[BigAl]

...The first time was because the Throwout bearing went bad at 20,000 kms. The second time was at around 90,000 kms when the factory clutch finally went. ]

Any time I had to drop the transmission/t-case i would replace the all of the clutch components and thoroughly inspect the pressure plate. It's too much work to leave in old parts.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Clutch's in that era Jeep should be lasting 150,000 miles (241,000 kms) or more. I can't help but wonder, if you have some driving habits that can be improved on!

I agree that they should last a lot longer than ours did. But, it's not driving habits in our case (At least, not entirely) -- it's also a good significant chunk of bad luck. The Throwout bearings are a known fault from what I've since learned, and it seems to be a bit of a crap shoot on the quality you get in Throwout bearing from the factory. Some last forever, some fail early -- I think there was a TSB about them a few years back, due to a 'whistling' sound that bearings were making. The fix included installing some shims into the bearings or buying a better quality aftermarket one if I remember correctly.

Anyway, the first issue SHOULD have been covered under warranty. Alas, the Dealer wasn't willing to stand behind the jeep, even though we had only recently purchased it, and basically told us that they would take a look but any signs of the Jeep being off-road would void the warranty. I asked what "Signs of being offroad" they were looking for, and they explained that any dirt or mud would indicate off-road use and void the warranty. I challenged them on that a bit, given it's a Jeep, but no joy. If I knew then what I know now, I would have pushed back a bit harder but this was 5 years ago. They quoted us $2k for the diagnoses, and then another $2-$3k for the repair if they decided warranty was void. I didn't like those odds.

It was our only vehicle at the time, and we needed it for work, so rather than gamble $2k -$5k+ on the Dealer's opinion, we decided to learn to do it ourselves. At the time, with only 20k on the Odometer, we decided against changing the other parts. This was a financially driven decision and we made it knowing that we'd have to pull the trans again in the future for the clutch. The clutch in our case was already showing excess signs of wear at 20k, which I suspect was related to the failing of the Throwout Bearing. I do recall one particularly muddy trail that we got stuck in, which may have contributed to wear and tear also. I say this because this is our second jeep JK; our first was also a manual, driven with the exact same use case (In fact, even harder), with no wear and tear problems on the driveline at all.

When we replaced the whole clutch at 90,000 kms, we opted to go with a Centreforce kit that came with a flywheel, basket, throwout bearing, pre-installed pilot bearing, and friction disc. Locally, it was either the Centreforce kit for about $800 CAD, or the OEM Omix Ada kit (Sans Flywheel) for $1200. Easy decision.

This final time, it was the pilot bearing that failed on us. Near as I can tell, that's just bad luck -- the bearing was brand new at 90,000 kms and lubricated, so I suspect we got a "Friday afternoon" bearing that perhaps was made with a bit less care! Anyway, this time we bought a new clutch kit but decided to go with a LUK kit out of the US for only $250. Unfortunately, the Centreforce flywheel is not compatible with OEM-compatible clutch kits. Once you go Centreforce on a JK, it would appear that is what you are stuck with unless you have an OEM flywheel handy -- which we don't anymore, because not thinking we'd ever need to go back to the old flywheel, we got rid of it. Long story short, we once again needed the vehicle back on the road and the Centerforce clutch itself still has about 70% wear left on it, so we re-installed it. I may return the LUK kit or keep my eye out for an OEM flywheel for the next swap.

The slave cylinder failure was more bad luck but likely exacerbated by installing/removing it several times. As careful as I tried to be, odds are good that the plunger still got excess stress which can prematurely wear the seals.

This time it did get a new SKS pilot bearing, and a new National throwout bearing, so the bearings we are using are as good as they come. They are cheap though so in another 70,000 kms (which will bring the Centreforce clutch to about 150-160,000 kms) we'll refresh everything.

Any time I had to drop the transmission/t-case i would replace the all of the clutch components and thoroughly inspect the pressure plate. It's too much work to leave in old parts.

Now that I've got a bit more money in the bank when I do these repairs, I completely agree with this approach and plan on doing that in the future. But, it's our daily driver as well as our adventure rig, so everything is a compromise between time, downtime, parts availability, and cost of repair. We've since gotten a second truck though, so the jeep's Uptime is less critical (especially in the summer when I have the bike) which is why I started this thread. I can afford to have the jeep offline for a few days to redo the steering components, or the u-Joints, or whatever else -- and I'm curious what other "While I do that, I always do this" type suggestions people have.

 

[Zeep]

"I'm curious what other "While I do that, I always do this" type suggestions people have."
Drive shaft U-Joints, While you have them out.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Good idea, Zeep. Cheap-ish to replace, and good peace of mind.

 

[rho]

I found the clutch to hold up OK in my JKU. When I had to replace the trans in my JKU @110k miles, the clutch was in very good shape with little wear expect for the TOB, as the TOB was on its way out and was making some noise.
After spending too much time looking into different clutch options, I used an OEM clutch/flywheel and a national TOB and pilot bearing. The rebuilt transmission has been holding up well aside from a small leak on the input shaft but I don't want to pull the stupid transmission again.

Agree on doing or inspecting driveshaft U-joints and repezza joints and taking the time to look at all that stuff thats at the back of the motor at the same time. I'll be doing a repezza joint rebuild on my front shaft as its toast on my jeep but I'll report back on how bad it is to do and if it holds up or not.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

Thanks RHO. I'd be very curious how your joints look when you take a look. Do you suspect that your lift has made any difference on driveshaft joint wear? We are looking at adding new suspension and are leading towards an AEV Dual Sport lift of around the same height as yours.

Sounds like you got great mileage out of that clutch. If I had known that the Centreforce flywheel was different, I would have kept the old one, but the Centreforce grabs far better than the OEM ever did. So, performance wise it's very good; coastwise it was competitive. Now with LUK kits from RockAuto though, I don't see a reason to go Centreforce if someone is replacing for the first time -- the LUK kit comes with an SKF pilot bearing, and comes with an OEM Throwout bearing, as well as disc and basket, for about $250 CAD. Not a bad price for all that.

 

[rho]

Thanks RHO. I'd be very curious how your joints look when you take a look. Do you suspect that your lift has made any difference on driveshaft joint wear? We are looking at adding new suspension and are leading towards an AEV Dual Sport lift of around the same height as yours.

Sounds like you got great mileage out of that clutch. If I had known that the Centreforce flywheel was different, I would have kept the old one, but the Centreforce grabs far better than the OEM ever did. So, performance wise it's very good; coastwise it was competitive. Now with LUK kits from RockAuto though, I don't see a reason to go Centreforce if someone is replacing for the first time -- the LUK kit comes with an SKF pilot bearing, and comes with an OEM Throwout bearing, as well as disc and basket, for about $250 CAD. Not a bad price for all that.

The lift definitely affected driveshaft wear for the front shaft. I noted the play in the repezza joint when I was tearing stuff apart to replace the transmission as well as the boot being torn.

At the time I did the lift, I added exhaust spacers to move the crossover back a couple inches to gain clearance for the boot. It looks like my wear isn't from the boot/driveshaft hitting anything but from being run at a more extreme angle for a long period of time. The rear looked good the last time I crawled under the back of the truck, but the front has slowly been getting worse. I have a joint for it waiting to go in, lazyness is the only thing preventing me from doing anything about it at the moment.

I suspect a new front driveshaft with a higher angle CV joint will be needed at some point within a year or two.