Ignition Tune-up Fixes Clutch Chatter
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Ignition Tune-up Fixes Clutch Chatter
So I am slowly going through the '99 Ram I bought a couple of months ago, and the choice this weekend was tune-up or clutch. The clutch probably should have been a higher priority since is had been chattering, or at least that was my hypothesis.
Since work was hell last week, I opted for the tune-up. I wasn't really in the mood to drop the tranny (hopefully not on my face) and find I needed to do the rear main seal to fix an oil leak that was causing the chatter, or some other major issue causing the chatter. Ignore it, and it will go away
Did the tune-up and took it for a drive and THE CHATTER WAS GONE!!! I was dumbstruck. If Jesus had shown up and miracled my wife into a supermodel I wouldn't have been any more surprised.
OK, so if you clicked on this thread, you were probably thinking this guy is a freakin' idiot and the resultant flame-fest should be entertaining so let's have a read. Obviously the tune-up didn't fix actual clutch chatter.
My theory is the engine was so far out of tune that it was shaking when the clutch was let out / under load, making it seem like chatter. Some of that vibration was probably transmitted through the driveline, and may have even resulted in a little actual chatter.
The plugs were gapped improperly, probably by someone who either didn't know you had to gap certain types even from new, or by one of those clowns that think they know better than the factory engineers and spark plug companies, and that there is an interweb-wide conspiracy by the engineers to keep us shade tree mechanics from doing repairs as well as the Illuminati who "Know The Truth".
I didn't put a gauge on them, but visually they were probably at about .080 - .100". And the electrodes were horribly eroded, so let's call the average gap around .100". Yes, the gap was almost an eighth! The tip of the rotor was pretty badly eroded too, and there were grooves in the cap electrodes too from the spark erosion.
It didn't run well (hence the tune-up kit from Summit), but now I am pretty surprised it ran at all.
I bought this truck for driving to the hardware store and it didn't matter that it wasn't running perfectly when I got it, as it ran well enough to do that. But now it is running like a top! And the "clutch chatter" is gone
I was tending to agree with a poster in another thread that said the V6 was not enough engine for these trucks, but after a simple tune-up, it has decent power. Probably not enough to to much of a load, but plenty for most tasks.
Since work was hell last week, I opted for the tune-up. I wasn't really in the mood to drop the tranny (hopefully not on my face) and find I needed to do the rear main seal to fix an oil leak that was causing the chatter, or some other major issue causing the chatter. Ignore it, and it will go away
Did the tune-up and took it for a drive and THE CHATTER WAS GONE!!! I was dumbstruck. If Jesus had shown up and miracled my wife into a supermodel I wouldn't have been any more surprised.
OK, so if you clicked on this thread, you were probably thinking this guy is a freakin' idiot and the resultant flame-fest should be entertaining so let's have a read. Obviously the tune-up didn't fix actual clutch chatter.
My theory is the engine was so far out of tune that it was shaking when the clutch was let out / under load, making it seem like chatter. Some of that vibration was probably transmitted through the driveline, and may have even resulted in a little actual chatter.
The plugs were gapped improperly, probably by someone who either didn't know you had to gap certain types even from new, or by one of those clowns that think they know better than the factory engineers and spark plug companies, and that there is an interweb-wide conspiracy by the engineers to keep us shade tree mechanics from doing repairs as well as the Illuminati who "Know The Truth".
I didn't put a gauge on them, but visually they were probably at about .080 - .100". And the electrodes were horribly eroded, so let's call the average gap around .100". Yes, the gap was almost an eighth! The tip of the rotor was pretty badly eroded too, and there were grooves in the cap electrodes too from the spark erosion.
It didn't run well (hence the tune-up kit from Summit), but now I am pretty surprised it ran at all.
I bought this truck for driving to the hardware store and it didn't matter that it wasn't running perfectly when I got it, as it ran well enough to do that. But now it is running like a top! And the "clutch chatter" is gone
I was tending to agree with a poster in another thread that said the V6 was not enough engine for these trucks, but after a simple tune-up, it has decent power. Probably not enough to to much of a load, but plenty for most tasks.