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Bad Clutch - Grinding when pedal is fully pushed down.
2nd Gen Ram Tech1994-2001 Rams: This section is for TECHNICAL discussions only, that involve the 1994 through 2001 Rams. For any non-tech discussions, please direct your attention to the "General discussion/NON-tech" sub sections.
Bad Clutch - Grinding when pedal is fully pushed down.
Putting this here in case anyone in the future has the same issue.
Symptoms: Truck started to become hard to put into gear, couldnt push clutch all the day down or a screeching/grindind sound would happen. Most time truck could be drove by only pushing clutch halfway down. Sometimes that would not work and truck had to be started in gear and would move even with clutch pushed in. Once it started and truck moved it would drive the same again with only pushing clutch halfway. The throw bearing was what was suspected of being the problem as we thought it was binding up if you put too much pressure on it.
Problem: Transmission was dropped to access the clutch. We found that one of big springs had partially popped out and allowed the smaller spring to fall out. This smaller spring had wear and was the source of the noise and why you couldnt fully push the clutch all the way down. No other problems was found indicating why this happened.
Solution: Replaced the clutch and flywheel with new parts from LUK. Also installed new Mopar Clutch Fork and aftermarket all metal clutch fork pivot ball. During the research of parts and after install I was able to confirm the NV3500 Pivot Ball is the same as a NV4500 Pivot Ball. While in there I did the rear main seal from Felpro and installed a Melling High Volume Pump with pickup. Got truck put back together and is back to normal. New clutch is alot more smooth in taking off vs the old one. The condition of the bearings was surprising for a junkyard engine with approx. 130k miles at the time of install and only had a couple thousand put on it so far. I installed a new oil pan when engine was put in, I did not like the amount of sludge already present in the pan so I will probably change my oil at alot lower mileage for the next couple oil changes to hopefully get whatever sludge that might collect out of there.