• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

clutch

CherokeeXJ8a

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Indio
need to replace my clutch i have 1998 xj what are some of the best ones to get this is my first jeep i just a 5.5 inch long arm rubicon lift express can't wait to put it on also got some red letter generals on pro comp wheels we are excited to get this jeep running we welcome any advice please on the clutch lift and any thing else thanks NAXJA!:repair::geek::dunno:
 
Luk clutch seems to be the consensus. Make sure to either have your flywheel machined or replaced.
 
Went to Carquest, ordered clutch. Never had a problem after that. Have used many brands on mine and customer vehicles, and besides some very extreme, not meant for street vehicles, never bought anything special.
 
My Phoenix friction stage 2 has mad chatter, not sure what's causing it tho. Feels great tho.

As you know, I don't have many miles on mine, but I don't have any chatter issues. It does seem a bit "soft", but it engages fine.

There were some fairly specific break-in instructions. Do you recall if those were followed (mainly, be gentle on it for the first 1000 miles.)

David Bricker / SYR
 
Just did the one on my '96 XJ awhile back. Went with some O'reilly's organic clutch because 1. I really needed it and didn't want to wait around for parts in the mail 2. It had a lifetime warranty and 3. My buddy who I go to school with also works at O'reillys and hooks me up with the military discount (even though I'm technically a vet.) No problems so far, knock on wood.

A few side notes from when I did mine-
Agree with machining your flywheel. Mine cost me like, $40, $45 and an hour or so of waiting. Make sure to mark it with a bit of paint before you yank it (paint marker works.) Would not recommend unbolting the flywheel bolts with an impact gun as my understanding is it can f*** up crank bearings (they're kinda important when your odo says 300K+ and you're trying to make your engine last, like me.) The bread and/or grease trick for popping out the pinion bearing is BS. I just made a greasy, gluten-y mess when I tried it. Just rent the tool if you haven't got it, they'll refund your money when you return it. I was able to keep my NP231 attached to the transmission, no need to pull it. Mitchell says to replace your flywheel bolts with new ones, but that's also BS IMO. Seems like the only place that has them is the stealership which means they will charge you like $5 or $6 apiece for them and is pretty much guaranteed NOT to have a complete set of 6 on hand. Carefully inspect your old ones, as long as they're not stretched and the threads are okay, they should be good-to-go with a bit of Loctite. Now would be a good time to inspect your clutch pedal, particularly the Z-bar. That's what happened with mine, Z bar got all bent out of shape, couldn't get the clutch to disengage. It's only got half of a circular weld attaching it to the pivot pin and nothing on the back-side of that. If you can, make/complete those welds, and welding a bit of reinforcement in between the Z-bar and main clutch pedal arm isn't a bad idea either. Don't worry too much if the clutch is shuddering a bit after you replace it. My understanding is that's just the flywheel and friction surface of the clutch sort of "mating" to each other and will go away after a bit, typically a few weeks to a few months.
 
Back
Top