Clutch Or 3 Speed

oliverkid

Member
My 4-150 has always acted a little funny when under load. It is most noticeable in the field when shifting from direct to over. It will act like it is slipping and sometimes you have to downshift to direct then back up to over to get it to grab. Other times it will hesitate and you can feel it slowly grab over a 2-3 second time span. This would lead me to believe it is the overdrive clutch pack slipping. However when taking off from a stand still on the road it will hesitate in all three speeds. I have seen three speeds fail in one or two ranges but one slipping in all three ranges seems unlikely which leads me to believe it is the engine clutch. I had time today and threw a pressure gauge on the three speed clutch circuits and it was down to about 140 PSI so I shimmed it back up to 160 PSI on the mark warm. To wet out to take it to the field and see if that made any difference though. My question, what is the best way to determine if its the three speed or the clutch slipping? Was planning on tearing it down to investigate this summer but it would be nice to be able to get it trouble shot while I still have some field work to get done with it.
 
Sounds like clutch slipping/weak. The low side of the over/under either works or doesn't because of the sprag. So if over or direct slip, under will eventually grab and have no slippage. If you do tear it apart, I would put a double disc clutch from a 2-180 in it. It will bolt right in, just need to change the release bearing holder. You may be getting gear oil on the clutch from the front rear, or in our case we had fuel from the engine running back the V down into the bell housing causing ours to slip at times. Burned it off and then it was OK.
 
I would say it is the clutch slipping. Espically if you say it hesitates in all 3 ranges when taking off and also if you have to downshift to get it to fully engage under load. That sounds like the clutch is bad, pressure plate is probably heat cracked and clutch material is Burt and worn. That's just my opinion, I am going by my automotive/truck experience on this.
 
I didn't think about the clutch getting wet. I don't think the rear main is bad cause the bell housing is never really wet and she isn't much of an oil user, but I do usually have a small puddle of fuel in the vee where the bell housing mates to the block. I haven't been able to locate the source of the leak yet though. Maybe that is leaking in there. Thanks for the tip on the 180 clutch as well.
 
After reading the comments about the fuel leak, it jogged my memory a little. On those cats the throttle shaft seals on the pump would leak fuel into the valley. I worked on a few that were in stand by generator units, I remember they would leak. Sometimes they would leak intermittently I think maybe the seal would leak then swell up to stop leak then go back to leaking again, could have had something to do with heat from the engine maybe. Or sometimes the fuel shut off solenoid would leak, I am not sure if yours has one on it or not. Also check the fuel lines where they thread onto the pump, the nuts seals or even the line could be cracked. Its been along time since I worked on one. All the parts should be available thru CAT. That does make sense about clutch slipping if the fuel is getting onto the pressure plate.
 
That narrows it down to the main clutch. Continuing to use it at a full load on the engine will burn the clutch up fast. Can you drop down a few gears to limp by to the end of the season? If not I would stop using it until it can be repaired.
 
I only have 40 acres left to run the finisher over so I'm not to worried. It's getting fixed this summer no matter what.
 

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