48RE 8 clutch direct?

M

megastang

New member
Working on my 48RE rebuild as I have time. I have a raybestos kit to add an extra forward clutch that may also be useful to add more clutches to the direct drum.

The direct drum had 7 clutches with a blue billet aluminum piston and flat snap ring. It appears that there was almost no clearance in the drum. I directly measured clearance in the mid .020s then I measured the space between the piston and the bottom of the snap ring. Here's the stackup and total space in the drum as measured.

Total height in drum 1.219
Backing plate .169
Snap ring .062

Steels Clutches
2x .071 2x .081
2x .069 1x .080
2x .085 1x .079
1x .067 2x .062
1x .055
Total calculated clearance 0.033
Obviously that is not near enough clearance especially considering the backing plate is warped and the thinnest of the clutches has significant wear.

It appears that I could use the frictions steels and backing plate from the raybestos forward clutch kit to get 8 clutches into the direct drum with .013 clearance per clutch.

Backing plate .181
Steels .060
Clutches .056

I did notice that the steels in the forward clutch are missing a couple of teeth while the direct steels have all their teeth. The terminology for these two clutch packs is kind of confusing but some places seem to refer to them as if they are interchangeable.

Is this a bad idea?
 
megastang said:
Working on my 48RE rebuild as I have time. I have a raybestos kit to add an extra forward clutch that may also be useful to add more clutches to the direct drum.

The direct drum had 7 clutches with a blue billet aluminum piston and flat snap ring. It appears that there was almost no clearance in the drum. I directly measured clearance in the mid .020s then I measured the space between the piston and the bottom of the snap ring. Here's the stackup and total space in the drum as measured.

Total height in drum 1.219
Backing plate .169
Snap ring .062

Steels Clutches
2x .071 2x .081
2x .069 1x .080
2x .085 1x .079
1x .067 2x .062
1x .055
Total calculated clearance 0.033
Obviously that is not near enough clearance especially considering the backing plate is warped and the thinnest of the clutches has significant wear.

It appears that I could use the frictions steels and backing plate from the raybestos forward clutch kit to get 8 clutches into the direct drum with .013 clearance per clutch.

Backing plate .181
Steels .060
Clutches .056

I did notice that the steels in the forward clutch are missing a couple of teeth while the direct steels have all their teeth. The terminology for these two clutch packs is kind of confusing but some places seem to refer to them as if they are interchangeable.

Is this a bad idea?
Click to expand...
My thread might have pictures of the clearance I ended up with. If not, I can find them.
I was told by the mostest famousest to get it as tight as possible but that seems sketchy to me as thinks like to expand.


Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk
 
biggy238 said:
My thread might have pictures of the clearance I ended up with. If not, I can find them.
I was told by the mostest famousest to get it as tight as possible but that seems sketchy to me as thinks like to expand.


Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

As tight as possible sounds dangerously vague. If I am seeing the correct thread about your 47RE, I don't see pictures of your final clearance but it sounds like you had stock clutch count (5?) in the direct drum and you were told .070 to .080 clearance. That works out to .014 to .016 per clutch. Maybe it's not worth bothering with 8 clutches but I can't help but wonder if it could work. I'll probably price clutches and steels and see which way I want to go.

On a side note. I also have a Cummins swapped Ford:rockwoot:
 
megastang said:
As tight as possible sounds dangerously vague. If I am seeing the correct thread about your 47RE, I don't see pictures of your final clearance but it sounds like you had stock clutch count (5?) in the direct drum and you were told .070 to .080 clearance. That works out to .014 to .016 per clutch. Maybe it's not worth bothering with 8 clutches but I can't help but wonder if it could work. I'll probably price clutches and steels and see which way I want to go.

On a side note. I also have a Cummins swapped Ford:rockwoot:
Click to expand...

Guys have experimented a lot with these, and more isn't always better in this scenario. The thinner steels do not hold up to the heat, I'm sure you'll find that if you do some digging on here. I can't remember if I ended up with 5 or 6, but I know I ran black alto steels with GPZ clutches. I ended up at 065 for clearance in that pack and have always had a slight bindup on the 2-3, and I'm guessing that's because I set the direct up to tight. It's been holding up great for 7 years now though
 
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