External Slave Cylinder Conversion Issues

[rocklobsta]

Hi Everyone,

I really appreciate all of the posts I have read in the past and wanted to ask for some advice.

I recently lost my internal slave. I replaced the part and like many of you, the new slave cylinder failed within a couple of weeks.

I sourced all the parts for the external slave swap, including a factory bell housing from a junkyard P/N 52107552. I bought parts from Summit and RockAuto to complete the build.

When I went to install the slave cylinder, it had to compress slightly even with the new straps on. I drove the Jeep it smelled like burning clutch. Unfortunately I drove it a bit much like this and wonder if I burned up my clutch.

I ended up measuring a the slave again while mocking up the limit straps from the factory and I ended up needing to shim it back nearly 5/8" (see pic) to match how it should have been installed. I have two questions:

1. Has anyone done the swap where they have needed to shim back the slave cylinder? Any ideas what could be different?
2. Even with the slave cylinder shimmed back, I still get a burning smell from time to time. I assume I burned up my clutch and plan to replace it. Any other thoughts? Will it work this time or is there still another issue?

Thanks!

 

[machoheadgames]

I am not sure about the burning smell but it is 100% normal for you to have to push the slave cylinder up against the release fork. There is a spring in the slave cylinder that keeps the release fork pushed toward and the throw out bearing constantly riding against the pressure plate so that it’s always ready to shift and so that no clutch adjustments are needed as the clutch wears and the pressure plate fingers extend outward accordingly.

They did get this relationship a bit incorrect from factory and so Mopar external slaves were updated to use a roughly 1/4” spacer that spaced the slave out from the bellhousing. I believe it was a clutch wear issue from the clutch partially being released in this situation. However, almost all slave cylinders I’ve seen in the aftermarket have had the spacer built into them so I don’t really believe that to be a problem anymore. The only slave I’ve seen that did not have this spacer built in was the Power Torque all metal version from oreilly. I bought the spacer and installed it onto the Oreilly slave when I used to use those. I have been away from those for a while though, using Luk and Mopar, which have the spacer already built in.

I never smelled any clutch burning regardless though, even when I briefly ran the oreilly slave with no spacer.