'00 426 inner hub (clutch) failure

[holeshot]

The inner hub (not the basket) recently failed on my ’00 426. The splined steel inner sleeve that goes over the shaft began to spin within the aluminum hub. Although it was only torqued to about 10 foot pounds from the factory, it was not loose new, and it was torqued to specs per manual when I removed it several months ago. The nut was tight when the basket failed.

When I first looked at the hub over a year ago, I was able to rotate it and wiggle it a bit on the sleeve, even though the nut was torqued tightly. On subsequent inspections, it seemed that the hub was getting looser at the sleeve, and two weeks ago, it seemed that I could rotate it about an eighth of a turn. Shifting had been kind of hard since new and just before it failed, the clutch wouldn’t disengage completely, because the pressure plate came off at an angle. When it failed, I had neutral (no drive) in all five gears. Why didn’t I replace it sooner? Because I initially thought the free play was part of the design – doh! :confused: A big alarm should have gone off inside my head when there was an eight of a turn of play, but I only heard a small beep.

Fortunately, Hinson was within driving distance, so I picked up a new inner hub and noticed that it’s solid aluminum, without the steel sleeve.

Now for the good news – I replaced the last friction plate with the ’01 parts (before the hub failed completely) and found that these parts cure the chattery clutch problem and with the new hub, I can actually shift without breaking my toe.

 

[DualSportr]

This is the second hub failure I've heard about - the other was caught when it was at that 1/8th turn stage.

I've had d'oh moments like that too - and it's really just impossible to know all this stuff until you've seen it once yourself!

Happens all the time at work, customer says, "I'm sending you a crank, it's in perfect condition, I checked it out myself". I get the crank in, the small end of the rod is toast, the pin and needles are shot (clunky clunky sounds are NOT good!), and the timing sprocket looks like baby shark fins.

One persons "good" crank is a machinists piece of junk. There's no way to "book learn" this stuff - you've just got to get it by experience or by someone showing it to ya!

Too bad no one makes a video about what is a "good" part, and what is a "bad" part. I know I'd buy one!

 

[J.B.426]

Thanks for the info. I'll keep an eye on mine.

 

[holeshot]

Wobble

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I should mention that it was the wobble back and forth (of the inner hub) and not the rotational free play that caused the poor clutch action and hard shifting/missed shifts.

Good thing it let go when I was exiting a corner instead of a jump face.:eek: