Clutch woes

[pete eastwood]

Recently my sister's 1913 touring suffered from "failure to procced" in high gear.
Once I figured out it required more than a simple adjustment, I dug into it to correct the problem.
I pulled this junk out, that someone had installed in place of a perfectly good Ford clutch pack.
The internal driven plates were original Ford.
The external driven plates were made of woven material. The drive dogs were notched into the woven material!
5 of the 6 woven plates had the drive dogs completely worn away & one had a crack!
Makes me wonder about the replacement spring as well.
Genuine Ford parts will be used to put the car back in service.

[speedytinc]

Looks like a Watts clutch set including spring. Only the 1 large disk was doing all the lockup!
Were the other large disks modified or worn that way? Wow.
That spring is a known failure point in the Watts modification. Definitely chuck the spring also.
"Improvement" fail. I have heard of many Watts failures, but never saw the friction material so jacked.

[Kerry]

First time I've seen a watts clutch fail, is your sister when driving backing the throttle off between low to high change?

[Craig Leach]

Part of the attraction of the Watts clutch was it could be used on a worn drum & within reason I think it works well I like the one I'm running
very much. I'm thinking that one needed a drum replacement @ the time of installation. I would very much like to see the lugs on the drum.
Things like that are why a trans screen is a good idea. Pieces that show up in the screen will most likely warn you that somethings going on.
I found a piece of ford clutch disc in my screen magnet that lead to the discovery of many broken clutch discs. I also change my oil just after
running the engine. Into a clean drain pan & inspect the oil that came out for anything that should not be loose in the engine by straining it
through a paint strainer then looking @ the drain pan for for flakes of brass, Babbitt, gear teeth chips, band material.
Craig.