Friends, I read this thread. How a clutch plate of friction material fuses to a flywheel with rust is a mystery to me. I am an idiot and more than that I have a certification in it. Henry took this in mind when he designed the 3600. It is stupid simple and anvil tough.
The Ford 3600 clutch and the 50HP MF of the same era have a superb English live clutch and there are two clutch disks in there. One for the PTO and the other for the drive line.
In the bell, only a few parts can wear out, as if by design they are surrounded by other parts so substantial, it is unlikely that those are broken, narrowing down service complexity. So much so that in my 1979 machine it is almost impossible to even see wear on the beefy parts, due to the quality of material in the gears used by Ford at that time. The other parts not so beefy are few and in fact, wear items.
Allow me to describe these parts by the symptoms when they fail.
1. Throwout bearing - There is a throwout bearing and if it is warn there could be a noticeable vibration felt in the clutch pedal when you push it in because you will be compressing this hockey puck diameter bearing and the rollers within it, if bad, will be grumbling.
2. Clutch pedal light - No resistance means linkage is broken or the wishbone that pushes a shaft that pushes on the clutch fingers is broken and this means the clutch will not disengage.
3. Clutch fingers worn. The fingers at 120 degrees work together to overcome clutch spring tension clamping down on the clutch plates. One finger may become misadjusted or fall off before the others fail. If you feel a slight pulsing of power in the driveline or implement it is due to the clutch not grabbing the clutch plate with equal force all the way around.
4. Seals leaks. There are two seals and two bearings on a splined shaft between the clutch housing and the transmission. It is vital that these seals do not leak oil into the bell housing via the rear splined shaft. If oil gets by the seal it will end up in the clutch housing and on the clutch plated and the plates will slip or the friction material will get soaked and prematurely disintegrate. Metal on metal grinding or slippy clutch then metal on metal grinding over the course of the season. If gouged by clutch plate rivets, your clutch plate will need replacement not resurfacing, and your English plate gets replaced by a Chinese or Indian one of inferior metallurgy.
If you have these problems, not spitting the tractor to identify the problem will only increase the cost of repair. I had a coolant leak and had to split. What I found were some minor problems that some seals, a few bearings, a little hardware and some new clutch plates were able to solve for a few hundred bucks, and I mean few. Yes the split was a hassle, but these issues demand a split anyway, so why not do it before having to throw in more parts? Afterwards my clutch worked great and I had the confidence to work my tractor like Henry intended.
