Replacing Viscous Coupler

dgoodhue

dgoodhue

BuSTeD 4.3
I am pretty sure I need to replace the viscous coupler. I probably should tackle this sooner than later before I break something or no longer have any more free time (baby on the way).

Where would buy one? Is their a difference in quality of the replacement parts?

I am guessing I would need a gasket set as well, anything else. I probably should look at my service manual and see what the replacement involves.
 
Try Me

Try Me

New member
Re: Replacing Viscous Coupler

I remembed finding a thread about this and a website with rebuild kits. I would think you would want to replace the bearings seals and chain while you are in there.

I have a spare tcase in the garage I want to rebuild and have ready to go back in.
 
dgoodhue

dgoodhue

BuSTeD 4.3
Re: Replacing Viscous Coupler

DaveP said:
Replacement of the Viscous Clutch is pretty straight forward. The main-shaft that the VC is on requires a press to get apart. There is probably a way to ad-lib it without a press, but it will be a PITA.

I've done two of these. In both cases the bearings and chain were fine. I disassembled everything, cleaned the parts, changed the VC, and put it back together. Took me about 5 hours to do my first one at my buddies trans shop. so we had a press and "dishwasher" to clean everything in. I used RTV for the case halves, and replaced the seals.

If your VC is "locked" (mine were both free-wheeling) the chain could easily be stretched. For a locked VC, I would probably order a new chain as well as the VC.

The wild-card is going to be the planets. They may be fine, or they may be noisy, burnt, or have bad bearings. You won't know until you get it apart. So my suggestion is to block out time to do this. Take it apart and compile your parts list after conducting an inspection.
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Thanks for the advice. My TC has 51K miles on it and I don't believe my Syclone was not overly abused before I bought it, so some of the parts might be alright. My VC is locking though. I can hear the front tire chirp and (sometime clicks from the axles/front diff) when I take a tight corner especially when I first go out for a drive. I honestly couldn't bring myself to do a figure 8 in the truck as I feel like I would do some damage.

It's been like this since after the motor swap, I wonder if the 3-4 years of down time had anything to do with what I consider an early demise of my TC.
 
dgoodhue

dgoodhue

BuSTeD 4.3
Re: Replacing Viscous Coupler

dgoodhue said:
It's been like this since after the motor swap
Click to expand...

Also I did my motor swap about 700 miles ago. Most those miles have been back and forth to work. My work is 90 miles round trip and I have take my truck to work 7 times.
 
cloneman315

cloneman315

Active member
Re: Replacing Viscous Coupler

Dave its a very easy job,I would change out the vc,clean and reuse all the other parts.
 
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