Take pity on my stupidity and loan me your transmission jack...

I always had great luck with south bend also behind my old powerstroke.

I just replaced the SB in our 03 Dodge with a LuK. It was 3 years old and had 30k miles on it.
 
LuK. Order it from Rockauto.

This is exactly what I did. Transman on this board owns a transmission shop and recommended I stick with a Luk. My truck is stock and will remain that way as long as I own it.
 
I got 154k out of the stock clutch, and it was still fine when it got replaced. It was made by Luk.
 
I got about 225k out of my stock Luk clutch, but the truck lived on the highway with no trailer and minimal weight of tools in the bed for the first 150k miles. The pilot bearing fell apart, the clutch disc fell apart, and the transmission became VERY hard to shift one day, so I parked it until I replaced the clutch.
 
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To throw a few logs on the discussion fire: One of the shops that I talked with today specifically advised against using LUK because of quality issues he has seen recently (time span of recently was unclear). For my described usage of highway use with a 7k trailer, he recommended Southbend, but said Sachs would be his OEM style replacement of choice.

Edit: OEM...
 
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Did you call mighty transmission? Not sure on his clutch replacement rates but his auto rebuild rates are good.
 
To throw a few logs on the discussion fire: One of the shops that I talked with today specifically advised against using LUK because of quality issues he has seen recently (time span of recently was unclear). For my described usage of highway use with a 7k trailer, he recommended Southbend, but said Sachs would be his OEM style replacement of choice.

Edit: OEM...

I wouldn't recommend towing with a SB at all, unless you're going for dual disc... and I wouldn't recommend a dual disc to anybody. :lol:
 
I have no first hand experience with luk. But I've had good success with Southbend con fe single disc, while grossing 30k, with approx 500 hp. And their customer service was awesome. If I ever own another manual trans truck, I'll use southbend again.


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I had 45k miles on my stock clutch in my 03 6.0 psd before it started slipping in 4-5-6 gears on the race tune. I put in a south bend. I called, told them what I did with the truck, lift, tires, tuner, towing, etc. I ordered their recommendation. It lasted 140k. These were hard miles, I blew up the 10.5 rear axle once in that time period. Heading to Harlan towing my trail rig it started having troubles going into gear if put in neutral if stopped. Coming home it was worse. If I stopped I had to crank it in gear, and float the gears to shift. I drove it another week waiting on parts like that to work. When I took it out the disc had come apart on the pressure plate side. It never slipped a bit towing over the hills to Harlan. I'm reasonably sure the monthly test and tune clutch drops at the strip were mostly to blame for this failure, I won't blame South bend, it still went 140k. I had another almost 100k on the replacement with no issues, especially after taking the race tune out and leaving the drag racing to the race cars, and just towing and DD ing it.

All that said, if the truck is stock and you were happy with the stock clutch and it's life, that's what I'd go back with. If you need a little more holding power I'll still stand by south bend.

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But I've had good success with Southbend con fe single disc, while grossing 30k, with approx 500 hp.

I could smoke mine grossing 18k in traffic. And forget about trying to back a trailer without 4 low.

<shrug>
 
Thanks to @YotaOnRocks for use of the trans jack, and thanks to everyone else that offered. The old parts are out friction disc is worn to the rivets and the flywheel has a few good heat cracks so.... Yeah, it was done for.
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I finished the clutch install on Thursday, but got lazy on fluid fill and full button up, so I'm just getting the break in done - killing time while it cools right now.

Would I do it again for $550? Probably not.

The clutch that I pulled out was a LUK, but based on finding needle bearing rollers in between the flywheel and the crankshaft when there were none missing from the bearing leads me to think it's at minimum been apart before and likely replaced at that time.

I did decide to go back with the LUK clutch and flywheel set. The pedal feel of this one is noticably lighter; not sure what that means.
 
I finished the clutch install on Thursday, but got lazy on fluid fill and full button up, so I'm just getting the break in done - killing time while it cools right now.

Would I do it again for $550? Probably not.

The clutch that I pulled out was a LUK, but based on finding needle bearing rollers in between the flywheel and the crankshaft when there were none missing from the bearing leads me to think it's at minimum been apart before and likely replaced at that time.

I did decide to go back with the LUK clutch and flywheel set. The pedal feel of this one is noticably lighter; not sure what that means.
Usually a new clutch will have a lighter feel for for a few weeks then gradually get more stiff in my experience.

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