More updates and bullcrap I'm dealing with on the Silverado.
First, here's a picture of the expensive garbage next to the stock pressure washed one that works 10x better.
My new clutch showed up finally and I got that installed. The old one was the South Bend twin disk ceramic clutch rated at 1200 ft lbs of horsetorques. It was noisy (rattled like a mofo), not the easiest to "slip" especially in its worn out state and made it look like I didn't know how to drive a manual. It still had some life left, but it wasn't looking pretty when I removed it (installed in 2012).
The replacement clutch is South Bend's new "organic" twin disk that is derated all the way down to 1100 ft lbs of hoursetorques. I'm not making anywhere near that so I thought it would be a good fit. Apparently they've learned a lot about keeping these things quiet and have completely redesigned how they work.
Here's some comparison shots of the anti rattle mechanisms on both clutches. The old one had some little spring plates that bolted the center plate to the flywheel. One of these was broken, the other two were very sloppy and worn out resulting in an incredibly noisy clutch.
The new one has centering pins and some sort of bushing/pad to soak up the vibrations, it's a completely different design.
The result is pretty amazing. The clutch is completely silent, engages smoothly, easy to slip when needed and doesn't surge like the old clutch (I had nicknamed the truck "Marty" it shook so bad).
All of that went pretty well, in fact it only took me about 6 hours to swap the clutch by myself.
Unfortunately after a couple test drives however, I found a puddle under the truck... It looked like power steering fluid so I started some clearance removals. When I pulled my York compressor for onboard air, I realized the shaft seal was completely blown out and puking the gear oil I use in the crankcase. I decided that was the problem and went to work on that. Unfortunately the next day there was another puddle under the truck, the power steering really was leaking.
After looking for the leak (nothing was obvious) I hosed everything down with brake clean and realized that the PSC pump cover was cracked right at the weld for the -12 fitting feeding fluid from the reservoir. For anyone that has worked on a Duramax power steering pump, this is a huge pain in the ass to take out.
I had the spare parts necessary to fix everything so I got to work. I replaced the York compressor with one I had on hand (only one left...) and I also had a spare PSC can that I put on the pump. When I reassembled everything I realized that my feed hose coming from the reservoir was putting a little stress on the line when everything got bolted down, I notched one of the holes in the mounting bracket to fix this and hopefully I don't have any issues with that anymore.
While I was working on all of this and waiting for parts, I also installed a poly performance body mount kit. We had blown out one of the stock ones already, so I figured this was a good step, sorry no pictures.
I finally buttoned everything up today and started it up. Now the fan hits the bottom of the shroud, I've had this issue in the past, something about the Merchant Automotive mounts and the WFO crossmember (and possibly some frame flex) combined with the new, not blown out poly body mounts on the core support and I have an inch of clearance above the fan and about -1/8" at the bottom.
I spent some time staring and trying to figure shit out (as well as cussing and throwing tools), the MA engine mounts are sagging a bit. If you look at this picture of a new set, that point where the two halves of the mount are close have clearly contacted so they're sagging about 1/4" I'd guess.
I'm not positive how I'm going to fix this, but basically I'm going to modify something to raise the front of the engine up about 1/2" to center the fan. Hopefully I can get this done in the next couple days.
