JD350 Stearing clutch

[rrothe1245]

Hello, and thank you for allowing me to join this forum. I've found a lot of good information here. I recently purchased a 1970 JD350B. It’s in pretty good shape and has about 2000 hours on it. The right clutch slips when under a heavy load. It steers fine, only slips when you try to push on something. I’ve adjusted the clutch and brake following the manual’s instructions and it doesn’t fix the problem. As an experiment, with no load on the steering pressure plate, I hit the foot brake, and the track stops. It doesn’t make noise or chatter, just slips. I assume that it’s something so simple as worn plates, pressure plate, or a leaky seal allowing oil into the clutch housing. I’m planning to pull the final out and take a look at the clutch, but I’m holding off until I can play around with her a little more to find out what else needs attention. My question is, is there an easier way to diagnose/fix the problem? I’d rather not pull her apart and later find out all I had to do was play with her a little or spray some degreaser into the clutch assy. If the real fix is just to suck it up and pull the final, are there any recommended parts I should replace when I’m there? For example, I was leaning toward replacing with bimetallic plates rather than the fiber plates, and wondering what other ‘upgrades’ are available?
Thanks again.
Roy

[dirtguy34]

Take a look at your steering cylinders under the seat and see if one or both are leaking because the oil will get down between the casings and in that steering clutch housing. Pull 1/4" pipe plug out of bottom and see if oil got in that casing. Don"t pull the wrong plug (for the final drive!) I leave the plugs out of mine but i don`t run in water. Pop top cover off dump the brake kleen with compressed air to it, then run leave cover loose or off to check on. The slipping may quit if its run enough. If your steel discs are ,I believe it`s .090 min. check the book ( shop manual ) there all right, your fibre discs are probably under tolerence

[Lavoy]

Look in the clutch housing with a good flashlight, if there is oil present, the clutches are soaked. There is no way to successfully degrease clutches, it just will not come out completely. Oil could be steering cylinders as already described, pinion shaft seal, or carrier seal. Either way, only fix is to remove the final, replace the clutches, and fix the oil leak.
Lavoy