Lincoln "L" Technical Questions

Hi,

My first time to the forum and hoping that someone can steer me to a GOOD repair place to replace my 1930 Lincoln Limo clutch. I live in Santa Cruz and would be willing to have it taken within 100 miles to get the work done. Please, if you have experience with a knowledgeable shop who can accomplish this work, please advise. My lovely car has been inoperable for almost a year and she doesn't deserve this treatment.

Thank you,

Randy Chapin

831-246-0945

horology@cruzio.com

I have taken my clutch plates to Fleet Pride on Old Bayshore in San Jose to have new material replaced. I have also used them to replace the brake lining on the shoes for two of my "L" cars. If you replace the brake shoes material, use the softer gray material which grabs better and is easier on the drums. It does wear faster but for the amount of usage that we put on the cars it will last a life time. I used the traditional woven material for the clutch material.

How well is clutch functioning after the re-lining ? Does it still release reliably?

This "sticky" clutch seems to be a chronic issue with model L cars.

Note that for the 1931 and subsequent model K cars, a modern single plate clutch was used.

On one of the cars I replaced the clutch material I can let out the clutch in neutral at a stop and no grinding when placed back into gear. I could not do this before, I had to keep the car in gear and keep the clutch in. The other rebuild has not been tested since the engine is not back in the car. The gear oil used in the tranny back in the day was very heavy the equivalent of 600 weight oil. This helps drag the gears down for shifting from neutral to first. The speed of shifting depends on how warm the gear oil is. When my car is cold shifting needs to be very quick or you will grind the gears. As the oil heats up shifting needs to be done slower (more time in neutral position) to allow the gears to wind down a bit before selecting the next gear.

There is one bit of advice in the Lincoln owner's manual on shifting: When shifting from low to seacnd or second to high, Press down the clutch pedal, but delay taking out of the lower gear for a second or tw0, then hesitate in neutral momentarily before engaging the higher gear. The object is to synchronize thw clutch speed with the new engine speed. There is a knack to this, with any old car, but if driver tunes an ear to engine sound, and eye to caer speed, silent shifting can be achieved. A newly rebuilt clutych will release pretty easily, but as it is used over years, tiny bits of material worn off the disc lining find their way into the splines in the outer clutch member, and cause sticking, or drag, clutch not releasing completely. Hence the need to hold the clutch peday down at a traffic signal stop as described. I now have replaced 600W oil with 1000W, a semi-fluid grease, which slows the transmission gear spinning better than thinner oil.