After reading all the posts on this forum regarding clutch issues when submerged in the mud, I took it upon myself to discuss this with my father.

Back in the 70s, he and his buddies would spend a lot of time in their CJs out in the mud.

Anyhoo, I asked him about mud issues related to the clutch, and he said he had never heard of such a thing. He and his buddies all used their old 3 speeds and never worried about using the clutch in deep mud, and none of them every prematurely lost a clutch because of it. He als said that he never saw mud in the bellhousing when he changed the plates.

So, on to my question.

Is it just a poor design with the bellhousing in the JK that is allowing this to happen, or was the CJ just built like a rock?

 

I have been wondering the same thing. I have several 4x4's with manual transmissions and never had a problem with my clutches

 

I have seen lots of manual transmissions with a tin cover plate on the bottom portion of the bell housing. Most of them were such that you could look in and see the flywheel. For you manual JK folks, look under your Jeep and see what the situation is regarding opportunities for water/mud infiltration into the bell housing.

 

I think your Dad and his friends were lucky, water/mud and clutch disc's don't mix, unless you have a puck type clutch disc(matalic), it will take the abuse. Organic clutch material will slip in water. Just my experience.

 

If submerged it will still stay locked, but if used (say to change gears) while submerged then it'll start slipping since slimy mud is in their instead of the solid metal flywheel directly on the clutch asbestos like normal.
Will need to be pulled out after as it'll be useless all wet and never grab. The fix is simple, once out of the hole just let it burn awile to get the flywheel nice and hot but not enough to actuly burn it ,,ie: turn the flywheel blue, once the smoke is visible that is hot enough. Then let it sit for about 15-30 min for the heat to dry it out.
Once it drys out it work after but still slip a bit, once all the mud works it's way out then it'll be as good as new.

I'v done this with my old Audi 90 coupe pretty often as it had nowere near the ground clearence that our jeeps have, so yah it got submerged a lot.

 

Do any of you have experience with the older jeeps? My dad was never concerned with using the clutch while submerged. Some on this forum have talked about a small gap at the bottom of the bellhousing on the JK which lets in the water. Did the older Jeeps not have this gap?

 

Do not know about the old jeeps, but I'v had alot of different vehicles (many GM's, Dodge pickups, Ford pickup, Vw's, Audi's and BMW's) and none of them had a sealed bellhousing, most had tin plates to stop big stuff from entering but none were sealed.