Fluids on Early Series 9 Clutch

Hi,

I'm helping a local museum to maintainence on their 1916 Series 9A Roadster. They've changed all fluids except for the clutch. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have known there is fluid in the clutch if I hadn't told them.

Their clutch is currently working very well. Would you recommend changing the fluid?

If they do change the fluid, what should they replace it with? How much?

I remember changing the fluid on our series 8 clutch, and I recall that it is fairly difficult to pour accurately into the clutch without a fairly contorted funnel. Also I remember that the parts book said to use "2 guns" of oil with no explanation of how much that is in terms of standard units. I believe that Tom Rasmussen later told us that he recommends 8oz of straight 30W.

Thanks for any input.

Robb

Check the tool kit to see if the oil gun is still with the car. I don't remember which side door it is in. If not, the oil gun has a 5" nozzle. Its barrel is about 4.5" long and 1" in OD (.875" ID?). Probably 3.5" of pump movement: v=3.14x

.766x3.5=about 8.4 cu. in.=about 4.66 fl. oz. Two guns would be about 9 oz. Close to Tom's number.

The Factory Maunal for Trouble Shooters for Ser 9 and 10 cars specifies no more than one half pint for the series 9 multiple disc clutch. Too much oil can cause slipping and/or dragging.

Straight 30W is a good start. If the clutch has a tendency to slip, cut with kerosene, up to 50%. A clutch that is grabby either needs less kerosene, or a fluid flush and change. I find 500 miles to be a pretty good interval between changes on my 1913M. My other cars go longer between changes, it seems.

Each franklin with a wet clutch seems to have its own favorite ratio of elixir. Some swear by automatic transmission fluid.

tom

Hi,

I'm helping a local museum to maintainence on their 1916 Series 9A Roadster. ...

. . . .Also I remember that the parts book said to use "2 guns" of oil with no explanation of how much that is in terms of standard units. I believe that Tom Rasmussen later told us that he recommends 8oz of straight 30W.

Thanks for any input.

I remember reading somewhere, perhaps an original Franklin Service Bulletin, that "one gun" was 4 ounces. That's close to what Rich calculated. So "two guns" would be about 8 ounces as we thought.

My first attempt in the Series 5 was a 60:40 mixture of 30W oil and kerosene. That caused slipping pretty seriously. The next attempt was 50:50 30W and kerosene. My car likes that really well. Every car will be different, most likely.

I've been using 8-10 ounces.

To get it in, you can use a convoluted funnel through the top --- with the filler plug at the top of the clutch housing --- or you can squirt the oil in through the side.

What I do (and did on the Series 5 Roadster when I owned it) is to first pour in 8 ounces from the top, as above. Then crawl under and with the filler plug out, rotate the flywheel and note the position of the flywheel when the oil just starts to come out of the plug hole. Then back up just a tad. It's close to the 4 o'clock/8 o'clock position. I then put a paint dab on the flywheel so I can find the orientation in the future.

When it's time to add oil again, use some sort of squirt bottle (like plastic quart oil bottle with a gear oil nozzle) and squirt the oil mix in until it runs out. Yeah, maybe it's messy and not much easier than from above, but I thought it was clever. :-)

--Scott Dwyer