OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions on Greenfield Ride On Mower Frames Greenfield Tractor 11 - Clutch Pad Change

Last week I had a few spare hours so I decided to finally replace the cork liners on the clutch plates for my Tractor 11.

The hardest part was removing the old lining. I'm sure smarter folk out there have better methods but without getting too heavy handed I came up with this idea.

I used one of my old fish filleting knives and cut around the lining in such a fashion.


Once I removed most of the cork bulk I put a few mm of fuel in on old baking tray and plonked the plate in to soak for a few minutes. The fuel did a great job at softening the contact cement. The rest of the removal was a slow process involving removing a bit and then resoaking etc etc,

After a while I came up with the finished product


The scratches on one of the plates is from a prior attempt by someone. I usually try and limit damage to anything I play with. I take a steady steady approach.


I used a fast dry contact cement which I applied with a cheapie narrow paint brush. Coated both sides till touch dry then applied both surfaces together and slight pressure and I left them for a few days.



Hopefully I will have a nice responsive reverse pedal which is what I was lacking.

I might have to play with shims upon axle reassembly due to the thicker pad material. If that's the case I will add the detail here.

Thanks

Thanks Aldo, I'll be especially interested in what clearance you find you need on the clutch packs, to get that nice clutch feel.

With regard to the contact cement and the cork clutch linings, I use a method something like yours but as I recall, acetone works vastly better than petrol as a solvent. My experience has been that life's too short to spend removing cork a bit at a time, when acetone strips it off in moments. To attach linings I let the contact cement sit for just a couple of minutes, it is still quite squishy, then I clamp the parts together for 48 hours. You have to sort out some suitable packing, flat pieces of wood to squeeze it between, and lots of clamps, ahead of time. You need even pressure from equally spaced clamps. If any extra glue squeezes out, I clean it up with acetone while the glue is setting.

Very timely post, I still haven't reassembled my drive yet. have removed cork but now i know how to get the glue off.

I have managed to pick up some genuine shims and reassembled the clutch drive. I spoke to a guru who has done this quite a few times and his recommendations were; when pressure is applied to the clutch plates shifting the whole assembly against one drive plate, the opposing drive plate should spin almost freely with minimal contact against it's mating clutch. Do the same thing on the opposing drive plate. I have managed to pretty much get that spot on. All this has to be accomplished with the least amount of play for the sliding clutch assembly. Otherwise there will be too much pedal movement.

I had pretty good pedal travel on the old plates as I shimmed them up about a year ago. With new cork liners I had to fit 0.5mm of spacers to both sides. I chose to do this with two 0.25mm spacers per side for easier adjustment down the track as it wears.

Everything else looks to be good as I spent a bit of time replacing bits 18 months ago.

I need to slip the new motor in before I can test the unit out.

Thank you for the update, aldot. Can you check the clutch clearances please, with feeler gauges? I understand that is not the way you set it up, and what you ended up doing is very similar to a previous report by a member who just set the minimum clearance that allowed the clutches to rotate without drag. However I think it would be useful to members to have a fairly specific idea of what clearance that turns out to be, just in case the clutch plates have a slight friction sliding across the square shaft in the center of the clutch, which might make it difficult to set up just by clutch drag alone. It also will help people to buy shims, since they will know what sort of change to make each time they dismantle the clutch shaft to reduce clutch slack.

It sounds as if you expect to readjust the shim stack by 0.25 mm (0.010") each time you need to reduce clutch clearance. Is your clutch linkage adjustable so you could remove a shim on one side only, or do you have a fixed linkage and therefore have to remove shims on both sides at once? The reason I ask, is that if you can slide the center thrust bearing sideways a bit, you may be able to just remove a shim on one side, so you'd be adjusting each clutch by only 0.005", rather than 0.010".

Hi Grumpy. I'm not sure how I could try and measure it with a feeler gauge. There is a lip on the driven plate that virtually obscures the gap between the cork lining and the face. I will try and take some pictures as I have yet to drop the drive into the frame.

The linkage is adjustable for movement in either direction. I probably would try one at a time as even though it seems minimal at the drive it does make pedal difference more than expected.

The Tractor series isn't such a chore to remove the drive so I don't mind to fiddle. I haven't touched any other Greenfield series but chatting to those in the know has told me that the Anniversary series is labour intensive.

Thank you for that clarification, Aldo. I'm trying to find a way to simplify the setup of the clutch clearance, so members do not have to do it by trial and error. If we had a specific clearance to work to when setting up, the next step would be to measure the clearance when the clutch just stops working properly. Then people could check the clearance, and immediately know whether they had a clutch clearance problem or it was something else, like a belt or linkage problem. If the clutch had to be adjusted, they could compare the clearance they had with the minimum clearance, and decide on the required shim change before they even took the shaft out of the mower. Particularly with the more awkward models to work on, this might save some hassles.

Is the lip around the clutch far enough out from the clutch lining so you can flex the feeler gauge to slide it in?

The lip is fairly close to the cork lining edge. If you were not particular with the correct placement of the cork liner on the clutch plate you could easily have the cork rubbing against the driven plate lip.

I'll have some pics up on the weekend.

How well did the parfix fast grip go on glueing the cork liner

Hi Sporter, its still in use today with absolutely no issues. And the hours that it has done have not been easy. Mostly clearing work, heavy weeds, lantana in gullys, hills etc.