47re Clutch Pack Upgrades

If you have a 47re you will fit 6 clutches in the direct drum.
If a 48re 7 clutches. The kit i speak of also includes a ridgid band.
 
Patc has nice stuff but a 47re drum with the powerpack and good line pressure should be fine under 600hp and 1,200lbft respectivly. That would be a safe number. Above that all 48re differences should be used. The .240 shell and sun gear, planet's and drums. All the items to convert over can be purchased for 500 or so. Opie shafts are a great idea over 750hp in comparison to tcs, sonnax, or most others. Precision makes a very good shaft. They also cryogenically treat their shaft and hub.
 
NewLimitMotorsp said:
Patc has nice stuff but a 47re drum with the powerpack and good line pressure should be fine under 600hp and 1,200lbft respectivly. That would be a safe number. Above that all 48re differences should be used. The .240 shell and sun gear, planet's and drums. All the items to convert over can be purchased for 500 or so. Opie shafts are a great idea over 750hp in comparison to tcs, sonnax, or most others. Precision makes a very good shaft. They also cryogenically treat their shaft and hub.
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I don't believe I need a rigid band.

I haven't heard one good thing about cryo'd shafts in these diesels.
Where is your backing that the precision is better than the tcs armemet shafts?
 
NewLimitMotorsp said:
Precision makes a very good shaft. They also cryogenically treat their shaft and hub.
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Yea....

usezujer.jpg

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Maybe a 400hp truck. Abuse, yes, still don't think it should have broke.
 
I never said better then the aermet shafts. I was comparing 300m shafts. The aermet shaft is nice but i'd still prefer an opie fat shaft
 
I've heard of 300m shafts breaking under stock trucks with a smarty. Lets be real anythng can be broken. Do a search for broken billet shafts. Many, many have broken.
I've seen it. I've also seen testing where the treating of the
300m shaft is benneficial. As it is with most things in life (with exception of women) you get what you pay for. But before you drop near 1,100 on am aermet shaft just give intelligent engineering a look. 895 for a shaft rated at 2,200+lbft. Not looking to rub anyone wrong these are just my preferances. Discard at disbelief.
 
The tcs 300m shaft its rated for 2700lbft, depends on how hard you shock it under load
 
90dodge said:
I don't believe I need a rigid band.

I haven't heard one good thing about cryo'd shafts in these diesels.
Where is your backing that the precision is better than the tcs armemet shafts?
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A ridgid band isn't needed. You can get a nice brass impregnated carbon band from patc for 32 bucks. Well thats my cost i can't rember what list is. I've had good results with that band.

Also I knew i whike back i saw a post with guys treating shafts. I searched a bit and found it. Best 48RE Input Shaft - Dodge Cummins Diesel Forum

There are a bunch of guys here talking about snapping both stock and billet shafts.:bang
 
Just one last thing. A perfect example of manufacture defects are the lml duramax. I've had several guys here in my home town break crankshafts in stock every day drivers but kyle michael the builder of the climax pulling truck producing a couple thousand hp is running a
Stock lml crank and has made a bunch of pulls on it as of the ts performance truck pulls in kentucky this year.
 
What is the point you are trying to make? Those with opinions on this thread have gone through trial and error (and a lot of $) to come to the conclusions you see before you. I'm not bashing you or what you're saying, but if this 48re is your first time at the rodeo and your knowledge is based on what you see/read on sites like these, I'd think twice before posting. Claims need to be substantiated $.02
 
I've built quite a few transmissions. I didn't post them all to my fb page because i built those in the past. I'm in the process of starting a business doing so. I previousally worked for mercedes benz as a technician and am now starting my own business. I do understand what your saying and im not even speaking of trial and error when it comes to shafts. Im very open minded when it comes to new companies and products. Personally i've not used the opie fat shaft. Most customers are to cheap and hate to pay for the $550 for the input. Most all if my builds are in the 450-600 hp range trucks anyway
 
NewLimitMotorsp said:
I've built quite a few transmissions. I didn't post them all to my fb page because i built those in the past. I'm in the process of starting a business doing so. I previousally worked for mercedes benz as a technician and am now starting my own business. I do understand what your saying and im not even speaking of trial and error when it comes to shafts. Im very open minded when it comes to new companies and products. Personally i've not used the opie fat shaft. Most customers are to cheap and hate to pay for the $550 for the input. Most all if my builds are in the 450-600 hp range trucks anyway
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I've heard the opie phat shafts are nice, but nobody has been able to build a converter worth a sh!t in front of them. That may have changed, but until I know for a fact it does, i'd stick with the aermet (however its spelled). Simply because of the fast guys that have been putting them through testing and haven't had a bad thing to say yet.

With that being said, I will not be buying one on this next transmission build because it will be under a budget, and I do not plan on pushing my truck hard enough. If it does, I've finally got some real carnage to talk about and will be able to share my experiences. :Cheer:

P.S., the Tormenter thing is kind of an inside joke. Feel free to search for him in a few threads, the guy never shut up.
 
I hear ya, lol, well if you want the link to that rebuid kit let me know... You can get the kit without the band for 395 and then use w/e band you like best. For the money its deff the cheapest kit
 
You can definitely break any of them, not saying you can't. Just going from my experience with running/building them and working with some pretty well known local places that have a lot more experience then I do.

I have twisted a sonnax input while still running a stock output, not a lot of guys can say that! Lol. I have also gone 11.50s with the stock output so far
 
Big Blue24 said:
Moving on to the main transmission case, there are two clutch packs, one in front of the input shaft hub and one behind the input shaft hub. The one in front is commonly called the direct clutch and the one behind the shaft is commonly called the forward clutch. This terminology is a little confusing but the way I remember is the forward clutch is for forward movement and only disengages when in reverse.

Direct Clutch Pack:
- Has a smooth drum that is wrapped with the 2nd gear band.
- This clutch pack is engaged when the transmission shifts into 3rd gear.
- Stock 47re has (4) frictions in this clutch pack.
- Stock 48re has (5) frictions in this clutch pack.
- There are many different aftermarket drums, pistons, plates, etc for this clutch pack, it's probably the most modifiable pack in the transmission.
- This pack takes a lot of abuse especially on misadjusted transmissions because the 2nd gear band holds the drum stopped in 2nd gear and this clutch pack engages the drum and makes it spin in 3rd. Commonly there is a small bind-up on the 2-3 shift that really puts a lot of wear on this clutch pack, especially if the 2nd gear (aka intermediate) (aka front) servo is worn and leaky.
- Hydraulic pressure pushes a piston that engages this clutch pack.
- If the pump stator and or bushing in the drum is worn, hydraulics leaks cause a loss of pressure behind the piston making this clutch pack susceptible to premature failure.
- In short, if you do anything in your transmission, you should at a minimum upgrade this clutch pack.

The cheapest way to gain more clearance in this pack for additional frictions and steels is to install a different reaction plate. The stock reaction plate is about 0.280" thick. You can buy machined, stepped, altered plates for about $30, or you can buy a used pressure plate from the forward clutch pack for about $4.

In the picture below is the stock 0.280" reaction plate vs a used pressure plate from the forward clutch pack.
11-28Tranny029.jpg


Upgrading this pack is really simple, you can use stock .085" thick frictions and steels and fit 1 extra friction and steel for a total of (5).
Or you can buy stock .070" steels and .065" frictions and fit a total of (6) frictions and (6) steels. If you really want to go extreme, you can fit (7) of the super thin alto frictions and (7) kolene .068" steels but those parts alone will run around $110.

For my truck, I installed (4) 0.065" frictions, (2) 0.085" frictions, and (6) 0.070" steels. There is a clearance specification for this clutch pack so depending on the make of the frictions, sometime you have to get creative with the thickness of the frictions and steels to make the clearance meet specification. On my 47rh transmission in my other truck for example, I used (3) 0.64" frictions and (3) 0.096" frictions with (6) 0.070" steels.

Then top off the clutch pack with the stepped used plate that came from a forward clutch pack pressure plate.
11-28Tranny028.jpg


Then install the waved snap ring and verify proper clearance.
11-28Tranny030.jpg


In this picture you can see the groove in the drum where the snap ring rides. Proper clearance for the clutch pack usually happens when the top of the reaction plate (used stepped forward clutch pressure plate I purchased for $4) is just below the bottom of the waved snap ring groove. As you can see in the picture, there is enough clearance and I of course double checked this with a set of feeler gauges.
11-28Tranny031.jpg


For those wondering where to get different thickness steels and frictions, Wittrans.com has a great selection. Another bit of useful information is that the direct clutches and steels and forward clutches and steels are the same profile, just different thickness so they are 100% interchangeable. Typically the forward clutches are much thinner and therefore you can get more of them to fit in the direct drum.
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I did this upgrade in my clutch pack and there appears to be proper clearance. However, I am curious as to how to verify this properly with a feeler gauge? I can't get my feeler gauge under the snap ring with the forward pressure plate in there. I can measure max clearance between a clutch and steel, but with the waved snapring it seems that this wouldn't be an accurate method
 
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